Satsuki Miyanoshita has just moved with her father and little brother to a new town in order to deal with the death of her beloved mother. Shes a very strong little girl who has taken over many of her mothers chores and provides endless emotional support for her much more frail little brother Keiichiro. On her first day at her new school she catches Keiichiro trying to sneak their cat into class with him. Little Kaya bolts from them leading them all the way to the campuss abandoned old school house where they two of her classmates and an older girl looking for her hat get locked in together. In their struggle to escape the haunted halls of this eerie Elementary School theyre attacked by several spirits including an angry rampaging demon named Omanujaku. But before hes able to lay a satanic smackdown on them Satsuki finds an old notebook that was written by her deceased mother and it tells her how to bind Omanujakus spirit for good Inside of their cat Thus their new school life begins with a possessed talking cat a menagerie of monsters whove just had their resting place disturbed and a notebook that mysteriously ties their late mother to the recently released spirits that are now haunting the town. Can Satsuki Keiichiro and their new friends finish what her mother started Or will they be joining her sooner than they think? Ive already spoken in detail about Studio Pierrot back in my Twelve Kingdoms review so I wont bore you with those details again I did mention that theyve done some impressive looking work but sadly Ghost Stories is not one of them. Its not the most poorly animated show Ive ever seen but its by far one of the cheapest. This is more evident in the characters than it is in the often impressive backgrounds but the date it came out is showcased in painfully blatant ways. The dawn of the new millennium was an awkward time for a lot of animation studios and Pierrot is no exception. Movement in this series is minimal and what movement it does feature is often stiff and jumpy. Thats not to say it never impresses because there are several moments that clearly had more money poured into them than others and a lot of those moments involve the ghosts and demons that keep coming back for each episode. But its biggest enemy by far is the pause button. The characters arent very well drawn and there are far too many moments that a single freezeframe will result in an image thats far below what you might call professional standards. Its not as noticeable when theyre moving but the derpy faces weird outlines constant still frames and awkward jerky movements make Ghost Stories look less like an actual anime and more like a cheap bootleg of said anime. The music is better to be sure but its still about average fair for this kind of series. It does its job well hitting whatever notes it needs to between standard slice of life whimsy creepy strings underlying tension and suspense and big dramatic stings for the bigger payoffs. Its pretty good in general but theres nothing about it thats really standout or memorable. Which is kind of the point anyway. The opening is a lot more fun and while I wouldnt insist upon watching it all the way through every time as its plagued by the shows animation woes Grow Up is still a pretty damn catchy song by Hysteric Blue and the video at least manages to keep pace with it. The ending theme on the other hand Well its not bad and it fits the show tonally I still find it really odd that a song called Sexy Sexy would be attached to a show whos cast is dominated by elementary school children. So when this show was airing in Japan it was released to an underwhelming mediocre reception. In short it was a huge flop to the point that they werent even able to go 26 episodes They had to cut off early officially ending the series with episode 20. They lost so much money on it than when ADV Films showed an interest in dubbing it for the states Because lets face it ADV in its prime would dub pretty much anything Aniplex gave them a simple mandate Do whatever the hell you want with it. They gave ADV complete creative control with the only limits being that they couldnt change the characters names too much and the ghosts backstoriesMost of which were tied directly to Japanese mythology had to remain intact. They had already given up on making a profit off of this series and wanted nothing more than to minimize the damage it had caused to them and they had hopes that a popular American release could help to recoup their losses. ADV handed this project to Steven Foster whos recently become notorious for his awful writing and complete lack of respect for a lot of the material hes been given. In particular the rampant backlash that emerged from his nighunlistenable Clannad dub has followed him like an angry spirit all the way to his sour grape flavored exit from the dub directing business. While hes always had a penchant for writing characters unfaithfully and making them as hateful and offensive as possible with no understanding whatsoever about how real humans talk to each other and that certainly sounds like a description of the Ghost stories dub You really cant blame him for this one. He may have laid down a few guidelines but for the most part he told the actors in his cast to adlib their lines and make it as funny and offensive as possible. Howd they do? Well as this is intended to be a comedic dub I guess I should judge it from that perspective. There are generally three categories that the humor in this show falls into. The first category is called Pop Culture References. There are tons of them in this dub and the names they drop range from high profile Hollywood celebrities to political figures to Well even the voice actors themselves in some cases. Unfortunately very few of these references are actually funny and theyre pretty much thrown out at random without any regard for whether or not its called for or makes any sense. Its kind of like watching a version of Family Guy except that instead of using the references to set up cutaway gags the references just sort of linger there leaving the viewer to wonder what the point of them was. They can also be incredibly dated as they throw out several references to Christian Slaters career being dead and they even make a joke about Supermarket Sweep at one point Which was a dated reference even then The second category is the offensive humor and no nothing is sacred here. Every race is insulted in some way throughout the twenty episode run and every religion takes just as hard a shot. Racial stereotypes are the norm here and to make matters worse theyre the same tired stereotypes youve heard before. Black people are violent rapists Latinos are lazy Asian people all look the same Its like they all took a class called Intro to racism before going to work. And yeah its oddly nonsensical for this cast of Asian characters to insult the Asian race but you could say it was done for the sake of irony If it wasnt for the fact that an antiAsian joke also appeared in Fosters High School of the Dead dub and also for the fact that white people are troublingly untouched in this series celebrity references aside. Homosexuality is also viciously mocked and while the racism and homophobia wouldnt be as much of a problem if it was funny Its not it just sounds forced on a note of lets see what we can get away with The final category is bit more difficult to define but its basically all of the plot and character relevant material and thank God this part of the show is much more funny than the other two categories. Most of the characters were rewritten for this dub and the interactions between them and their retooled personalities are where the most effective humor is truly derived. The strong and supportive Satuski has been turned into a spunky manipulative girl whos obsessed with her physical appearance and constantly mocks her younger brother whos been transformed into a mentally challenged mushmouth. Hajime has been transformed into a smartass ladies man his best friend Leo has been turned into a pennypinching Jewish boy with an inferiority complex and Momoko The psychic of the group who was only there to look pretty and occasionally channel the soul of Satsukis mother Has been transformed into a biblethumping extremist christian. The dynamic that these characters have and the jokes that flow between them are what really makes this dub as hilarious as its been hyped up to be. So if the humor in this show is only funny about a third of the time then why am I recommending it over the sub? Because the acting is fanfreakingtastic. You can say whatever you want about Steven Fosters writing abilities And you totally should because he deserves every word of criticism he gets But when it comes to casting the man was a genius. Hes always had a talented pool of actors working under him and even in his most poorly written projects you could always count on the dub being at the very least well acted. The voice actors attached to this show were clearly refreshed and inspired by the rare opportunity to go nuts and make up their own dialogue because the energy and enthusiasm that went into their performances is astounding. The main cast is great but of course they are When you have a cast consisting of Hilary Haag Monica Rial Greg Ayres Chris Patton and Christine Auten OF COURSE youre going to have a great sounding dub. Throw in professional comedian Rob Mungle and it becomes painfully obvious how Aniplex was able to make their money back. All six of these people on their own are used to being the stars of their dubs and theyre all together here. And its not just them every single supporting actor that shows up no matter how much screen time they get is just as good With the exception of Blake Shepherd of course but his role is so blissfully ironic that its more than excusable. Even in a dub thats universally wellacted I still have to give special props to possible human Mimic Brittney Karbowski who brings a quiet animalloving girl from Satsukis class and turns her into a creepy weirdo with bizarre terrifying mood swings. Ive raved about her before and its easy to see why shes currently one of the most indemand voice actresses. Oh and before move on one more note about the dub Its really weird about its use of foul language. In the first few volumes there was barely any Fbombs or Sbombs and they relied on silly phrases like fizzityuck instead. Then they spent a few volumes bleepswearing before finally moving on to actual cursing in the final volume. I mean the changeover literally took place in the space of a single episode which contained a censored shit and an uncensored fuck. Which is really weird. Either way fizzityuck is now one of my favorite words. Now you may be wondering Why did I spend so much time talking about the dub? Well its because the dub is really the only interesting thing about this series. And Im not exaggerating either. Theres a good reason this show was such a huge disappointment for the company that put it out and if it wasnt for the English dub it probably would have been forgotten by everyone within a year of its final episode. Ive seen plenty of monster/ghost of the week type anime and with the dub turned off this is by far the most generic uninspired one Ive come across yet. The characters have little to no personality and absolutely no development aside from the abrupt development that Omanujaku goes through towards the end. Every episode follows the same pacing and structure even in the case of the episodes that DONT involve the old school house. Does that mean it was awful? No At least I dont think so. Its coherent consistent and its not the worst waste of time if you like the genre. But even then it really doesnt do anything that more successful titles havent done a lot better. youd have to be really patient with it in order to not consider it boring which would be fine if it was deep or profound enough to deserve that patience. Sadly it isnt. And it doesnt even really make a good childrens show what with the occasional blood and frequent panty shots that it features At least not for American children. Ghost Stories was originally available from ADV Films who were releasing it on individual fourepisode DVDs but following its crash a few years ago the title was picked up by Discotek media who released it on a much cheaper thinpack format. You can find it on their website for 34.95 or on amazon.com for just 29.99. You can also watch the entire series for free on but then again theres no telling when a sudden copyright claim will result in it being taken down. The original novels by Toru Tsunemitsu are not available stateside. Ghost Stories has a really strange production history which is mostly due to some very unique circumstances that have never happened before and will probably never happen again. An allaround underachiever in its original context the only really interesting thing about it is its English dub which is the only reason that it still retains any hint of relevancy in todays market. Unfortunately that dub is remarkably immature sporting the lowest of the lowbrow and while it may be worth a few good chuckles now and then it can only truly win the hearts of that lowestcommondenominator fanbase thats been keeping Family Guy alive since its season 4 revival. Yes I know it was almost entirely adlibbed and theres a certain novelty to hearing our favorite voice actors cut loose and leave it all on the table but the end result is hitormiss at best. I dont usually take the English dub into account when deciding on a final score for a review but in this case I dont think I really have a choice in the matter. I give Ghost Stories a 5/10.