Drama digest:
This series is a distinctive form of manga that portrays a man telling various horror stories to children through different media. This is the ninth season of the series.
The feel-good factor:
The animation style is a unique one from ancient traditional Japan. The show’s genre is horror in an interesting way. It builds creepy suspense in every episode. The person who voices the story narrator, old man, has a pleasant voice, perfect for the series. The colours of the series are uneven and crayon-styled.
The disappointing factor:
The horror stories used in all the episodes except the first season were quite random and somewhat uninteresting. They try to incorporate an interesting genre of psychological horror as well, but it did not seem to fit the theme of the show.
In-depth analysis:
This series is a collection of short stories ranging from 5-10 minutes each episode. This series portrays an old man, who tells various horror stories to children through a traditional Japanese method of storytelling called ‘kamishibai’. Kamishibai is a form of storytelling and street theatre which was popular in Japan during the 1930s. It’s literal meaning in English is ‘paper drama’. The meaning of it is that the narrator of the story uses paper scrolls having photos to convey the message or story he’s trying to tell. This method was introduced to educate the people who were illiterate. In the first season of the series, an old man with a yellow mask visits various local children’s parks and tells them horror stories using kamishibai, situated on the back seat of his bicycle. These stories are short horror stories based on the urban legends and mythical stories of the past. In this season, meaning the ninth season of the series, he tells stories based on the Chinese Zodiac signs. There are twelve episodes representing twelve different stories based on twelve zodiac signs, and the last one signifies the cat, which is the mascot in the Chinese New Year.
Star power:
The show does not focus on anything in particular and the theme keeps changing throughout all the seasons. Due to this reason, there is no star of the show.
Overall opinion:
The show has attempted to tell a lot of stories through various media. Even though it has made genuine efforts, it has tried to incorporate a lot of themes together which don’t fit with each other.
