GAKKOU NO KAIDAN

DESCRIPTION

CAST

OVA ComedyGakkou no Kaidan SP
SPECIAL HorrorGakkou no Kaidan: Kubinashi Rider!! Shi no Noroi

REVIEWS

• 

  TheRealKyuubey

  50/100
  I'll be honest, the dub is only funny about 1/3 of the time.

  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. She’s a very strong little girl who has taken over many of her mother’s 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 campus’s 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, they’re attacked by several spirits, including an angry rampaging demon named Omanujaku. But before he’s 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 Omanujaku’s spirit for good… Inside of their cat! Thus their new school life begins with a possessed talking cat, a menagerie of monsters who’ve 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?

  I’ve already spoken in detail about Studio Pierrot back in my Twelve Kingdoms review, so I won’t bore you with those details again… I did mention that they’ve done some impressive looking work, but sadly, Ghost Stories is not one of them. It’s not the most poorly animated show I’ve ever seen, but it’s 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. That’s 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 it’s biggest enemy by far is the pause button. The characters aren’t very well drawn, and there are far too many moments that a single freeze-frame will result in an image that’s far below what you might call professional standards. It’s not as noticeable when they’re 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 it’s still about average fair for this kind of series. It does it’s 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. It’s pretty good in general, but there’s nothing about it that’s really standout or memorable. Which is kind of the point, anyway. The opening is a lot more fun, and while I wouldn’t insist upon watching it all the way through every time, as it’s plagued by the show’s 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, it’s 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 who’s 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 weren’t 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, let’s face it, ADV in it’s 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 couldn’t change the character’s names too much and the ghost’s backstories(Most 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, who’s recently become notorious for his awful writing and complete lack of respect for a lot of the material he’s been given. In particular, the rampant backlash that emerged from his nigh-unlistenable Clannad dub has followed him like an angry spirit all the way to his sour grape flavored exit from the dub directing business. While he’s 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 can’t 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 ad-lib their lines and make it as funny and offensive as possible. How’d 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 they’re pretty much thrown out at random without any regard for whether or not it’s called for or makes any sense. It’s kind of like watching a version of Family Guy, except that instead of using the references to set up cut-away 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 Slater’s 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, they’re the same tired stereotypes you’ve heard before. Black people are violent rapists, Latinos are lazy, Asian people all look the same… It’s like they all took a class called “Intro to racism” before going to work. And yeah, it’s 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 wasn’t for the fact that an anti-Asian joke also appeared in Foster’s 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 wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it was funny… It’s not, it just sounds forced, on a note of ‘let’s see what we can get away with!’

  The final category is bit more difficult to define, but it’s 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 who’s obsessed with her physical appearance and constantly mocks her younger brother, who’s been transformed into a mentally challenged mush-mouth. Hajime has been transformed into a smart-ass ladies man, his best friend Leo has been turned into a penny-pinching 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 Satsuki’s mother… Has been transformed into a bible-thumping extremist christian. The dynamic that these characters have, and the jokes that flow between them, are what really makes this dub as hilarious as it’s 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 fan-freaking-tastic. You can say whatever you want about Steven Foster’s 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. He’s 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 you’re 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 they’re all together here. And it’s 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 it’s more than excusable.

  Even in a dub that’s universally well-acted, I still have to give special props to possible human Mimic Brittney Karbowski, who brings a quiet animal-loving girl from Satsuki’s class and turns her into a creepy weirdo with bizarre, terrifying mood swings. I’ve raved about her before, and it’s easy to see why she’s currently one of the most in-demand voice actresses. Oh, and before move on, one more note about the dub… It’s really weird about it’s use of foul language. In the first few volumes, there was barely any F-bombs or S-bombs, and they relied on silly phrases like “fizzity-uck” instead. Then they spent a few volumes bleep-swearing, before finally moving on to actual cursing in the final volume. I mean, the change-over 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, fizzity-uck is now one of my favorite words.

  Now, you may be wondering… Why did I spend so much time talking about the dub? Well, it’s because the dub is really the only interesting thing about this series. And I’m not exaggerating, either. There’s a good reason this show was such a huge disappointment for the company that put it out, and if it wasn’t for the English dub, it probably would have been forgotten by everyone within a year of it’s final episode. I’ve 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 I’ve 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 DON’T involve the old school house.

  Does that mean it was awful? No… At least, I don’t think so. It’s coherent, consistent, and it’s not the worst waste of time if you like the genre. But even then, it really doesn’t do anything that more successful titles haven’t done a lot better. you’d 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 isn’t. And it doesn’t even really make a good children’s 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 four-episode DVDs, but following it’s crash a few years ago, the title was picked up by Discotek media, who released it on a much cheaper thin-pack 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 youtube, but then again, there’s 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 all-around underachiever in it’s original context, the only really interesting thing about it is it’s English dub, which is the only reason that it still retains any hint of relevancy in today’s 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 lowest-common-denominator fanbase that’s been keeping Family Guy alive since it’s season 4 revival. Yes, I know it was almost entirely ad-libbed, and there’s a certain novelty to hearing our favorite voice actors cut loose and leave it all on the table, but the end result is hit-or-miss at best. I don’t usually take the English dub into account when deciding on a final score for a review, but in this case, I don’t think I really have a choice in the matter. I give Ghost Stories a 5/10.

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• 

  Pockeyramune919

  77/100
  The dub, while not phenomenal, provides enough laughs to leave me satisfied.

  

  It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that, for most in the anime community, “dubbing” is an insidious, charged word. That single word is powerful enough that, at it’s mere utterance, most anime fans’ faces will turn into an ugly sneer, their stomachs will lurch, and they’ll have to fight off the urge to violently vomit. Most fans strongly prefer subs to dubs and are quite inflexible in this preference. To them, dubs are of shoddy quality and even the best ones fail to capture the sense of the original work, due to changing the audio. If the reception of the dub of Ghost Stories is any indication, however, anime fans are more than willing to like, even adore a dub if it doesn’t at all care about being the equivalent of the original. Ghost Stories is a parody dub, through and through and this fact seems to have paid off for the creators. A somewhat lackluster show is now immortalized thanks to its dub. Almost everyone suggests to watch the dub rather than the sub. From what I can see, everyone absolutely loves it. My personal take is that everyone absolutely loves the concept and how marvel it is, more than the dub as a whole. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed my time with Ghost Stories, it’s just nowhere near a masterpiece. In total, jokes seem to miss more than they land and the show takes a while to hit its stride.

  The original Ghost Stories was a formulaic, monster-of-the-week anime about grade school children having to deal with all manner of ghosts that haunted their school and the surrounding town. The distributors were worried that the show would flop in America, so save for some ground rules such as not changing names of any character or ghosts, the dubbing team was instructed to “do whatever else you want to make the show successful.” To the dubbers, this translated to making an irreverent parody series, filled with all manner of jokes. While the premise remains the same, the characters change wildly. The one trait that they share is that they’re all quite rude to one another, thus helping foster the irreverent tone I talked about.

  

  I won’t be comparing the dub to the subs; most reviews I’ve seen seem to be preoccupied with the quality of the subs and it seems to me that this compromises them scrutinizing the dub. The bottom line is that, from what I’ve seen, you should really only have the dub in consideration when deciding whether or not you want to watch this show.

  Starting off with the positives, while the tone of the dub is irreverent and the dub itself is a giant gag, the voice actors really care about their work. In this instance, their task is making people laugh. Because of this, performances don’t feel phoned in: every voice sounds like the actors are actually trying. Keiichirou sounds absolutely awful but that’s because his voice actor is trying to make him sound that way; every bout of inane babbling on his end (and the laughs they garner) are intentional. Rob Mungle’s performance as Amanojaku is absolutely a riot as he chews the scenery just from his voice. Whether he’s making some snide remark, making a joke, or just getting angry, I’m liable to crack a smile just because of how much fun he was having in the booth. Another standout voice actor was Brittney Karbowski as Mio in episode twelve. Her performance was just so over-the-top that I couldn’t help but laugh. Mio’s rabbit-loving antics combined with Karbowski’s performance really stole the show. There are several voice-based gags in this show but another one that I get a kick out of is Miyuki’s (voiced by Shelley Calene-Black) random, hysterical screams in episode 17.

  And of course, the dub features amazing jokes. They make fun of everything and everyone under the sun. While they don’t always land (as I’ll get to shortly), when they do, they’re great. I particularly loved the episode in which Momoko reveals her backstory as a nymphomaniac drug addict; it’s so different from her current day self-righteousness that it’s absolutely hilarious. This show really endorses laughing at things that often one shouldn’t laugh at.

  

  I most often found myself laughing at situational comedies rather than throway jokes. An example is the aforementioned bit with Momoko and also a section in which Satuski and Keiichiro’s father has his genitals mutilated after playing with a doll ghost. I also in general enjoyed the sex-related jokes and anything involving Momoko, as she was my favorite character of the principal cast (unless you count Amanojaku). It’s not really something addressed in the show, but it’s kind of hilarious that, even in the dub, the characters are still stated to be in upper elementary school when they each should realistically at least be about three years older.

  

  Ghost Stories also employs meta jokes very well, as they actually hold a purpose in showing how ridiculous the show can be. One particular one I love is a variation of a monster running towards the characters. Their actions bound to the animation, they can only remark, “well, how about we stand here and stare at it some more.” Amanojaku’s hilarious heel-face-turn is rendered as, “Why am I doing this, it doesn’t fit my character arc. Oh well, I’m getting paid, it’s a living.”

  

  The music is surprisingly good for this show, if not a bit mismatched for the dub since it can get legitimately eerie at times. At first, I thought the music was generic or public domain because I swore I heard it before. As it turns out, I basically did, for the composer also worked on Inuyasha as a show that also dealt with monsters, I guess he couldn’t help but end up making an OST that sounds similar. The music isn’t bad, it can just be a bit distracting if you’ve watched Inuyasha.

  

  The animation isn’t too great. The characters will be off-model very often. If you notice it, it can be very distracting, but I honestly was too busy focusing on the comedy to really care.

  And now we move onto things that don’t work.

  The dub can be quite crude and there are certain jokes that I just don’t find funny. Call my PC or whatever, but I find “jokes” about Keiichiroi being “r-t-rded” or a “f-g” pretty tasteless. I roll my eyes when Keiichirou and Satsuki’s mom being lesbian is framed as a joke in and of itself, like homosexuality is just intrisically funny. The same goes with Jewish jokes And I didn’t really find most of the black jokes funny either (yelling “Just pretend you’re being chased by a big black man,” to prompt a character to run faster), but that might just be because it’s harder to laugh when you feel like you’re the butt of a joke. One thing to keep in mind is that the dub holds no punches, just as its likely you’ll find something funny, there’s the likelihood you’ll find something unfunny. Hopefully it doesn’t get to the point where you’re offended, but if you’re anything like me, there will be and it will take some enjoyment out of the show for you.

  

  One type of humor that didn’t do it for me were pop culture references. Unfortunately, there are many, many references in Ghost Stories and I got very few of them, leaving me annoyed and baffled. The primary problem with references is that they are very situational: either you get them or you don't. If you get them, great, you’ll have a laugh, but if not, you’ll be left scratching your head, wondering what’s the significance of what was just said. As reviled as they are, at least with Family Guy 's cutaway gags, even if you don’t get the initial reference, the show shows you why it’s funny. To some, it may seem lazy and an insult to viewers’ intelligence, but for crude comedies, I don’t think the point is to stoke viewers’ intelligence in the first place, it’s to make them laugh, and references often don’t do that because one has to get the reference. Plus, references are inherently lazy if nothing is done with those references. At the very least, Ghost Stories usually packages those references with jokes but they fall flat if you don’t know the reference. As a geek, I have a very specific range of interests and I wouldn’t get references that fall outside of that range. I got a Jessica Alba reference, but that’s only because she was in Fantastic Four. I got the Charlie Sheen and Oprah references, but that’s only because they managed to stay in the limelight. I can only imagine even less references will be funny for future viewers. Alanis Morissette, Steven Foster, Linda Blair, Al Sharpton are all names that I don’t know, yet they’re referenced, meaning those jokes flew clear over my head. Unfortunately, references are the most common type of joke in Ghost Stories, meaning I just plain didn’t get a vast majority of the humor. The references are fired in a machine gun manner: fire as many at the audience as you can in hopes some of them land. Making matters worse is that the cast really likes to run some references to the ground. Made all the more annoying because I still don’t get the blimin’ reference. I swear I’ll lose my mind if I have to hear that X is/will be deader than Y’s career (usually Christian Slater, whoever the hell that is). Oh, and comparing the events of the episode to The Ring which I’ve never watched.

  

  I can excuse the overreliance on references due to the fact that the entire dub was apparently ad libbed. Honestly, that makes me impressed, though still doesn’t make them any funnier, it just makes me less annoyed at the cast.

  Another problem is that the anime really doesn’t get hilarious until the ninth episode, “The Corpse that Roams in the Night – Shirotabi." There are certainly funny moments prior, but this is the first episode that I’d say is funny in its entirety. There are a few more afterward. While Ghost Stories is certainly funny, it's rarely gut-busting in its comedy. Some of its mean-spirited jokes and overreliance on references hurt it, but even without these, it’s oftentimes not that funny. It might be a bit dull for some viewers early on, so I might suggest watching select episodes (9-13). Still, as I said, there are laughs to be had in every episode, even if they’re not guffaws. The concept itself is quite marvel, so I’d recommend checking Ghost Stories, I’d just caution not to expect the magnum opus of comedy.

  7.7/10

  C+

  
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• 

  CirnoHakurei

  80/100
  So I went with the original script (sub) and actually enjoyed it!

  Let me start with this: I never got into this series, because everyone talked about how great the en dub was, and then proceeded to share a clip that showed a joke that I found amusing sure, but was more like watching deleted scenes. And then also said that the sub was trash. So, I never watched it. But then recently, I just had the idea to go for it. And I am glad I did. Obviously, with the summary, it should be obvious, but I didn't go with the EN Dub. I went with the original script. I was expecting terrible voice acting, and a boring story, based on what was always parroted around the net.

  Instead I got a fun, sometimes absolutely terrifying, story about ghosts. And got some unexpected character depth too. I agree there are plotholes, but it's a kids' show. Plus, it's only really in inconsequential stuff. The characters themselves are pretty consistent, and act very believable like the elementary schoolers they are. The adutls are probably where things get a little off. But they're not nearly as important, so it doesn't detract from the enjoyment much. The main character, Satsuki, has a good amount of growth throughout, and so do some of the other main cast. But the main focus tends to be on Satsuki, so that's who you get the most out of.

  The ghosts are handled really well, and, like I stated before, some are actually really terrifying. Some are also pretty adorable (and terrifying at the same time some of the times!), and there's one ghost in particular that experiences quite the arc. It's a great show to learn more about ghosts in Japanese culture, that you could probably let kids watch. Really depends on how well they handle scary stuff. Though, ti's not all scares with the ghosts, some have just extremely sad stories to tell, and really got me to tear up on multiple occasions.

  As for the story in general, I'd say that somewhere around the halfway mark, the story telling really improved, and got a lot more enjoyable. Though there was that one musical episode early on that was definitely one of the strongest episodes. I found myself crying during multiple episodes, and things left a pretty good impression.

  To actually go on the voice work, they sound like kids should sound. It's not terrible, or boring, or whatever was always said about it. The sound quality could have had some more work, but this is a really old show, so it's expected. I can't compare it to the dub, as I've only seen clips of it, and didn't actually watch it through with the dub. This is my evaluation based solely on the original voicework itself.

  So, overall, I'd say it was a solid show. I enjoyed all the ghost lore, and watching the characters handle all the crazy things tossed at them. It was also really nice seeing Satsuki go from a pretty bumbling girl, to someone thinking up clever ideas. And if I"m being honest, there's only one thing that held this show back for me (but it shouldn't be a problem for most, probably?) [very minor spoilers] no yuri. And lots of hetero stuff.If Hajime were a girl, then I think the show would have been about 10x more enjoyable for me. But alas, that is now how it was to be. At least there's Re Kan! out there.
  I can give it a solid 8/10. Really unfortunate I didn't watch it back then. I'm sure I would have enjoyed it more.

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