Gakkô no kaidan

First off: WATCH. THE. DUB. I'm serious. The subbed versus dubbed versions is probably the biggest difference from the two I've ever seen from any piece of fiction ever made. It changes the characters personality, the plot, and even the whole genre, but we'll get to that.

Let's start off with the subbed version. Uuuuh. How do I put it? Boring, generic, cliché, barely bearable characters, uninspired plot... For me, it would be a low 5/10 tends to 4. It's made to be ooooooo scary, but it's barely spoopy. It also has some creatures literally ported from other movies and horror stories (I recall seeing something similar to the ring), and yeah. I think you get the idea. If it doesn't get a one, it's solely because it didn't "hurt" watching this, or it wasn't really obnoxious, dreadful, terrible. Just awfully unpleasant.

Now let's get to why my rating is so high from what I've said so far. The dubbed version. This is the most hilarious tv animated series I've ever seen. Hands down. For some reasons the Japanese studio behind the og anime didn't really care about it anymore so the english dubbing studio could basically do whatever they want. They went ballistic. Incredibly, crazily ballistic. We went from Horror/Action anime to a ridiculously funny one. The jokes' timing is perfect, the references are on point, the 4th wall breaking is constant and hilarious, and the characters went from hateable to hateable because of how funny they are (if that makes sense).

This dub is, to my knowledge, considered as the founder of the "abridged" concept, when basically voice actors actually says funny things over the images even tho the original voice acting is serious, so it could be considered as a parody. But we reach genius level with Ghost Stories, cuz this dub is very much not a parody, and moreso very much official. Sure, you reeeeally have to be someone that has a free mind and that isn't easily offended, because dark humor is the main type of humor in Ghost Stories, and the cursing is also very much present, so definitely not kid-friendly humor, but that's my favourite kind of humor so that's probably why it hit the spot for me.

Overall, I rate this a 8/10, because, as much as I want to rate it a 10/10, we can't really forget that the original anime also count in the notation, and that it's only fair that this fact alone drags the score down a bit, but yeah, really really funny, very entertaining, this dub is the best/funniest dub from an anime ever.

Yes, I am going to be talking about the English Dub. The dub is what this show is now known for. It is the go-to example of how a dub can change everything. The show switches genres completely with the English dub, it goes from being a "horror adventure" to being a "dark comedy". And likewise, it changes the show from being a forgettable anime to much watch TV.

Story wise, the series could be comparable to a darker "Gravity Falls". Siblings come to a new spooky town and are guided through their journey by a relative's old journal. The original Japanese one is...meh. There's a reason why the show wasn't picked up for a second season, there wasn't much going for it.

Fast forward to 2004, companies are looking to capitalize on the anime boom that DBZ and SailorMoon helped start. But, then you give it to ADV and give them no notes, and you have yourself comedy gold.

They add so much to the show. They made Momoko a born-again Christian, made the little brother mentally slow and gave every random extra some hilarious quirk. Every episode had some incantation they'd chant to seal a ghost away. The English Dub changed each of these chants to be some juvenile joke. To say the show does not take itself seriously is a massive understatement. The characters will mock the script, the animation, and their shows own inconsistencies.

Some sub purists may be offended by how the dub dares to change their precious continuity. First off, No. There are no fans of the original show. Second, come on...this is hilarious. To quote Momoko herself, "Is this a great show or what."

This anime is a typical Ghostbusters/Scooby Doo anime by itself. I don't see why it's so highly lauded when the storyline is not that compelling. It's the dub that truly makes it worth watching. I can't describe how hilarious the dub is, only that they chose well when they decided to shred the script and go with their own thing. It was an experiment that paid off immensely because I was laughing every episode. The episodes themselves seemed to go by so quickly, I was having such a good time.

Don't bother with the Japanese subs for the "real experience", just watch another ghost story anime instead. Watch this dub because you need this hilarity in your life.

So basically an American company got the rights to this for super cheap, and by the time the English actors went to record their dialog the producers expected the whole project to bbe a bust in the states. They told the actors to just ad lib and improvise whatever the hell they want to say. The result is one of the funniest things I have ever seen. There is no other anime that is like the dubbed version of this show. Again, the Japanese version is just a very basic ghost series. Kinda boring. The dubbed version is an entirely different thing. Do yourself a favor and watch this.

In my homeland, the dubbed version of this anime is pretty popular along the kids in the airing era (early 2000s). It's scary to some extent, humorous dialogue in each episode, and the suspense behind the ghosts' origins also captivating. I just found out that the English dub version are hilarious so I rewatched the subbed and Eng dub version. It turns out both were great! The sub version (and I think the dubbed version in my country) follows the same narrative, but the dub version is crazy and turns many cliche dialogues into a gem. What makes me like this anime so much, is about the ghost details. They are something that really comes from Japan old school urban legends, and the anime pretty much convey how it works. For the past few years I tried to looking for another classic horror anime, but many titles also including action and (too much) gore, making Yamishibai probably is the one that resembles this anime more. It's sad knowing this anime series aren't popular in Japan, because for me, what's best from anime sometimes isn't lots of blood gushes or 20 minutes of action scenes, it is the classic story that everyone know the premise, but stir it into an experience that so genuine, it's memorable.