Satsuki Miyansoshita and her little brother, Keichiro,
have just moved to their mothers hometown.
Turns out their deceased Mom used to be a pretty big spiritual deal in
this town: specializing in exorcising or putting Demons and Ghosts to spiritual
sleep. But construction around the town
has woken most of these supernatural threats and they have a bone to pick with
Satsuki and Keichiro. Together with a
pervert with a heart of gold, a supernatural fanboy and a born again Christian,
Satsuki will have to embrace her destiny as her mothers successor and put these
spooks back to sleep for good.
Dubbing Anime is a job not to be taken lightly. Before it used to be about appealing to the
kids market and censoring everything that resulted in a loss of identity for
the property in question. Nowadays,
dubbing is mostly treated with reverence and respect (mostly, not every dub is
a winner). Ghost Stories is an
interesting case. From what I’ve learned
there were only a few rules for ADV Films taking on the project: no character
or monster names were to be changed and it had to stay at least somewhat
faithful to the original shows overall feel.
Other than that, ADV was allowed to go nuts with the dialogue and the
end result truly is the stuff of legends.
Is it the masterpiece lost to time many have built it up to be? Or is it a disgrace that deserves an exorcism
of it’s own?
In case it wasn’t clear from the intro, I strictly looked
at the English Dub of Ghost Stories because it’s the one the is the most
infamous. This really is a rare project
to work on because everyone is given free reign to say whatever they want,
however they want, no matter how crude, crazy or just plain insensitive it
is. This is an Abridged Series before
Abridging was even a think, chalk full of early to mid 2000s references, fourth
wall breaks and the occasional slipping into speaking straight Spanish for a
single scene. If nothing else, ADV’s
heavy hitters like Luci Christian and Chris Patton are having a blast bickering
and bantering off of each other. It
probably helps that you could sum up the guidelines as “this is just one big
gag reel”. Plenty of episodes had me in
stitches with laughs and some of the wildly inappropriate jokes made this feel
like the Anime answer to “Blazing Saddles” (both in a positive and negative
way).
What surprised me the most is that even though dark humor
and constant references are the core meat of the Ghost Stories Dub, it still
manages to pull out some surprisingly nice moments for Satsuki and
Keichiro. One of the few running
throughlines is the kids dealing with the still relatively fresh death of their
Mother and taking on her legacy as the towns resident Exorcist. For all the complaints Satsuki makes about
her Moms apparent sexual history and bad handwriting, she does miss her and is
weirdly getting to know her better than ever through her Moms diary and
resurrected rogues gallery. Episode 12
in particular is a real tear jerker despite the jokes as it’s one of the most
powerful reminders of what these kids have lost and yet gained through the
series thus far. Again, some Abridged
Series like Dragon Ball Z Abridged have managed to maintain this balance of
laugh out loud humor while still hitting the core emotional beats of the series
they’re parodying, so good on Ghost Stories being a bit of a trailblazer in
this department.
Let’s face it: part of the reason why this show is so
easy to riff on is the bottom of the barrel animation budget. Ghost Stories’ character designs are either
pretty bland or constantly mutate in age (especially for Leo, poor kid) and
everything else just feels lackluster and barely up to the same level of early
2000s Digi Paint Anime like Gundam SEED or Full Metal Panic. That said, holy crap the Monster and Ghost
designs are surprisingly top notch. If
anything got the most attention to detail, it was these terrors who constantly
hassle Satsuki and company across 20 episodes.
Are some scarier than others? Sure.
But personally it’s hard to find one that didn’t freak me out at least
once per episode. It helps that while he
does feel like he’s retreading familiar Inuyasha territory, composer Kaoru Wada
is giving Ghost Stories a score far greater than it deserves, pumping up the
fear, dread and warmth for the quieter post horror scenes.
Like any other comedy or parody, not every joke is going
to be a winner and Ghost Stories is no exception. The show does loose some of the luster of the
initial introductory experience here and there.
It gains some ground again sure but with 20 episodes of improv can be
tough to maintain a good comedy momentum.
Some of the jokes are constantly reused to the point of making
characters not just one note but irritable too.
The biggest offender is Monica Rial’s Momoko, who in the Dub is
presented as a hardcore, born again Christian girl who is constantly chastising
her friends for their lack of faith in Jesus (and worse things in Leo’s
case). Every sentence out of her mouth
runs down this same route and there’s only but so many times you can make it
sound fresh and funny. This is also a
dub of it’s time with it’s references and less than PC level humor. Some of these jokes would not fly today and
it’s kind of a miracle they even flew back then too.
Some poorly aged jokes, references and comedic insults
aside, Ghost Stories is a mostly enjoyable piece of classic Anime dubbing that
makes you feel like you’re in the recording booth with the cast as they enjoy
several sessions of Anime After Dark Fan Parodies. The Ghosts are genuinely scary and the show
is high on horror when it needs to be.
But the real beauty is in the constantly improvised dialogue that can
always get a snicker or belly full of laughter out of you cause you have no
idea just what is going to come out of Satsuki or Hajime’s mouths at any given
time. This might actually be a rare
instance where it might not be a good idea to revisit the original Japanese Dub
because there’s no way it’s as crazy an experience as it is in English. Get some friends together. Get some candy and drinks. And enjoy the craziness of this horror comedy
classic that is a must see for all Anime fans.
8.5/10
Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween and see you all on
Monday for a Special Double Feature kick off to Godzilla Month V: Godzilla X
Gamera with Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II and Gamera: Guardian of
the Universe, right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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