Episode 7: Hide and Seek
Plot: A young boy named Takeshi is on his way to see his grandma for the first time. As they drive through the village, he spots an extremely old and broken down house with what seems like a little boy in the window. He asks his grandma about it, and she sternly warns him never to go near that place since that’s where the crone lives. Takeshi and his two friends decide to forego the warning and go to the house to play hide and seek. But what’s really hiding in that house?
Breakdown: Okay, we have officially jumped back into complete scariness. This might actually be the scariest Yami Shibai story of all the seasons so far.
The ‘only women and girls’ theory might not hold water here as the main character is a young boy, but he has two girl friends and the grandma is another main character soooo…maybe?
The start of the story is predictable enough, even calling back a little to The Crow Children in set up. Kid sees an old abandoned building with someone seemingly inside it, so he and his friends go to investigate and bad things happen. But dear god, the bad thing that happened. That thing freaked the hell out of me just with a shot of the top of its head.
While this is one of the best Yami Shibai entries, it’s also one that has a really sad ending because the victim is a child, and the circumstances surrounding this ending are even sadder.
Spoilers! After the bad thing happens, the parents and everyone but seemingly the grandma forget that Takeshi ever existed. Seriously, it was bad enough what happened to him, but now he’s but a flickering memory in Grandma’s head? Kid didn’t deserve to go out like that for mere curiosity.
Episode 8 – The Neighbors
Plot: A woman named Kana gets a great deal on a nice apartment. Her friends joke that this is probably one of those situations where there’s a creepy reason why the price on such a nice place was so low.
Yup.
Breakdown: This season has a real knack for taking a fairly predictable set up (durr, I wonder if the neighbors are freaky durr) and just flipping you on your head in the second half of the episode. I’m not lying when I say nearly all of these episodes so far have had me genuinely surprised (some jump or jaw drop worthy) on their twists. Halfway into the series and this is eons above what we’ve been getting in recent years. If they keep up this pace, I’d even be so bold as to say this is even better than the first season.
This wasn’t the creepiest or scariest episode, but it was still pretty great. We have the absolute most realistic art designs so far and they add to the atmosphere very well.
A couple of jump scares happen, but one is pretty well done and the other is predictable with a not even all that scary face accompanying it. I really didn’t expect the twist again, and it’s pretty clever.
Another thing I’m noticing about this series is that I don’t care as much about not knowing the backstories of these entities as I was in previous seasons, even the first. I guess my theory that creepiness and scares can make up for it holds weight.
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The Anime Madhouse 