Animating Halloween: Yami Shibai 4 Episodes 3 and 4

Episode 3: Sewing Shears

Plot: A woman moves into a cheap new apartment and finds a talisman with sewing shears stabbed through them underneath the floor boards. She discards them, but everything has a purpose.

Breakdown: This one was completely cliché from start to finish. Find a creepy artifact in an old house and throw it away. Gee I wonder if that won’t piss off some spirit and get her killed.

They even throw in the fakeout dream for good measure. It’s here where the live action shots really start seeming silly. The shot of the talisman and shears were enough, but when she picks them up, it’s on the side of comically juxtaposed besides the regular art and animation, which does seem much less animated than it usually is. Considering this is basically an animated paper puppet show, supposedly animated using Powerpoint, that’s pretty damn bad.

I will say the spirit is a little creepy, but nothing too fantastical in design. Like many times over the course of this whole franchise, I’m really left wondering what the backstory is behind this whole thing.

Episode 4: Red High Heel

Plot: A businessman has gotten out of work late and nearly ends up having to walk home when he’s able to hail a taxi. He finds a bright red high heel in the back and asks the driver if one of his last customers dropped it. The driver quickly tells him to throw it out the window. The man is confused at the driver’s request until he hears footsteps outside of the door.

Breakdown: This one was a little clever but disappointing. The twist surprised me a bit, but the ending was out of nowhere and the narrator’s laugh at the end was out of place and seemed awkward. What about that was funny? Or so scary you’d laugh at the audience for being scared? You literally tossed a dead body at our faces then laughed.

I think it would’ve been more clever if the driver was the bad guy. Say the woman was his last victim come back to haunt him because he’s really a serial killer. Or have her try to warn the businessman about the driver, then have the big end-of-story twist be the driver killing him or turning out to be a demon or something. What we got was a ‘twist’ that was really just a sad random circumstance that I guess the narrator thinks is funny. *shrug*

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2001 Nights (Manga) Review

Plot: Humanity is reaching out farther and farther into space to colonize, learn, explore and discover. With so much to explore, it’s hard to think that it ever ends. Will humanity find everything that it ever wished for beyond the stars, or were humans not meant to traverse outside of earth at all? This is a collection of somewhat connected short sci-fi stories filled with adventure, friendship, mystery, tragedy, love, family and amazement.

Breakdown:….Best manga I’ve ever read.

Not kidding. I cannot sing the praises of this manga enough. I love sci-fi, I love anthologies, especially when there are links between the stories, the art is PHENOMENAL, the stories are intriguing and beautifully written, the characters are realistic and likable, and I recommend this manga to anyone who finds the premise even the slightest bit interesting.

It’s hard for me to think of anything I didn’t like. The ending concluded a certain early storyline, and while abrupt and a little confusing, still seemed like a great and fitting end to the series. Like most anthologies, some stories are stronger than others, and some of the stories, called ‘Nights’ are just a little weird or confusing. Time traveling birds is all I have to say in that regard.

The style sometimes seems inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is great, and takes some notes from other more well known stories of sci-fi. If this has been a big project made in homage to the sci-fi space genre as a whole, then it succeeded in being a truly honorable tribute.

Bottom LIne: I know this is short, but this is really a masterpiece in manga. It’s beautiful in all respects, and I suggest everyone give it a read.

Additional Information and Notes: 2001 Nights was written and illustrated by Yokinobu Hoshino. This manga had a spin-off book called 2001+5 that I’m excited to watch, as well as an anime movie of the same name and a two episode OVA called TO both of which I’m looking forward to.

Volumes: 3

Year: 1984-1986

As a bonus, here’s some of the awesome artwork shown in this series!

Recommended Audience: It’s all tastefully done, but the series does contain some nudity, slight bits of sexual situations, minor swearing, a little bit of blood and death as well as disturbing imagery. The subject matter might also be over the heads of children much of the time. 14+

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