I've talked about Yami Shibai many times. It's a franchise built around short form horror from ILCA. Thus far, it's been pretty solid. Let's look at the fourth series in the franchise and see if it continues that trend.
Story:
We follow the same pattern as the first three series. The narrator welcomes us to the theatre of darkness and we get a bunch of short, stand alone horror stories. That being said, this is not on the level of prior series. The stories in this one are almost a joke. There are maybe two episodes out of the thirteen in the series that are kind of creepy. The others just come across as dumb and kind of silly. This is rated for young teenagers but it feels like it was written with small children as the demographic because most of these scares are not going to work on teenagers.
The two episodes in this worth watching are Calling Crane and Snow Hut. Those two actually have some creepy things happening.
Characters:
Like the rest of the franchise, the characters are designed to be very straightforward. That being said, this one has some problems. For one thing, this series has the absolute worst of the narrator. The third series had him at his best thus far, in this one he's at the worst we've seen. Not only does he explain everything you're seeing instead of just letting you experience it, but the actor they have voicing him sounds almost bored.
Art:
While I can appreciate the little paper theatre aesthetic they have going for it, the problem with this instalment of the franchise is simply that they don't have scary imagery. Even the two solid episodes aren't amazing in that regard.
Sound:
This is yet another aspect that's worse in this series than it's ever been in the franchise before. I've already mentioned that the new narrator just sounds bored but that's not the only issue. Performances continue to be relatively flat and with absolutely nothing to work with, it's even more noticeable. The ending theme is also completely inappropriate for the franchise. The song is really upbeat and, if you look up the lyrics, optimistic. Let me remind you, this franchise tends to end their episodes with the main characters being completely buggered.
Ho-yay:
There's none.
Areas of Improvement:
- This really needs to make use of body horror the way the third series did.
- The narrator does not need to tell us everything we're seeing. I'm sure it's useful for people with visual impairments who speak Japanese but for the rest of us it just ruins any impact.
- They really should be directing the narrator to speak in a less bored tone. At least try to sound somewhat menacing/ unsettling.
Final Thoughts:
The last time I looked at this franchise it was the best I've seen from it. This time, its the worst. The episodes offer very little in terms of horror. The narrator is horrendously bad. The ending song might be fine in a different franchise but it's awful for this one. My final rating for Yami Shibai the 4th is going to be a 3/10.
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