Introduction
In today's world full of wondrous technological innovation, the unnatural and mysterious sometimes appear even more horrifying than usual. But despite how far society has advanced, the fear of the unknown always remains. The unfortunate participants in Kowabon find themselves in such a predicament, experiencing the supernatural through their everyday technology. From a frightening sight caught on a parking garage camera to a video chat that takes an unexpected turn, the victims struggle to escape that which haunts them. However, what awaits these doomed souls may be a fate even worse than death...
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Audience reviews
8 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
SgtSalamander
Kowabon is a bizarre little project with rotoscoped animation and a unique style, based around hauntings that are captured through the lens of a camera, something like a laptop webcam or security camera. It's a compelling story, given how ubiquitous screens and cameras are in our day-to-day lives, which is something that has only gotten more true since this anime's release in 2015. I'll say the story is the strongest aspect because, despite its fleeting and episodic nature, it manages to build tension really well.
The art is a unique and interesting dimension of this show, because while the rotoscoping style doesn't look fantastic on people, it does a great job with the ghost. My favorite parts are all the fun live action sections at the end, where they give you a behind-the-scenes look…
Read at the sourceSidewinder51
Rate a 4
English Subtitled
Short and quick. Thank goodness it was. I don't think i would have watched it otherwise. I am all for giving things a shot but for this one i wish i hadn't. This anime presented hope with its new animation style called Rotoscoping. Simply put it is a layman's way of animation and problem is it shows clearly. Reminds me of the old saying that hard work pays off and shortcuts may get the job done but time and effort is wasted. Then again i am no longer a student. Times have changed and maybe i am growing up like my parents and can't fully appreciate new things. I don't think that to be true in this case but i could be wrong. Let me provide an example of the show and i will let you be the judge.
Say you are in a dark alley way. A short distance in front of you ge…
Read at the sources4lud
This anime was overall "fine". I don't regret watching it though.
Here's why:
-I liked the art style
-the behind the scenes clips at the end of the episodes were interesting
-The episodes are only around 3 minutes long
However, this anime wasn't "good" or original in any way. Here's why:
-too short for any real story line or character development
-the "villain" wasn't scary or original
-overall, it wasn't very frightening.
In conclusion, I wouldn't highly recommend this anime, but it was interesting and kinda fun to watch. I'd give it a 4/10 because I did enjoy watching it for the most part, and the art style is so satisfying and different. It takes 3 minutes an episode, so why not try it?
Hope this helped.
Read at the sourcektulu007
Kowabon is a short horror ILCA anime from the end of 2015. They aren't a studio I'm really familiar with. They're best known for Yami Shibai, another anime made up of horror shorts that they've kept going for five series at this point. Maybe next year I'll look at that one but, for now, let's allow this to serve as our introduction to their work.
Story:
There isn't any single over-arcing plot. Rather, each episode gives us some scenario involving some character using technology to communicate with someone else, record themselves or being monitored by a security camera. Whatever the case, we see them through the perspective of the technology and they aren't allowed to be touching themselves or disrobing for tips from thirteen year olds who stole their parents credit cards because that wou…
Read at the sourceMiyuki-Mukaido
I have to say, this anime sucked. Like, a lot xD
It was really disappointing; there was pretty much no plot. I didn't understand anything. They didn't even wrap up the anime at all; the last episode was just another 3 minute-long episode.
A lot of people were saying how it's not scary at all, but at some parts it really did scare me xD but there was no gore, no nothing. Just a few creepy/scary scenes.
What pissed me off the most is that they never answered any of my questions. They don't say WHY there are these ghost things attacking people through technology. WHY they only appear in cameras and stuff. They don't.
The only thing seriously good about this is the rotoscoping animation and the sound.
Although the ED kind of ruined the horror mood, I liked seeing how the actors and act…
Read at the sourceNiveen_Sleem
If you are looking for a short anime you can marathon in one night, you should take Kowabon into consideration. You can't only watch it in one night, you can watch all of it in one-episode-worth of time. Each episode is short, about 3 minutes.
The people who were watching Kowabon while it was still running might have done the show wrong. I admit I did it wrong but not very much. It can be easily misunderstood because the story doesn't show clearly unless you watch all the episodes back to back.
It's a horror story and I was going to say something but I'm afraid it's kinda a spoiler. All I can say: heads up for cameras. It took me the whole series to realize what was going on. If you want to scare yourself a little, Kowabon can do that.
One last piece of advice, do not watch the ending…
Read at the sourceTettsui
When I first read a summary about this anime, I was pretty intrigued, never having seen or even heard of rotoscoping before. The fact that this technique was going to be used for a short horror anime sounded even better!
I have to admit that I was pretty disappointed with the outcome though. I appreciated the experimental technique, but felt that the anime as a whole was lacking in direction and plot. At the very least, I thought they should've done a different story for each episode, but instead, it was essentially the same idea with different people. It became boring very quickly.
I don't think this anime deserves a score lower than 3/10, simply because the technique was interesting and would probably appeal to fans of Japanese horror. I thought some of the other effects were a nice to…
Read at the sourceSuperZeldaGirl
When I first saw this show was horror I was looking forward to watching it but I was also worried as it is a hard genre to do well and even more so in anime.
I ended up watching all the episodes in one go and I am writing this right after finishing the final episode. Let me just say I am a huge fan of horror if its in books, movies or anime and it is pretty hard to scare me as I have watched horror for so long now. That said this show did manage to creep me out. I think it helps as every episode is only 3 minutes long so it does not keep you waiting ages for the reveal and it keeps you attention. Also using the internet, and electronics gives it more of a creepy feeling as they are things we all use all the time and in the show there is no real reason told to us why it is happening, it m…
Read at the source