Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
BadGuyBoog
America, while predominant globally, is still a very young country. We don’t have a rich history or a deeply embedded culture. We don’t have folklore, other than bigfoot. Any stories we hear originate from other cultures and countries, or are otherwise books like Frankenstein. And so I find the cultures of other countries very interesting, and mostly because of Ghibli, Japanese culture has especially captured my attention. My favorite movie of all time, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya, is an adaptation of an ancient Japanese folktale. And so while the first 2 stories of this anthology show adapting Japanese horror tales could be considered just mediocre, I found them to be very enticing. This show may very well deserve to be lower but just because of the folktale vibes it gave off, I highl…
Read at the sourcePanda_Roll
Aired in 2006 this show is made up of three separate tales each with it's own unique art style.
Story one "Yotsuya Kaidan" 10/10
One of the most famous ghost stories in japan. Written in 1825 as a Kabuki play by Tsuruya Nanboku IV it tells the story of Oiwa and Tamiya. The dutiful wife who was betrayed and her piece of cow dung samurai husband. The way this is presented is a little unusual as we get the author himself narrating the tale and laminating both the events in the play and out of it.
Yotsuya Kaidan has gone on to gain a reputation not unlike that of Macbeth in the west. It the cursed play, don't speak it's name and make sure to visit Oiwa's shrine before you have anything to do with it.
Overall this one is the stand out. The drama between the characters, the twists and turns,…
Read at the sourceGsarthotegga
This is an anthology of three stories. The first two, Yotsuya Kaidan and Tenshi Monogatari, each consisting of 4 episodes, are both adaptations, though I can't vouch for whether or not they are faithful. The final segment, Bakeneko, at only three episodes, appears to be an original story, though just as with the other two, it's influenced by Japanese folklore and pre-20th century Japanese art periods.
Although there might be some important distinctions between the terms, Ayakashi is similar to the word Yokai, which is a type of demon or spirit. Like most anime listed as horror, these are probably not stories a person into western, or even eastern, horror would seek out. Yes, they have demons, ghosts, violence and gore, and are rather grotesque, but they're really more discernible as super…
Read at the sourceholmeskudo
Story 1: Wonderful narration! I hope I don't get cursed and nor do the producers(just kidding!) I really like the way it shows ancient Japanese folklore and culture, it's superbly portrayed and scripted with additional trivia.
Story 2: Inevitable plot from the beginning. Slightly boring, could have been condensed into fewer episodes. Didn't really like the story, hence I'm giving it a lower overall rating .
Story 3: Amazing! the theme is about how humans can be more cruel than demons and things like morality are shown in a very creative yet smooth way.
Overall: It's a nice series of stories, really like the art and sound, it's pleasing and has a grace to it all which is difficult to put into words. A good traditional horror in short!
Read at the sourceBalabuba
Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror is split into three parts, all of them are their own stories that can be enjoyed separately, to make choice whether it's worth seeing them all easier I'll also cover them separately.
First arc of the show is based on a classical Japanese play Yotsuya Kaidan. This is the one that visually aged the most of all parts, nonetheless it tells an interesting tale with an satisfying twist. Its story unveils at a very slow pace and is the most gory of the three, as such it's the one that's the hardest to recommend and if one of those sounds unappealing then it's probably best to skip it.
Tenshu Monogatari is source material for second arc, also based on a classical play. A visual shift can be noticed since previous story, mostly with character designs. Pacing is a…
Read at the sourceAnomanderake
When I started watching Ayakashi, I did not have any high hopes for it. Horror as a genre is not easy to pull off successfully. But Ayakashi was pretty good at what it does. It is not the kind of horror that scares you or disturbs you, but it does leave a strong impression on you. It is probably more reasonable to classsify it as an anthology of tragic dramas than a work of horror. All the stories are set in the classical Japanese period and they accurately portray the cruel and harsh conditions of that era. The horrifying elements are not that of the paranormal monsters but rather of the violence and cruelty that is part of the humans.
The animation is pretty good, especially in the "Bake Neko" segment with some pretty unique artwork. The background score is pretty much on the mark, crea…
Read at the sourcektulu007
Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror was brought to us by Toei animation. It's also the series that Mononoke was a spin-off of. Like that series, it's a horror anthology. I really enjoyed Mononoke and I'm hoping that this one will be at the same level. Let's examine it and see.
Story:
There are three distinct stories in this anime. The first is based off of a classic ghost story by the kabuki playwright, Nanboku Tsuruya IV. The second is based off of a play by Kyouka Izumi. The third is an original story featuring the medicine seller with the same voice as Cloud who we all know and love from Mononoke. Since these three parts are pretty different and each one has their own strengths & weaknesses, I'm going to be discussing each one separately.
The first four episodes are dedicated to the s…
Read at the sourceberserkersoul
(the stories portrayed have some graphic images like murder/gore, rape, etc. so watch as your own risk!!) *THIS IS LONG SO READ THE "IN SHORT"S
The series is split up into three main stories:
episodes 1-4: a story about a beautiful woman who falls in love with a man who ends up betraying her, abandoning her and her new born. in an angry rage she kills herself and turns into a vengeful spirit out for revenge
episodes 5-8: a story about the forbidden love between a "forgotten god" and a human commoner
episode 9-11: a story about a wandering medicine seller who specializes in finding and vanishing Mononokes (or restless spirits who cause harm/disease/death). the bride of a family dies on her wedding day at the hands of a mononoke and the medicine seller needs its reason, form, and truth t…
Read at the source-ryougishiki-
Summary:
The series is divided into three parts, each featuring a famous Japanese story about ayakashi, a supernatural monsters/beings in Japanese mythology.
Yotsuya Kaidan (episodes 1-4): A classic Japanese ghost story about a woman who is betrayed and killed by her husband, becoming a vengeful ghost and haunting the people who are responsible for her death. It is written by Nanboku Tsuruya IV, and the story is also narrated by him during the anime.
Tenshu Monogatari (episodes 5-8): A story of a forbidden love between a goddess and human. Zushonosuke, a falconer, falls in love with a woman whom he saw bathing in a lake, without knowing that she is a forgotten god.
Bake Neko (episode 9-11): A wandering medicine peddler arrives in Sakai Clan on the wedding day of the eldest daughter of…
Read at the sourceAmphithere
The first two arcs are okayish... They weren't very horror, so the sole redeeming factor would be the Bakeneko arc. If I could review it on solely that, I'd give it a perfect 10. But the other two arcs are just a hindrance in my opinion, so I'd just watch the Bakeneko arc.
Read at the sourceFaylicia
Story:
In this anime the story is based on three different short traditional folklore stories from Japan. They are mostly horror stories, however I would say the the last two ones were dealt more with mythical phenomenons and were not so scary. Specifically, it is not as scary as Japanese horror movies are a days. However it is kind of psychological and revolves around issues that have some kind of melancholy into them. It is definitely a very good way to learn about Japanese literature while getting entertained.
Art:
The art is not manga art actually. It resembles ukiyo-e, which is a type of traditional Japanese way of drawing. Nevertheless the last story has a different type of art and is a prequel to the anime Mononoke. The last stories art is more like manga art but it seems as if th…
Read at the sourceRedPlanet
This is quite a difficult anime to review as the first two arcs of the series feel like completely different works to the last, and I would be happy to give this a rating of 9 if they did not exist, but unfortunately since they do and they account for the bulk of the episodes in this series (8 of 11), I cannot give an overall rating higher than 7. Also, please note that the individual scores I provided for story, art and such only apply to the final arc for the sake of simplicity, while the overall rating accounts for the series as a whole.
The animation in the first two arcs is very limited, and once you get to the last arc it's immediately obvious where the budget went. The animation, art style and production values in general are far higher in the final arc of this series (although the…
Read at the sourceangelsreview
This is much like Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix in that there are different stories in this but unlike the Phoenix, there is not one little thing that keeps the stories connected. They are just simple ghost stories although I don’t know if you would sit around a camp fire and talk about. They are not so much horror stories, as more stories of caution against different things. They seem to have a story that has a lesson at the end.
The first story is a sweet story about forbidden love and fallen gods. I’m not so sure why they have the stupid little spirits that keep laughing. It just seems like a waste to have characters there that are only for comedic affect The story doesn’t need it and they have no purpose in the story that I can see. The story without them is rather beautiful, and the languag…
Read at the sourceLindle
Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror/Samurai Horror Tales is a horror anthology of three unrelated stories: Yotsuya Kaidan, Tenshu Monogatari, and Bakeneko, the third of which received a far more successful spinoff in the form of Mononoke. Each arc was done by a different, and then-unknown director, though the director of the third, Kenji Nakamura, went on to make the critically acclaimed series "Mononoke" and "Trapeze" (He also made [C], though that fails to fall into the previous category). This review will mostly be split up into the three arcs. (NOTE: The R1 release of this series switched the first and second arcs around. This will be listed in the original order).
Arc 1 - Yotsuya Kaidan (episodes 1-4)
Yotsuya Kaidan (Yotsuya Ghost Story) is a story based on someone who died in horrif…
Read at the sourceSton3_FreeN7
Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror is a group of three different storylines, of which a couple are adaptations of classic japanese stories. As such, this review will naturally be longer than many I've done before as all three arcs deserve their own review, I believe. Also, not that I have not seen the original versions of the stories told in this series, so I have no prior knowledge of any material covered.
The first story told "Yotsuya Kaidan" is about a woman being betrayed, and effectively killed, by her husband and her seeking revenge as a ghost. The atmosphere is effective, but the actual attempts at "horror" just didn't come off as scary or chilling. Part of this is because the characters didn't have any room to breath and, as a result their motivations and actions just seemed random…
Read at the sourceantinous
Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales, a set of three traditional Japanese ghost stories.
Goddess of the Dark Tower; While the animation left a lot to be desired, I rather enjoyed this story (the most out of all of them). Hmmm, I suppose there is not a real equivalent in Western culture, but basically…just as a mortal might attain godhood, so too can a god attain mortalhood. Forgotten gods as they were referred to, although I’d refer to them as decayed gods…as their transcendence from purity to worldly is a transcendence from benevolent to malevolent.
Yotsuya Ghost Story; This one was one of missed potential. It could have been better, but it was not half bad either. An onryo tale; that of an angry vengeful ghost that bears a terrible grudge against its wrongful and grotesque death. Morbidly…
Read at the sourcePrincipal
Ayakashi ~ Japanese Classic Horror is divided in three individual stories. Each of them stands alone and has nothing to do with the other two. They also share a totally different art style, atmosphere, motives and characters for each of these tales.
Ayakashi begins with the story called Yotsuya Kaidan. The first episode is horrible, it starts just so boring, and keeps this on until the end of it. But then again, that was easily the worst episode of Ayakashi. The good part starts at the second episode, when some great deaths come past the screen, ending at the fourth episode with a satisfying climax. The art style is really old-fashoned, though it remains ugly. Though I guess that that was meant to be that way, as the theme of this story is ugly as well. It’s about the evil that humans can…
Read at the sourceToast-Junkie
Sadly when I received this series, the information about Japanese Culture which was supposed to be included was not there. This was important in order to receive a fuller understanding of the stories. I tried desperately to get hold of a .pdf file of the information, but sadly I couldn't find it. Although many of the images and symbols probably got lost in the series due to my Westernised mind, despite this I decided it could be a good way for me to interpret it from my standpoint. The stories in itself did not get lost to me and certainly didn't hinder my enjoyment. So don't be reluctant to watch this series if like me your knowledge in Japanese Culture is lacking.
Japanese Horror is well-known to most of popular culture through the Hollywood re-makes such as “The Ring” and “Ju-On”. Ayak…
Read at the sourcedavieboy232
this series was done exceptionally well needless to say, with theme being mysterious as a primary to the whole show, the secondaries would have to be a little bit of love but a lot of cause and effect such as charma and upcomings. :)
i would say that if your looking for something a little different from things such as action and cutsie and want to get a taste of something else for a bit, then you may enjoy this.
Read at the sourceBissen
I had a really hard time deciding how to rate this anime - not just because it consist of three different stories (having nothing to do with each other), but also because I just had mixed feelings.
Story: 9
All three stories were great, but seem to be part of the actual Japanese culture, so it wasn't something "new". Still very good though.
Art: 5
I was definitely not very impressed with the art in either of the stories (drawn differently!) The first wasn't special, though the scenes/backgrounds weren't fantastic in it, and I didn't really like the way people were drawn - they all looked mean and scary (not everyone is mean in the story). Not a super-supernatural and odd coloured hair or the like. Much more realistic than many others.
Second story was as close to the average anime as we…
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