Theatre of Darkness: Yamishibai 2

Step right up and have a look... It's time for disappointment Yami Shibai's second season is... Very boring and forgettable. Keep in mind I watched all three seasons of Yami Shibai back to back, and there was a notable decrease in the story quality as I went on. There are more morals this season and a lot of them are blatantly obvious and a poor decision to add to a series that really doesn't need morals (more morals means turning more characters into complete jerks too, making you want the characters to suffer even more by the end of the episode). I don't remember many of theepisodes this season, nor the stories (I'm writing this review a day after I watched it). However that's not to say there weren't any GOOD episodes in there, heck my second favorite episode out of the whole series came from this season. However, there wasn't enough in this season to really make it stand out. The art style this season, however, did seem to stay more consistent than the first season's and there was even a bit of improvement this time around. The sound design was also the highlight of the series, as it still creates the familiar creepy atmosphere from the first season and the voice acting remained stellar. Overall, I can't really say much about this season (that's why I didn't split my review into sections this time around). It was pretty bland and the actual good parts of the show aren't good enough to set itself apart from the first season of the show. I'd only watch it if you were bored or for completions sake.

Yami Shibai 2nd Season is obviously the seaon following it's prequel Yami Shibai. With these in mind, season 2 of Yami Shibai was completly lacking what was in the first season. --STORY-- The stories in season 2 of Yami Shibai were not as scary nor creepy as the first season. I did not find myself getting as scared or feeling like I'm being watched from these episodes. The horro in the stories also didn't seem like it was all there. --ART-- As usual, the art in Yami Shibai was very interesting and quite beautiful to look at. The effect of this art style adds to the whole creep factorof the Yami Shibai stories, but even the art style was not enough to make me thoroughly enjoy this second installment. --SOUND-- The sound in Yami Shibai is often what extends the creep factor beyond what it would normally be. The sounds in season 1 of this anime is what really creeped out. The evil laughs the slowly opening doors the sudden DUN whenever the monster would appear. And although some these sounds were cliche and typical they still managed to be creepy. Season 2 of Yami Shibai started to lack here and I feel they relyed more on the scare factor of the monsters then the actual idea of psychologially creeping someone out with subtle noises and visuals. --CHARACTER-- I didn't feel as connected with the characters in this season then I did in the previous one. They didn't seem to be as interesting or as unbeknownst as the characters we have seen before. --ENJOYMENT-- Although I didn't thourghly enjoy watching this anime I also didn't completly loathe it. There were still some episodes that managed to give me the scares and creep me out but overall, I didn't want to watch it as much as I did Yami Shibai season 1. --FINAL THOUGHTS-- Considering the short nature of this anime and scares that some of the episodes do give, I feel as though if you watched and enjoyed the first season of Yami Shibai then you might as well watch this second installment. But, don't be expecting the same creeps that the first season gave.

I watched this right after watching the first season, and this was definitely a downgrade from season One. Story For the most part the stories in this season were ok, but my main problem is that the morals to most of the stories were very obvious and executed poorly. Season one felt like the story was made priority, but season two felt like they wrote the story around the moral, with the moral sometimes overtaking the plot. Art The art was definitely less memorable Than the first season's art. I still remember most of the art from season one, but I can’t say the same for this season. Theydefinitely put less work into making the monsters disturbing which was pretty disappointing. Sound Sound was creepy in a few episodes, but they overused the jump scare “THUD” way too much. Season two tried to jump scare you every three seconds while season one would play quiet noises such as crickets or water droplets to make you anticipate a jump scare. There are also a few moments that were meant to be scary, but because of the sound choices they just come off as funny. Character For 4 minutes I guess they did pretty good. it’s a little hard to judge with this short a duration, but I still feel like the way the characters would talk and the facial expressions they would make in season one made you like them more than season 2. Enjoyment Despite the fact everything else was lackluster, since each episode was short I never got bored. This is a positive of having 4 minute episodes I guess. Even if I felt the story, art and sound were bad, It wasn’t bad to watch because I knew a different episode was going to play in 3 minutes anyway. Overall Pretty much a step down in every way from season one. If i had to pick one word for this season it would be “disappointing”.

Ok..what the heck happened? Between season 1 and 2 there seemed to be a major overhaul in storytelling quality. I'm not going to be a total American weeb and say, "i DoN'T GeT IT, i DOn'T unDerSTanD!" I know that these stories are based off of Japanese folklore and urban legends so there are going to be lot of things that a Western audience just wouldn't understand. It seemed like this season was rooted even deeper into the lore and the "horror" aspect just didn't resonate with an American audience. What bothered me, personally, with this seasonis the ongoing theme of "Wrong place, wrong time" that is prevalent in Japanese horror. The saddest episode I have to say was "Taro-chan". At the end when he kept lamenting, "It hurts, it hurts" really hurt my feelings. I wasn't creeped out by it, I was saddened that this little boy's soul is still here on the Earth plane reliving that horrible moment. Now the WORST episode was "Wall Woman". This one really takes the cake and, in a way, does provide a feeling of not so much 'horror", but "terror." It got me upset because this woman is just minding her own business at what, 10:30 in the MORNING and is attacked by some cat demon while doing her laundry! As a woman who lives alone this struck me on a personal level, but I was pissed because she didn't warrant anything for that to happen to her! Plus it was broad daylight! I'll be damned if some demon kills me before 6:00 pm! I just hope that season 3 can redeem the series...