Yamishibai

Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories also known in Japan as Yami Shibai (闇芝居 Yami Shibai, lit. Dark Play) and Theater of Darkness is a 2013 Japanese animated series. The first season was directed by Tomoya Takashima, with scripts written by Hiromu Kumamoto and produced by ILCA. Each episode was animated in such a way so as to mimic the kamishibai method of story-telling. The series is organized into a collection of shorts with each episode being only a few minutes in length. Each episode features a different tale based on myths and urban legends of Japanese origin.  

The first season premiered on TV Tokyo on July 14, 2013 and ran for thirteen episodes until September 29, 2013. A second season began airing from July 6, 2014. It will be directed by both Takashi Shimizu and Noboru Iguchi along with scripts written by Shōichirō Masumoto. The first season spawned a host of merchandise and a mobile game while also receiving mixed reactions at the end of its broadcast.

Synopsis

Every week at 5 p.m. an old man shows up at a children's playground and tells them ghost stories based on myths and urban legends of Japanese origin. The man tells the stories on the back of his bicycle using a traditional kamishibai (紙芝居, Paper Drama) method and features a new tale each week.

Production

The series aimed to mimick the traditional art of kamishibai story-telling.

 

The first season of the series is produced by ILCA and directed by Tomoya Takashima along with script writing by Hiromu Kumamoto and narrated by Kanji Tsuda. The series is animated in such a way as to mimic a traditional Japanese method of storytelling known as Kamishibai.
The second season will be directed by Takashi Shimizu and Noboru Iguchi while Shōichirō Masumoto will be writing the script.

The full staff list is as follows:

Credit	Season 1	Season 2
Chief Director	Tomoya Takashima	Takashi Shimizu Noboru Iguchi
Script	Hiromu Kumamoto	Shōichirō Masumoto
Planning	Norio Yamakawa (TV Tokyo) Takuya Iwasaki
Producer	Naoko Kunisada Nobuyuki Hosoya (TV Tokyo)
Production Producer	Toshio Akashi
Animation Producer	Midori Iwashita
Assistant Producer	Kunpei Yanagikawa
Opening Music	nico
App Producer	Yuichi Ueda
SD Character Design	Chihiro Sai
Associate Producer	Aiko Okamoto Takahisa Kubota
Program Publicity	Kazumi Noguchi (TV Tokyo)

 

Media

Music and audio

The first season of Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories uses one piece of theme music: an ending theme. The soundtrack music was composed by nico. For all episodes the ending theme is "Kaikai Emaki" (怪々絵巻, Mysterious Picture Scroll) which was arranged by Teniwoha and AVTechNO! using the Vocaloid singing synthesizer: Hatsune Miku. The ending theme was released in Japan as a track on the Vocarock Collection 5 CD on December 25, 2013 by Farm Records.

Other media

A mobile game for smartphones tentatively titled, "Yamishibai" was released by ILCA, Inc. on iTunes and Google Play. The app was created Yuichi Ueda and allowed people to explore the urban legend of a particular town. Numerous products including T-shirts, bags and coffee mugs were released in response to the series.

Reception

The first episode was described as generally cohesive despite the relative inexperience of the members of Studio ILCA. It was also compared to that of reading a moving book rather than watching an anime due to the animation style used along with the minimal movements of the characters. On the other hand, critics felt as though the series may have only been compelling to those interested in Japanese mythology. The first season received mixed reactions following the end of its broadcast.