Dandadan season one may be over, but if you’re missing that irreverent comedy, ghosts and Yokais, I have something that might just hold you over as we wait for season 2 – the US dub of Ghost Stories. Published by Kodansha in 1990, the source manga like Dandadan used a lot of (and some of the same) traditional Japanese ghosts for its more contemporary (at the time) takes on these supernatural stories. In 1994 due to the success of the manga an anime series was greenlit and this is where it gets interesting. While the original Japanese airings were played straight adaptations of the manga, when the show was licensed in 2005 to be localized to the US, ADV films were given only 3 rules: “don’t change the character names (including the ghosts); don’t change the way the ghosts are dispatched (a reference to Japanese folklore) and, finally, don’t change the core meaning of each episode”.
What writers Steven Foster and Lucan Duran decided to do is infuse the script with plenty of politically incorrect jokes that are paired with pop culture references, while also commenting on the show’s overuse of common genre tropes. It’s something that’s only amplified by the fact the world was a much different place in 2005, trust me it shows here. All the character archetypes and stereotypes are amplified to 11, the nerd, the perv and schoolgirl are joined here in the dub by a right wing Evangelical Christian (My personal favorite!) and a wisecracking demon possessed cat who round out this madness (Sound familiar?). It’s a lot of fun and at times hard to believe its real, and something that given the similar themes and sense of humor will tide you over till Summer.
Ghost Stories is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
