Customer Reviews

Ghost Stories - Complete Collection

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The year was 2005. It was the year of Batman Begin-ning, Resident Evil returning for the fourth time, and Stephen Colbert taking the nation by storm. At the ADV offices, the guys in charge of buying licenses were getting pissed-drunk in celebration of the 6th re-release of the Platinum Evangelion edition DVDs. In their inebriated states, they somehow purchased the rights to release a God-awful, cheesey, cliched kids show about ghosts. After the rays of morning (and the passing of their massive hangovers) had brought their folly to light, these intrepid office workers desperately sought to find some way of saving their all too doomed jobs and keeping their 401k's.

Thankfully, desperation often breeds genius, and this is the case with Ghost Stories. With the dub, they decided to get rid of the original script's dialogue and transform the somewhat morbid children's genre drama and turn it into an over the top and hilarious comedy. Make no mistake, this is not kid's stuff. This is adult humor at its bawdiest. If the idea of elementary school kids trash talking about sex, the mentally handicapped, homosexuals, religion, sex, beastiality, sex, the nation's broken health care system, sex, and old people offends you greatly, then this is not the show for you. Go watch some high-brow anime like Kino's Journey or some Miyazaki. This is low-brow gutter humor at its gourmet finest.

THINGS THAT MAY OFFEND: Kids cursing; numerous pre-teen panty shots, dead animals; dead people; dead animals having sex with dead people (kidding, maybe); anti-Christian rhetoric; anti-Jewish rhetoric; anti-Muslim rhetoric; anti-EVERYBODY rhetoric; gay retarded little brothers; dead lesbian mothers; evil talking cats; a fifth-grade boy who sounds like a 30 year old but retains the horniness of said fifth-grade boy; disturbingly hot female ghosts (don't judge me); more pop culture references than Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a new Doctor Who episode penned by Russel T. Davies COMBINED.

OMG! This has to be the funniest anime of all time! I have seen this on Anime network about 3 times. I am now buying the complete DVD set. If you like your humor racy, don't mind the F-Bomb being blasted out from time to time and listening to every ethnic group or stereotype being made fun of, then this DVD set is for you. You will laugh your freaking head off. I still cannot stop suggesting this to my friends. I am buying this DVD set so I can have a viewing party over some brewskies. It is great watching the reaction of 1st time viewers of this series. I am chuckling inside just thinking about the reactions. LMAO LMAO LMAO and some more LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Probably one of the most hilarious things you'll ever see. A bunch of English anime dubbers decided to throw in their own jokes when the time came to localize this and the result is priceless. I don't even like anime and I couldn't stop laughing for days. Jokes range from shock value to pop culture to 4th wall breaking to the truly clever. Check out "Ghost Stories clips" on youtube to see for yourself.

Just don't make the mistake of buying this for little kids.

Ok, this anime might be the funniest damn thing I've ever seen. Ghost Stories was made in 2000 by Aniplex and Pierrot,and licensed here in the states by ADVision.
The story is about a girl,Satsuki, who has just moved to her deceased mothers hometown. There she meets a few kids from the town and they soon end up locked inside the towns old schoolhouse.
While looking for Satsukis' pet cat, they run into a ghost that had been sealed away in the school by Satsukis' mother.
They find a book her mother used to seal ghosts away when she was alive and accidently seal it away in her pet cat.

Ok, so that might sound like the start of a ghost hunting anime adventure, and it is, but what really makes this series is the reversioning of the plot and storyline.Some things were asked to be kept in the series, like the traditional Japanese ghost story legends etc. But, other than that, ADV said...take it and do what you will!

And, what they did was a hilarious,offensive and remarkable bit of anime gold.

The voice actors, Hilary Haag, Monica Rial, Greg Ayres, Chris Patton and Christine Auten do an unbelievable job at making you laugh your butt off.

Now,it can be offensive to some, as there are sex jokes,gay jokes,religious jokes etc. So a warning on that. However if you are into funny pop culture jokes and the like, you'll get many laughs outta this show.

Overall, I gotta say what they did with it was great. Highly Recommended!

In this great little release that fits right on the shelf, is a perfectly hilarious thing. Hearkening back to Woody Allen's "What's Up, Tiger Lily?", and perhaps even the spirit of "Fractured Flickers", the main thing about this release is that the folks at ADV have delivered a great little bundle of reworked hilarity just about completely revising, rewriting, and improvising a "new" English dub over the original Japanese. The dub on this set is great in that not only does it work in modern pop culture references, including "LOST" (!) but also makes it fit into the story arc!

This release is not for the kiddies, but for college humor, and/ or people that like their humor rich and raw! It's a relieving take on ordinary dubs, and I highly recommend brushing up on other self-reflexive titles like the above, if you haven't already! The original Japanese dub is fair and square, has its share of insight, but becomes practically bland when compared to this English dub. For fans of self-reflexive, absurdist humor, this is a must!

An absolutely hilarious almost parody-like anime. When Japan made this anime, it was supposed to be a horror anime. When it came to the US, ADV decided to make it into a comedy. With pop culture references, random jokes, and great voice acting, its an absolutely hilarious anime. Worth watching if you are 18 or so, though younger audiences will enjoy it too (but it has profanity).

A wonderful story though unlike some critics I would hardly say that the English version is better than the Japanese original version. The English version deal with adult jokes on religion and sexuality that alters the concept of the series more and more as the episodes move alone. Either in original language or in English though it still great. Its about a group of kids who make the spirits in the old school on the property next to their new school and their attempts to put the ghosts back to sleep when they stat haunting the whole town.

Anyone who doesn't think this is funny has absolutely zero sense of humor and should be watching soap operas or reading a historical novel. This is not a heart warming story about a family whose wife died. Its the funniest anime I have ever watched. More than all the 300 Anime movies I have in my collection put together. It really pokes fun at nerds and straight laced political correct snobs. It made me realize how brainwashed Americans are that we can't even poke fun at ourselves. This is NOT about a family trying to adjust after a mother dies. The family is perfectly adjusted to the mother being dead and have moved on even joking about the dead mother --which has nothing to do with the theme. A group of kids go into the old haunted school house looking for their lost cat and the adventure starts. I have 600 movies and 300 anime in my collection and this is the first movie that has made me laugh out loud. Ghost stories describes itself as wicked fun. A reluctant ghost hunter. Her babbling baby brother. A horny pre-teen. Its 5 discs not 1 and contains 1-20 episodes--each a separate ghost adventure -- 550 minutes long. This anime is so funny I am watching it twice and may even watch it 3 times. I recommend it for anyone who is sick and tired of political correct authoritarians ruling their lives. No holds barred comedy. English dubbed voices and translations are great. Totally funny!!!

I got this thinking that it would be a hilarious anime story like FMPFF but except it actually wasn't. The story is about a family that has moved to town after the kids mother has died and the father gets a new job the daughter on her first day at her new school enters an abandoned building on school and finds out that due to building developments in town that ghost who were trapped in certain shrines or locations by her spiritual mother are now being freed she finds her mother's old diary which explains how to put the wondering spirits back to rest and tries to put the spirits to rest again. Now here is the weird part is that the English voice dubbed totally changed what the characters are truly saying in the episodes supposedly to make it more funny instead some of it which is funny but the majority was just to stupid for words. If you watch this I'd advise the Japanese subbed version as this of course truly tells
you what is going on. I will tell you one more thing while the English voice actors are pros and are good sadly the lines they were given had either to many racial context during episodes or to many foul words so if you are offended by either of these again switch to the subbed audio instead.

I am giving this a three because the original script was good, but the ADV dub sucks.

If you like tired pop culture references which are quickly outdated, or pathetic ad-libs by voice actors, you will enjoy the ADV dub.

If you are not a connoisseur of pop culture or an avid watcher of television many of the jokes will mean nothing, which detracts from the viewing experience.

Fortunately, the original Japanese audio and subtitles are on the discs.

I wish the Animax dub was available on DVD, since their English dub is true to the original script.