Maniac par Junji Ito: Anthologie macabre

This was a series I had high hopes for and was even telling friends about with the launch with the really well made trailer on YouTube. I watched the first two episodes and...it's pretty meh. It's not awful, but it really is a boring mess of a show that has no cohesion in each episode. Nothing was scary, nothing was interesting, just very boring stories with mediocre animation as well (the little kid dancing at the Seance was so badly animated, things like this stick out like a sore thumb).

Not sure who this is for, but as someone who loves horror this is just a lacking show with no real reason to watch.

This series some pretty unforgettable stories one of which I like particularly is The Hanging Balloons. I haven't read the manga so my basis would be entirely on how the series was made.

1. The animation all looked similar . It could have been good but I felt like there was no connection on how each stories were grouped together in one episode.

2. It ends way too abrupt. I don't know if this is the way the stories are in manga but it always feel so open ended. Its like I am always waiting for something to be explained but then it just ends.

3. Going back on how it was animated, since it looked similar, watching it in one seating gets old pretty quick. I have some thoughts that this may have more impact as live action will effects and all.

Its an ok watch. I guess I just wanted more out of it. Also the ending music is quite comforting for a pretty dark animation.

It's Rather annoying that most episodes don't finish and just end abruptly at the climax of things when they could have concluded. After a few of those the episodes just go down hill. Some of the stories are written well and some are just pointless. No matter how well an episode is written and animated it all goes in the trash when it just ends and fells unfinished. This anime had a cool concept but lousy execution. I would have loved it if the stories would actually be full on stories with complete endings but this isn't it.

I'm not sure what else to say without ruining the show so like the stories in the series I'll just cut it short and end it here.

Lousy idea to put two stories in one chapter. They could have developed the stories better in a complete chapter or even in two.

There are moments where the stories feel like they end up very unfinished, without sense, and leave you wanting to see more, everything feels rushed. The stories with potential were never developed well, so it ends up being an entertaining anime with wasted potential.

The animation lacks fluidity and looks static at times, visually it is decently attractive. We are still waiting for a good adaptation of Junji Ito's manga, and please stop adapting several stories in a single episode.

In the process of adapting a manga to the serial approach, some productions seem to struggle to conceive that adaptation is a more complex process than simply copying and pasting manga pages and hoping they will work in the same way on screen. This is the problem with an anime that could have had great potential, such as Junji Ito Maniac.

Indeed, in the development of the series, they opted to reproduce the original pages as faithfully as possible, stripping them of the soul given by the author and without caring to translate them into a different communicative medium.

This is unfortunate because animation could allow for the sublimation of master Junji Ito's haunting stories, and the lack of this effort makes the series incomplete, empty, and inconclusive. Moreover, there is a lack of overall cohesion and the pacing is erratic. The episodes are interesting only because of the unique material provided by the manga's sources.

Overall, the product, while not tremendous, comes across as a simple copy of the original manga with no soul and no real point of existence, as it adds nothing to the master's work but, on the contrary, takes away some of its charm.