Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre

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.

This is a collection of anime horror shorts. Unfortunately, it's as goofy and poorly animated as an episode of the original 1970s Scooby Doo cartoons. I couldn't even make it past the fourth episode, which was mind-numblingly boring. Basically, it was a teenager who was trying to study, but his brother kept interrupting him by making stupid noises. Oooh, the horror. The only short that I liked was The Hanging Balloons, which was both creepy and surreal. That short deserves an 8/10, but almost every other short I saw in the first four episodes was a 1/10 from me.

The animation is Hanna-Barbera quality. While eating dinner, the aforementioned teen complains to his parents about his brother's behavior. While each is speaking, the others are completely frozen in time. I don't remember even seeing them blink. The person who's talking is barely animated and mostly just moves their lips. What's the point of even paying for a Netflix subscription if this is the best that Netflix can find?

The English language dub sounded like they were going for some kind of goofy horror-comedy tone, which ruined a lot of the atmosphere. Switching to the Japanese audio helps. The art itself, though, sometimes had the same problem. If I had known this was going to be a goofy comedy-horror series, I probably wouldn't have bothered. Based on Netflix's description, I was hoping this would be surreal and creepy stories for adults. Instead, you get the Addams Family bickering with each other while holding a seance and a teenager who has an annoying brother.

After so much failed attempts, I've come to accept Junji Ito's work should only exist in manga form. This adaptation doesn't give me hope for the Uzumaki adaptation, even if it's a different studio and director. The dubbed version of this is horrendous so don't waste your time. Each episode is more uninspired than the last with bland animation and lackluster stories. There are some flashes of brilliance, the intro for example is a banger but most all else isn't worth the watch. Do yourself a favor and read the manga stories again, this adaptation isn't worth your time. If I could, I'd unwatch this soulless carcass of an anime.

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.

All episodes seem to be pure build up to a conclusion that never comes.

It's disappointing when the episode ends and you're like "Wow, was that it?" It's like you're just seeing undeveloped concepts.

Very few episodes really feel like a closed story and others don't even feel like a story at all.

The animation is not terrible but definitely could be better, the opening intro is by far the best part of the whole series.

I think the series is entertaining despite all the flaws, but don't expect something scary or even intriguing, in the end it's just pretty dull campfire stories with some minimally interesting ones in the middle.

Also, I can't even count the number of times a character could have completely avoided their situations by having common sense, but the characters in the series seem to have an extreme tolerance to weird things happening around them, it's like they aren't reacting as they should... This is a spoiler free review but just know that there is a episode where the MC simply choose to keep in a cleary bad looking situation for no reason at all... And the conclusion is as underwhelming as expected.

It's hard to rate it this low because i actually had some fun watching it, but overall it was this disapointing.