Ghost Stories, Vol. 1

Starring:Patrick Macnee
Studio: Madacy Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Brilliant!
Ghost Stories
Hilarious Parody Dub Invigorates D-List Title
Good anime but...
Intentional alteration of dialogue done as an art form.

Ghost Stories, Vol. 1: Freshman Frights
Starring: Ghost Stories
Manufacturer: Adv Films
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Ghost Stories, Vol. 2: Semester 2 - Sophmore Scares
Ghost Stories, Vol. 3: Junior Jitters
Ghost Stories, Vol. 4 - Senior Screams
Ghost Stories, Vol. 5: Graduation Ghoulies
Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, Vol. 2: Love and War

ASIN: B000AP31GU
Release Date: 2005-10-25

Amazon.com

The title of the comedy-adventure Ghost Stories (broadcast, 2000) was originally Gakkou no Kaidan: "Ghost Stories in School." When Satsuki moves to a new neighborhood with her widowed father and little brother Keichiro, she learns that ghosts infest the abandoned school next to the one she attends. Satsuki saves herself, her brother, and her new friends, Hajime, Leo, and Momoko, from the ghosts with the help of an old spell book of her mother's--but not before a powerful spirit possesses the family cat. The translation is very self-consciously hip, with the characters taking cheap shots at Hollywood stars, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Scientology. Nerdy "psychical researcher" Leo is supposed to be Jewish, while Momoko is an obnoxious, born-again Christian--two "types" not usually encountered in anime. Although the storylines overlap somewhat, Ghost Stories lacks the good-natured slapstick of Haunted Junction. (Rated TV PG, suitable for ages 15 and older: violence, toilet humor, ethnic stereotypes) --Charles Solomon

Description

The serious anime fan wants two things: to watch anime, and to learn everything they possibly can about Japanese culture. Finally, thanks to ADV , otaku can kill both birds with one stone! Introducing Ghost Stories,f a series that retells traditional Japanese, folk tales in a modern setting tailor-made for the anime fan!

Customer Reviews:

Brilliant!.......2006-08-04

Funniest thing I've seen in ages! Don't watch it if easily offended, but if you can laugh at people making stabs at race, politics, religion, etc., then definitly buy. If you can't laugh at it, go to a proctologist. You got a stick up your [...]

Ghost Stories.......2006-07-16

Good anime with a lot of witty reparte. This anime series makes fun of a lot of different types of people and religions. If you have a sense of humor you will enjoy this series.

Hilarious Parody Dub Invigorates D-List Title.......2006-06-22

A bit before Ghost Stories vol 1 first hit store shelf, ADV caused an angry explosion among snotty anime purists. They revealed that they were taking this D-List title that no one had ever heard of before and had skipped on producing a faithful English adaptation. Instead, they produced a biting and very funny parody dub while leaving an accurate subtitled version intact for those fans who just have to watch it in Japanese. Thank goodness for that! In its original form, Ghost Stories is an utterly mediocre series that culls its plot-lines from well-known urban legends, ghost stories, and even horror movies. It focuses on horror elements, but by trying to remain a family-friendly show, never manages to be scary. It's faux-horror, sort of like Scooby-Doo. It's not unwatchable, but its just so average why would you want to?
This hilarious parody dub is the real selling point. Pithy, biting, self-aware, and extremely funny, the basic story-line of the original is intact, but features completely different dialogue and played for laughs. Motherless Satsuki and her mentally challenged brother Keichiiro move to a new town with their widower father. On the grounds of their new school is an old haunted school building. When they and their new friends, Leo, Momoko, and Hajime venture inside looking for Satsuki's cat, they accidentally release the vengeful ghosts previously sealed away by Satsuki's dead mother. ...And their cat gets possessed by the sarcastic demon Amanojaku. The rest of the series follows their trials and tribulations as they try to reseal these troublesome spirits.
I thought I wouldn't care to much for Ghost Stories because the first episode its not very funny. It's the episodes that follow that strike comedy gold. Episodes dealing with haunted toilets, piano ghosts, and a very bad school play, give the script writters and actors a lot of funny material to work with. As I have rewatched this disk multiple times and still find it enjoyable, I can honestly say that this comedy has shelf-life. It won't go stale after the first viewing.
Handling script writting is direction duty is Steven Foster, the person who also handled the parody dub of the Super Milk-chan Show. If you liked the humor in that series, you will like this. Maybe even more so because the humor in Super Milk was long winded. But good writting is nothing without good delivery. Ghost Stories has that in spades as the acting credits is practically a who's-who list of the very best of ADV's in-house talent.
ADV made the right choice in creating this alternative version. They took a series that no one would have cared about other wise and made it a stand-out title as well as outstanding.

Good anime but..........2006-02-02

This is a very good anime. The first time I watched it, I was in Japan in 1999-2000ish and understood most of what they were saying. When I watched it in Japanese, it gave out a thrilling chill with a little horror. However, when I watched it in English, they pretty much changed the whole script around and made it from a thrilling anime to a comdey. So, for those who like anime with a little horror in it, watch it in Japanese. For those who lean towards comedy, watch it in English.

Intentional alteration of dialogue done as an art form........2006-01-17

Intentionally altering dialogue, changing not just the language but what the characters are actually saying for added humor, (including adding more profanity,) has been done before, at least to a much lesser degree, in shows like BURN-UP W, THOSE WHO HUNT ELVES and even PUNI PUNI POEMY. But not like it's done here.

The basic story is still the same: Satsuke (who, with her pigtailed red hair, looks alot like an elementary school version of female Ranma,) must exorcise the old abandoned school house of it's many ghosts with the help of her younger brother and three neighborhood friends, and her mother's diary. However, many other things have changed, including character's personalities. (You probably know what I mean if you've read the other reviews.)

If you don't like the type of humor here, you can still always watch the Japanese-with-subtitles version. But I watched the dub and laughed till my sides hurt. Also, if you are hearing impaired or have a friend who is, there is a third language track where it's the dub and the subtitles read what the American voice actors are saying, so everyone can enjoy it. I now own the first two disks in the series and am going to buy the third when it comes out.

Average customer rating:

EIGHT SPOOKY TALES

Ghost Stories, Vol. 1
Starring: Ghost Stories
Manufacturer: Platinum Disc
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Ghost Stories, Vol. 2
Hostile Hauntings
Ghost Stories, Vol. 3
Unexplained - Hauntings (A&E DVD Archives)
Silent Night Bloody Night

ASIN: B000AJJMTQ
Release Date: 2005-08-23

Customer Reviews:

EIGHT SPOOKY TALES.......2006-11-27

This collection of eight thirty minute spook stories first aired on the Fox Channel. Although they are all pretty predictable and the production values mediocre, they are entertaining enough.
1. COLD IN THE GRAVE - a refrigerator repairman whose wife has left him picks up a college girl at the neighborhood bar and when she refuses his advances and gets out of his truck, he runs over her and buries her in the river in a refrigerator. Echoes of TELL TALE HEART can lead you to the solution.
2. LANDSCAPE OF LOST DREAMS - a couple return to the inn where they first met to celebrate their ninth anniversary. Only he's absorbed in his work and she feels neglected and alone. A strange visitor and a mysterious painting combine to provide the ghostly conclusion.
3. PERSONAL DEMONS - a psychiatric patient murders his therapist at the behest of his demon friend and a new doctor tries to help him. Uh-oh.
4. YOU'LL WAKE THE DEAD - Horrible acting mars this interesting little tale of a young couple who annoy their downstairs neighbor with their loud music until she finally has a heart attack. They can now sell the house for a forture if they can keep the old lady dead.
5. MIRROR MIRROR - The old monster vanity leads a repressed young woman and her aunt's supposed lover to off the old lady to get her inheritance. Guess what happens?
6. BACK WARD - A dedicated psychiatrist vows to bring a delapidated old mental home up to standards but finds the place is haunted by the abused patients from a century ago. Weakest one of the eight.
7. YOU'LL ALWAYS BE MINE - A cop becomes obsessed with the protection of a young woman who was terrorized by a psychotic stalker....even after he's dead. Weird but effective.
8. BEWARE THE MUSE - Tabloid readers rejoice..this one's about a tabloid writer whose greedy boss makes him write stories about a deceased serial killer to sell papers, even when he apparently has returned from the dead and the stories are keeping him powerful.
All in all, not a bad collection.

Average customer rating:

Ghost Stories Vol. 1
Starring: Patrick Macnee
Manufacturer: Madacy Records
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Ghost Stories, Vol. 2
Ghost Stories, Vol. 3
Unsolved Mysteries: Ghosts

ASIN: 630524782X
Release Date: 1998-12-22

Amazon.com

"Most often ghost stories are frightening, but even more frightening when the story is true." Hmm, I suppose that's true. Thus begins one of most interesting segments on this first volume of a three-volume set. Hosted by Patrick Macnee (The Avengers), it covers numerous ghostly sightings, including the Tower of London and the Orantia mansion, using many matter-of-fact interviews with eyewitnesses. But it runs pretty low on intellectual curiosity. One of the few segments that tries for the appearance of serious investigation is simply wrong-headed. The segment concerns the site of a railroad accident where a school bus stalled on the tracks. All the children inside were killed, and now the site is haunted by the ghosts of these children, who push stalled cars uphill over the tracks and to safety, leaving their hand prints on the backs of the cars. Our reporter tries to document this phenomenon by setting her car in neutral before the tracks and powdering the back of the car to capture the prints. You see the car move, but there's no proof in that. Everything captured on film about this "experiment" could have been faked very easily. It insults the audience to have such hokum passed off as serious investigation. Just the facts, please. A note on the quality of this disc is in order. If you recall the quality of early streaming video on the Web, you know what to expect here. You might expect low-res images on the Web because of the bandwidth problem, but there's no excuse for that on DVD. And no excuse for the poor quality of the sound, either. --Jim Gay

Tales of Terror from Tokyo and All Over Japan, Vol. 1

Average customer rating:

Great Concept, O.K. Execution

Tales of Terror from Tokyo and All Over Japan, Vol. 1
Director: Shiro Sano , Norio Tsuruta , Takashi Shimizu , Keisuke Toyoshima , and Ichiro Nakayama
Manufacturer: Tokyo Shock
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Tales of Terror from Tokyo, Vol. 2
Scary True Stories - Ten Haunting Tales From the Japanese Underground
Dark Tales of Japan
Kadokawa Mystery and Horror Tales, Vol. 2
J Horror Anthology: Underworld

ASIN: B0009S2KKG
Release Date: 2005-08-30

Description

Just because the gates to the spirit world are usually kept shut does not mean that they cannot suddenly open, that the dead cannot reach out for your throat, that its denizens cannot prowl in abandoned office buildings, or haunt high school video projects. The dark realm is with you, and within you, its emotions calling to yours in shades of horror, of fear, of terror. Writers Kihara Hirokatsu and Nakayama Ichiro have collected these Tales of Terror from accounts told to them as true all over Japan.

Customer Reviews:

Great Concept, O.K. Execution.......2006-10-25

Here is the premise: Get some of the best directors of horror from across Japan to scare you in 5 minutes.

There are 15 short films on the DVD by directors Takashi Shimzu, Keisuke Toyoshima, Ichiro Nakayama, Aiko Yoshida, Norio Tsuruta, Ryuta Miyake, Tyo Nanda, and Hirokatsu Kihara.

Overall, the DVD is great for what it does. Get in, get scared, and get out (though one of the stories cheats a bit by being in 2 parts, but getting a horror story across in 10 minutes is still impressive).

The visuals are wonderful and some of the stories are truly scary. All of them will leave you thinking.

The downside is that there are no bonus features (save for some trailers). Audio commentaries would have been nice. Since the entire feature clocks in at 75 minutes, I know they had the space.

The upside is that it is a great experiment to see what some established horror directors (and some not so established) can do when restricted to such short time, and all of them do it well. You also get to see the directorial work of some people you may have not gotten to see before.

The downside is that some of the stores feel rushed and incomplete.

Overall, worth picking up if you are a fan of Japanese horror films.

Average customer rating:

Ghost Stories, Vol. 1
Starring: Patrick Macnee
Manufacturer: Madacy
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005UW8V
Release Date: 2001-12-12

Exploring the Supernatural, Vol. 1: UFO Chronicles and Ghost Stories

Average customer rating:

Video quality.

Exploring the Supernatural, Vol. 1: UFO Chronicles and Ghost Stories
Starring: Exploring the Supernatural
Manufacturer: Madacy Records
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: 6305248079
Release Date: 1998-12-22

Amazon.com

UFO Chronicles: Fascinating report on UFO phenomena, bolstered by credible witnesses, authors, and investigators. Especially noteworthy, and thorough, are the segments on Roswell, alien abductions, and genetic experiments. Eddie Page believes himself to be an alien-human hybrid. (For those who observe the amenities, the PC term is not "alien"; it's "celestial being.") Among other fun stuff are the Galactic Federation, a kind of UN of the universe, and the assertion that dolphins are from Sirius. The makers of these pieces wisely opted to let the documentary consist of interviews, letting the weight of anecdotal accounts make whatever case there is to make, when they might have easily erred on the side of conjecture. A worthy effort, well worth seeing, despite flaws in the quality of the discs. The sound is simply awful, and the visual quality is as fuzzy and unfocused as your average photographic evidence of flying saucers.

Ghost Stories: Not as successful as its companion piece, this one is all over the supernatural map. Although it purports to be about ghost stories, there are pieces on visions of the Virgin Mary, werewolves, Nostradamus, and the Kombucha Mushroom, of all things. While none of these reports are bad or uninteresting in and of themselves, you may be scratching your head wondering when they're going to get back to the ghost stories. Ditto in spades on the quality of the sound and visuals noted above. --Jim Gay

Customer Reviews:

Video quality........2004-08-14

Two programs on 1 disk. First up is UFO chronicles, this program runs for 61.24 minutes. Covers stories from Roswell to Crop Circles, alien intervention, contactees, and ufo encounters. There are a couple of stories I found hard to believe especially the people who claim to be from another planet. Overall, interesting enough even though one or two stories are crap. The second program Ghost stories presents investigative reports, eyewitness accounts of the supernatural. A few interesting stories especially the one about the train crossing. This programs runs for 42.57 minutes.

The video quality is very poor, definetly not transferred from the original film source, definetly transferred to dvd from a video tape. How quality like this can be released on dvd is a crime. Dvd is supposed to give us the best quality print. I have a copy of this on video which I bought from the UK, titled Roswell and UFOlogy files. My copy on vhs is much better than the dvd. The audio is Dolby 2.0, could be better.

Extras, what a joke. There is a silly trivia test, a campfire story, Remedies and a story on Sightings which is very hard to read, all this is text. Overall, transfer 1/5, audio 1/5, Extras 0/5. Final word, check it out on video, you might be surprised that the qaulity is better than the dvd, Madacy Entertainment, should be entered in the hall of shame.

Average customer rating:

For fans of the TV series
Hard to enjoy if you have never seen the previous episodes.

Ghost Sweeper Mikami (Vol. 1)
Starring: Wayne Grayson , Dan Stevens (II) , Kumiko Nishihara , Sharon Becker , and Wakana Yamazaki
Manufacturer: Manga Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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This 1993 TV show based on a manga serial by Takashi Shiina was extremely popular in Japan when it first aired, although it's difficult to understand why. The blond, miniskirted title character is a venal exorcist or "Ghost Sweeper" with a typically mismatched crew of assistants. In the opening episodes, Mikami is pitted against the resurrected Nosferatu, a super-vampire from the past. She initially refuses to kill him because she might damage the valuable "divine stone" on the end of the spear she received from a long-dead samurai. Director Atsutoshi Umezawa tries to achieve the over-the-top freneticism of Slayers with hysterical vocal performances and staccato editing, but he mixes in grotesque visuals that might have been lifted from Devil Man. The results are too silly to be frightening but too gory to be funny. Unrated; suitable for ages 16 and up: Violence, violence against women, grotesque imagery, alcohol use. --Charles Solomon

Customer Reviews:

For fans of the TV series.......2002-08-05

If you have not seen at least a few episodes of the TV series it you may not enjoy this movie since it is set at the end of the series. There is no introduction to the charactors since it is expected you know them from watching the series. It's too bad that non of the TV series has been released in R1.

Note: The english track has had all of the music replaced, and music has been added where there is non in the original. The Japanese track has not been changed.

Hard to enjoy if you have never seen the previous episodes........2002-07-01

I first watched "Ghost Sweeper Mikami" back in 1994 and the first episodes of the TV series were humorous and I enjoyed it a lot.

The television series introduced a a money loving ghost-demon-vamprie hunter named Mikami and in each episode we get to know more about her and each member of her team that joins her for each case.

This is what I enjoyed about the television series is the fact that you got a chance to grow with the characters and fully enjoy the series because it is a humorous series and quite fun.

Almost a decade later, the DVD of the series is finally released in the US but not the release that I was expecting.

"Ghost Sweeper Mikami" features the final two episodes of the anime television series and what I enjoyed the series for, the ability to grow and enjoy the characters has been removed from this series.

What you see is a group of people assisting Mikami going against Nosferatu. No one knows about the other characters and why they act the way they do and thus my feeling is that people who watch this are not really going to get it.

Hopefully Manga Entertainment will plan to release the series on DVD but with the final two TV episodes combined to make like a movie, just doesn't seem right without the proper background knowledge of the characters. Without it, you can't really appreciate this anime.

As for the DVD, since this was a TV series based in the early 90's, you can't expect top notch anime compared to movies or OAV's but you get to watch a series created by cels instead of the typical comptuer animation used in anime today.

As for audio, the digital 5.1 has an awesome track but since I'm a Japanese language purists, I rather watch the series in that format via English subtitles but I did switch time from time to hear the 5.1 track which was really good.

As for special features, there's a photo gallery and character bio information and of course the typical Manga trailers they include on every DVD.

All in all "Ghost Sweeper Mikami" is a great series that was intended for people to watch the television series and enjoy the character development with each episode not by skipping to the final two episodes of the TV series and then enjoying it from there. It just doesn't seem right. The series is quite entertaining but to watch the final two episodes, I'm not sure if the viewer who hasn't watched the previous episodes can truly enjoy or appreciate this entertaining series.

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