NOTE: This review focuses primarily on the English dubbed version of this anime. If you want more detail on the Japanese version of Ghost Stories, please have a look at (currently) the only other review of this series, written by maceart.
Animation:Ghost Stories aired back in 2000-2001, but you wouldn't guess that from the way that it handles CG. Unlike earlier attempts like Lost Universe and Angel Links to integrate CG with traditional drawing, GS features well-integrated, believable CG for its ghosts, monsters, and supernatural effects. There are also some good 3-D renderings of scrolling hallways as the kids run for their lives. Unfortunately, the animation for everyday scenes isn't quite so impressive, as the school setting allows for plenty of re-used backgrounds and "talking heads" conversations. Character design is mostly okay, except for Leo and his unappealing "big lips" design. A few other flaws occasionally show themselves, like the standard anime "character running but not going anywhere" effect. Overall it's not top-notch animation, but it's not bad enough to make GS less enjoyable either.
Story:Once the general pattern is established, the individual episodes become quite predictable. After the first episode that introduces Satsuki, her brother Keiichirou, their band of friends, and Satsuki's deceased mother's "ghost diary," you know what to expect. Something's weird in the neighborhood or in the old school building, so Satsuki et al. investigate, get chased around a bit, and eventually do some ritual described in the ghost diary to vanquish the threat. To make matters worse, the kids are often bailed out by their unlikely ally Amanojaku, a demon sealed inside the family cat in the first episode. If deus ex machina is "God from the machine," perhaps this recurring device can be called daemon ex machina ? So this episodic structure continues until it's time to fight the final boss in the last episode, with little or no significant rising action to precede it. If this sounds like a Japanese version of Scooby-Doo to you, you're pretty much on the mark, until...
Sound:...you listen to the English audio track. The English dub for Ghost Stories is essentially an official parody dub. ADV decided to give directorial control to Steven Foster, who has been a controversial figure over the years because of his heavily-altered and liberal dubs on series like Generator Gawl, Orphen, and Sorcerer Hunters. Not only that, but the voice actors for the main characters were allowed to ad-lib a significant portion of the lines. The result is a dub that is funnier, more interesting, and more enjoyable than the original Japanese track. Hilary Haag (Satsuki), Monica Rial (Momoko), Chris Patton (Hajime), Greg Ayres (Leo), and Christine Auten (Keiichirou) all turn in great performances, and as another review once said, it's amazing to see what these actors can pull off when they're saying lines that weren't meant to be said in another language.
A good way to describe the scripting in this dub is "heavily Americanized" -- there's a cornucopia of references to various movies, TV shows, celebrities, politicians, and events. A knowledge ADV's "dubbing culture" and of American VAs in general is also helpful. While GS is very much a kids' anime in Japanese, the English dub is full of irreverant, raunchy, politically incorrect humor, as well as plenty of profanity and sexual innuendo that you wouldn't expect from elementary school kids.
And the parody is relentless -- similar to Yugioh! The Abridged Series, GS in English never fails to point out the flaws in the show itself ("Uh, guys, she's looking right at us, I don't think we hid very well!"), the clichés of anime in general ("Man, what happened to my eyes? Damn anime!"), or the many obvious ripoffs of other shows and movies, such as The Ring, Pet Cemetery, Back to the Future, and more.
Other comments on sound: Much like the animation, the background music is good in the scary scenes, but merely adequate elsewhere. The OP is a cute and catchy pop song, but you'll probably want to skip it after a few episodes because it'll get stuck in your head. The ED makes you wonder why they put a song with lyrics like "Sexy Sexy" and "Won't you come to my room?" in a kids' anime. It does work for the "scary" mood though.
Character: (based on English dub version)
We have Satsuki, our fearless leader and main character who takes care of the house and her younger brother in lieu of her deceased mother. Much like her mother, her femininity and heterosexuality are often called into question. While she occasionally breaks down crying, she'll still rise to the challenge and vanquish whatever ghost is causing trouble in a particular episode.
Her brother, Keiichirou, is retarded, dyslexic, you name a learning disability, he's got it. A good 70% of his lines in Japanese are either "Onee-chan!" or "I'm scared!," so in English these are often replaced with a trademarked "Keiichirou Sob."
Their neighbor Hajime is your standard pervy preteen, who never misses an opportunity to peek at girls' panties or otherwise get himself some action, such as his Wednesday usuals with "BJ Bridget" in the woods. When the kids get locked in a PE equipment shed (imagine that!), he makes use of his "big pole" to break them out.
His best friend Leo, is, well, Jewish, and the #1 nerd and "psychical researcher" of the school. Of course, he and his parents fall victim to every Jewish stereotype in the book. Unlike Satsuki, he knows what a scanner is for: uploading pictures to Myspace.com, or jewishnerdslookingforhoochies.org.
Then there's Momoko, the attractive older woman/girl who obtained spiritual powers when she became a born-again Christian. She's got a Bible verse for every situation, and never fails to point out how Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, and unbelievers are headed for eternal damnation. According to her, God rewards the righteous, and that's why her family's loaded.
Last but not least, there's Amanojaku, the demon-in-a-cat who gradually befriends the kids and helps them out of tough spots. This assistance doesn't come without numerous foul-mouthed insults, of course.
Again, these are the characters as seen in the English dub -- they're quite different from their Japanese counterparts (which are as cookie-cutter standard as can be), and there's not very much character development in either language track. So at least ADV gave these static characters a more interesting starting point.
Value:GS has plenty of rewatch value, as I can think of 4 distinct ways to watch it: 1) In Japanese with subtitles (2) In English, no subtitles (3) In English with "dubtitles" that clearly spell out the crazy lines and add even more comedy to the proceedings (4) In English with the "correct" subtitles on so that you can see all the differences. GS is also great for group viewings with friends or at anime clubs; much like the AMV Hell series, it's just more fun with more people. I felt like I got my money's worth in buying the DVDs as they came out, but at this point, ADV has released a thinpack of the whole series that can be found for less than $50, which I highly recommend buying -- if ADV hadn't released GS, nobody aside from those with access to Japanese & other East Asia releases would've been able to see all of it, since it was never completely fansubbed.
Enjoyment:GS gets a 10 from me because there are so many different ways to enjoy it. I laughed my ass off when watching it alone, and even more when I rewatched it at an anime club. I've always loved MST3K and parody movies like Scary Movie, Top Secret!, and Loaded Weapon that rely on extensive knowledge of pop culture, so GS and its references to things as diverse as 1970s songs, the movie AlienS, a Boston MA construction project, the A-Team, and He-Man were comedy gold to me. To pre-emptively answer the critics: yes, I did watch the Japanese version. I didn't dislike it, but it is very much a kids' series, and it's designed for Japanese viewers who have foreknowledge of the ghosts and spirits that appear. For those who lack that cultural background, GS in Japanese is simply harder to enjoy. Aside from that, the Japanese dialogue will be all too familiar and clichéd to those who've seen a lot of anime. Whereas with the English track, you never know what crazy stuff they'll come up with next, thus keeping things interesting. However, the English dub did falter in episode 12, which I found to be emotionally powerful and sad in Japanese. The irreverent dubbing simply did not work in that episode, but a 19/20 success rate isn't too bad.
I know all of this sounds like "OMG ADV totally butchered this show, that lousy dub ruins it," but make no mistake, this dub does not "ruin" anything. This is not a hackjob like Dic's Sailor Moon, Nelvana's Cardcaptors, or 4Kids' One Piece, where they cut out episodes, changed music, edited the video, etc, and didn't release an uncut version If you buy the Ghost Stories DVDs, you will still get the original Japanese language track with a set of correctly-translated subtitles, and there are no alterations to the music or the video. Even in the dub, the basic plot is still the same. So if you don't want to listen to the dub I've described, you don't have to. Let's face it: Ghost Stories, in Japanese, isn't a bad series by any means, but it is not "serious business" high-art masterpiece anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion or Mushi-shi or Haibane Renmei. It's just a series that was made to cash in on the popularity that school ghost stories were enjoying in Japan at the time. So I can't blame ADV for doing this little experiment, because without the parody dub, GS would've gone down as an okay but forgettable series without much to distinguish it from all the other anime out there.