Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories
Anime That Deserve a Live-Action Netflix Adaptation
Horror anthologies used to be extremely popular. The kid-friendly Are You Afraid Of The Dark, the campy Tales from the Crypt, and the cerebral The Twilight Zone – they were all designed around the premise of scaring audiences in new ways every episode. Even the Halloween movie franchise was originally intended to be an anthology of scary Halloween-themed movies. But, for one reason or another, horror anthologies have fallen out of favor. However, shows such as Yamishibai keep the horror anthology genre alive. Each episode tells a different scary story that earns its frights rather than just rely on jump scares and loud noises.
Yamishibai is a treat for horror fans, but it has one major flaw: the art direction. The show utilizes barely-animated images in front of static backgrounds that emulate its namesake: kamishibai (literally puppet play). It’s a very Japanese method of storytelling that doesn’t resonate with everyone in the West. But, Yamishibai still tells some very scary stories, an impressive feat given each episode is less than five minutes long. A live-action adaptation of Yamishibai would be perfect for Netflix. Imagine it: an entire season of scary, live-action shorts you can binge in the amount of time it takes to watch an episode of Stranger Things. I’ve got goosebumps already.
