Gakkou no Kaidan

Years ago, all of the ghosts in a haunted schoolhouse were banished by a certain student. Now, they're back—and they want revenge...

Satsuki and Keiichirou Miyanoshita are two siblings recovering from the tragic loss of their mother. After moving to their mother's hometown, they learn that the local school they have transferred to is an old building—one said to be haunted. Despite initially brushing it off as a silly rumor, the two soon discover that ghosts are indeed real and that they're after them! Gakkou no Kaidan is the creepy tale of the lives of these siblings and their newfound friends as they try to survive the school's ghosts—with a little help from their pet cat along the way.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Amanojaku Main

Nakao, Ryusei Japanese

Koigakubo, Momoko Main

Sakuma, Kumi Japanese

Miyanoshita, Keiichirou Main

Mamiya, Kurumi Japanese

Aoyama, Hajime Main

Honda, Takako Japanese

Miyanoshita, Satsuki Main

Kawakami, Tomoko Japanese

Kakinoki, Reo Main

Tsumura, Makoto Japanese

Imai, Mio Supporting

Nakayama, Sara Japanese

Okabe Supporting

Saiga, Mitsuki Japanese

Sakata Supporting

Aoyama, Yutaka Japanese

Datto Supporting

Uechi, Aki Japanese

Katsumata, Hideo Producer

Hagino, Ken Producer

Abe, Noriyuki Director, Sound Director

Kosaka, Harume Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Aug 23, 2024

kozad

Recommended

This is a terrible anime. It's fkn bad. But, hear me out, watch the English dub! The US studio got permission to do whatever they'd like with it as long as they kept a few things from the Japanese version intact. The cast took a terrible anime and made it into a campy comedy firmly belonging to the 2000s. Sure, in 2024, it's not nearly as funny as it was 15 years prior. Society's norms have changed and several of the punchlines are literally dead people now (making it harder for younger folks to get the jokes), but this perfectly encapsulates the 2000s weeb culture ... and the era's Adult Swim demographic too in a very satirical way. It's a rare example of the dub being far superior to the sub. 😂 Honestly, "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" and the Grand Theft Auto 4 and 5 "Princess Robot Bubblegum" satire anime are the closest parallels I can think of for the uninitiated. You'll start the anime and be like, "This is stupid af" but then you'll find yourself growing invested with a story that makes no sense.
Given some of the nasty language used, it's probably not something everyone will like today - there are r-words, f-slurs, n-words, k-words... It's spicy, and I'd be amazed if any of the voice actors still get work today. But that terrible crap is *not* what makes it funny, it's the absurdity of the entire experience. If you can bring yourself to look past the worst elements of the dub, you'll probably enjoy it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 23, 2024

Cristina_G

Mixed Feelings

Ok it gets a 5 for the original work but my review is about the translation. If you’re fine with it you’ll have no trouble finding the series online but if you’re after the real deal, after ep.4 the subs are horrible. There’s no translation that’s faithful to the original, subs or dubs, except for a version I found dubbed in Hindi but subbed in English (still preferable to said nonsense but only the first 10 eps were done) or unless you torrent it.

They simply copied the dubs’ script and it sounds WRONG. It’s like bad Saturday morning kid’s TV dubbed by the “American ... Dad” crew. They replaced the dialogues with all sorts of sex & drugs’ allusions, bad Jesus and American celeb jokes and inappropriate, bad taste nonsense.

This usually doesn’t faze me if it’s original script but the series is rated PG-13 and I find it disgusting that they thought it’s funny to put such words in the mouths of the children (4 to 9yr-olds). It's like the English script was written by an over-hormonal teen trying too hard to act cool. They completely destroyed and took out all the heart and soul of the story, made the kids nasty, dirty mouthed and the adults a bunch of pervs and morons.

It gives a bad name to Japanese animé. Apparently it’s supposed to be funny but the only people this will appeal to are immature juveniles, people with the mental age of frat party boys, jocks & their groupies, and kids who just discovered they can swear when mom’s not around. It’s irritating and very distracting.
I’m disappointed that the Japanese owners threw this animé to the dogs without a care or respect for its integrity and for the creator’s work.

I already didn’t like dubs because they’re usually a watered down version of the above but this put me off them for good; honestly, the only reason I watched til the end was because I hate leaving things unfinished.

BTW❗️ Some sites have 20 episodes rather than the announced 19❗️This is because there’s a *Special episode* that was inserted on the main collection as ep.19 (*Gakkou no Kaidan: Kubinashi Rider!! Shi no Noroi / Ghost Stories: The Headless Horsemen!! Curse of Death*, 2001)

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Sep 24, 2022

MrConnman123

Not Recommended

Ghost Stories is a weird one, this review isn’t about the show itself but rather its English dub which should be a red-flag straight away.
Y’see, when Ghost Stories was being localized, the localisers basically had full creative control over it, since it was a very Japanese-centric show with heavy themes of Shintoism and whatnot, the chances of it appealing to a western audience were slim (also Steven Foster moment) so they made a gag dub which is praised as being supposedly “hilarious” and a go to example for Redditors defending localisation changes and English dubs.

Thing is …it’s not that funny, don’t get me wrong, it ... definitely has its moments (the lip-flap joke in particular is great) but I feel like most of Ghost Stories’ fanbase came from people who watched compilations on YouTube and not y’know, the actual show…
The actual show only has like 2 or 3 good jokes per episode and that novelty-factor quickly dies when you realize that in-between you just have dated pop-culture references from 2005, a bunch of boring shit, generic sex jokes and laughably out of date internet memes which almost loops back around to being ironically funny…almost…

But even then I’m just not a fan of localisation changes from a fundamental level, I’m someone who believes in preserving artistic vision and integrity no matter how lacklustre or subpar it may be.
Not to mention how the localisers basically had to lie about the show being a flop in Japan in order to paint the dub in a good light, it also gave the English-speaking anime community the idea that the original Japanese version is some kind of infamously terrible anime, now I can't say either way since I haven't seen the original Japanese version but I feel that it's un-fair that the original show has such a terrible reputation arbitrarily.

Now there’s an argument that could be made saying that the show is better off being remembered for being terrible than being forgotten and fading into obscurity but personally I think it would’ve been better off having been forgotten rather than having lies spread about it and a mostly unfunny dub that shits all over the artistic vision made by people who probably have Ukrainian flags in their Twitter bios.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Gakkou no Kaidan Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) neji64plms - Aug 12, 2010	73 replies	by Devonnius »» Oct 9, 7:52 PM
	Poll: Gakkou no Kaidan Episode 8 Discussion stand - Oct 22, 2013	16 replies	by InClouseau »» Sep 18, 12:58 PM
	Poll: Gakkou no Kaidan Episode 11 Discussion Ranivus - Mar 28, 2010	29 replies	by ArctiKFox »» Sep 18, 4:37 AM
	Poll: Gakkou no Kaidan Episode 10 Discussion stand - Oct 22, 2013	25 replies	by ArctiKFox »» Sep 18, 3:33 AM
	Poll: Gakkou no Kaidan Episode 9 Discussion Ranivus - Mar 28, 2010	46 replies	by ArctiKFox »» Sep 18, 12:25 AM

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