Uchida Shungicu no Noroi no One-Piece

A pretty unremarkable horror anthology, but one I ended really liking it because it's so charming. The three stories focus on three unrelated teenagers as they get haunted by a dress. All three stories also tackle problems teenage girls might face, especially relating to parental authority.

The OVA mostly has a very pastel, very soft, very shojo color palette, but it's not scared to go darker and harsher for its scarier scenes, which makes for an interesting contrast that is rarely seen in horror. The character animation is expressive and full of personality

The whole OVA is very SFW, so don't go expecting any blood and gore. ... The first and third stories are pretty good, they feel like unnerving urban legends. But the second story's plot twist is flat out kinda terrifying, it was easily the anime's highlight

The stories are a bit too short (the longest only clocks in at 8 minutes), the characters are all very shallow and it's by no means a masterpiece, but you should give this a try if you like comfy, mostly generic horror stories told in a comfy, somewhat unique way

Not super scary and not super impactful, but it has its own charm. It's a pretty short watch that showcases the struggles of young girls; particularly, the desire to be desirable.

The plot wasn't anything groundbreaking, it was pretty predictable for the most part. Due to the short episode lengths though, things tend to escalate really quickly. I wasn't bothered by the simple stories because the episodes are short enough that it doesn't really matter.

The characters weren't so much characters as archetypes, used to represent different types of girls who all ultimately face the same emotional turbulence due to their environments. Despite the lack ... of character development, though, they all felt very realistic (further pushing the idea that they're supposed to represent girls as a whole).

Overall: Straightforward, solid, worth a watch.

I can't help but wonder if the object of the horror on display, a yellow dress, fretted with red roses, was given this color as a nod to the Victorian short story The Yellow Wallpaper. It was about a lady cooped up in a room by her husband, writing diary entries that gradually become madder, as she displays her obsession with the texture, color, and smell of the peeling yellow wallpaper in the room. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story was a bland feminist-oriented psychological "horror" short story that has remained influential in literature and english classes.

This TV special omnibus of three shorts, around 6-8 minutes apiece, ... doesn't possess the pioneering tedium of the aforementioned story and is another cursed item horror, though instead of being merely psychological, there is a ghostly presence and supernatural aura. The dress acts something like a parasite, making the girls beautiful to would-be suitors but bringing out either terrible aspects of their personality, becoming a cause of fear and anxiety, or a catalyst for obsession and tragedy. It's dull, plodding, and repetitive, but the psychological aspects lend the coming of age elements a degree of depth.

More importantly, there are incredible aesthetic touches, which the staff employ wonderfully to create atmosphere and reinforce the psychological elements. Different moods are created by using a mixture of vignetting, monochrome, and experiments with color and shading. Characters and objects are often isolated against a dark or bright background to add emphasis, usually accompanied by eerie sound design and positioned around heavier moments in the narrative. The ghost is presented as a disintegrating silhouette. They'll take time to show the reflection of background animation in the closeups of eyes. Psychedelic swirls of color will spiral onto the screen, often forming a rose or breaking into petals, reminding us of the dread of the dress that seems to always appear and seemingly can't be gotten rid of, each short building upon the last, the dress becoming more ravenous, even predatory, as ridiculous as that sounds.

Therein lies the main problem. While the omnibus has sort of a spooky atmosphere, decent psychological musings, and a few striking bursts of stylized art and animation, it's still just a fucking ghost dress, preying upon thinly characterized archetypes. These shorts are too basic, although the merging of sound design, writing, and imagery combine in the concluding episode, providing a much-needed touch of emotion, though far too late. This is a pretty pointless collection of shorts. I'd suggest Yumemakura Baku Twilight Gekijou instead, as the shorts are more solid, distinct, and possess a stronger aesthetic, often pushed to greater heights with an even more expressionistic animation style.