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Apr 14, 2017 4:48 PM

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May 2012
25829
That ending was brilliant! Pretty lovely last episode of this pretty creepy yet hilarious series!
May 26, 2017 2:13 AM
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May 2017
4
Finished 3 seasons, that was a hell of an ending and I have a theory

The storytelling is said to be an anthology series, but I think it's not the case at all. It's sort of like a mask for the show if you will.

No doubt the horror and the individual stories are great, but in my opinion this has a main storyline to it, sprinkled throughout 3 seasons in a very subtle but brilliant way. You only notice it if you pay attention and add together a few things (well not really hard since this is a short series).

Our main character is the boy we meet in S3 finale. He is the Yamishibai guy in the golden demon mask, he's the Thirteenth one (I don't know if 13 is a symbolic number in Japan as well or not). The boy form is just a disguise, if you watch the S2 outros the guy reveals how he really looks (Or, if the boy is his true form then he just uses the demon face to further freak people out).

If you played Alan Wake, you had these "artists" who could materialize whatever they wrote (for example songs became true, or in case of the main character, what he wrote as a story came true) and bring these materialized things through sort of a portal in form of a lake.

Same goes for our main character here. Many people who watch it think "oh, so he draws those demons and they appear" but it's actually more than that.

If you watch the episode "That Side" (actually a really strange, unusual but insightful episode even for Yamishibai) it's established that demons come from "That Side" and want people to go from "This Side" to "That Side". Remember the theme song for S3? Friends from that side (All those demons, Hair, the water lady etc. living in "That Side") come over to this side (the humans world, not sure if Japan only or the whole world "This Side", to take over, kill, eat, wreak havoc or just create chaos), Friends from this side (us humans) go over to that side (the demons world, to be turned into demons like the Rat lady, suffer, or just be eaten).

Turns out, our main character who's an "artist", is the key in achieving that. He has the ability to create a pathway, like a portal for these demons to come through. His motivations aren't clear but I think he does it out of pure amusement. He's bored and clearly enjoys chaos and people suffering. Doesn't want to draw normal, beautiful things like the teacher because he thinks it's boring. Instead he creates the demons. He also enjoys to terrify, or even transform other kids with the help of his stories so he starts this Yamishibai storytelling everywhere where are kids.

The 12 other masks (as seen in S2 outro, they talk) go up to him one by one and whisper to him. Every episode in S3 there are crazier demons which are the suggestions of each mask. In the finale there isn't a 13th mask but it's revealed that the boy is the Thirteenth, the Yamishibai guy.

Damn if that's not masterful storytelling, nothing is. Or am I seeing too much into it? Go ahead and prove me wrong if I did

TL;DR: Yamishibai guy from the intro, or the young boy from S3 finale is actually the main character in this series which is not actually an anthology. Creates a path for different demons to come to our world which are in every episode, because he enjoys the chaos and the demons want it. He uses these as stories to freak children out
Jul 11, 2017 2:22 PM

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Jan 2015
1515
This was a very good episode wrapped up things nicely, it explained why monsters didnt look realistic and looked childish (because its a child drawing them) explained how monsters just appeared what seems like out of nowhere (he drawed them) I like how we got to see all youkais all together to refresh out memory of what we faced.
That phone-man was pretty scary.
Dec 7, 2017 4:28 AM
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Jan 2011
28
Lots of people here dropped the series too soon, not realizing the reason why we had monster of the week episodes that seemed lackluster this season. Most of them had amazing build up, just to end unsatisfactory. That is because 3rd season is about the storyteller and his backstory. It's about him as a kid. As he matures and gets older, his stories and imagination improves, resulting in better stories as we've seen in 1st two seasons. I too, as a kid, preferred monster stories and found them scary, just to switch to psychological horror later when I grew up a bit. Just like storyteller.

I loved how the series tells its story not only through episodes, but through opening and ending as well. From the opening we get a hint he is sending his human friends from this side to other and his demon friends from the other side to our world.
And from the ending we see he was the 13th shouting head, one of the demons. Probably the main one and the other 12 were his apostles since we witnessed him invoking them in the last episode to take away the teacher.

Amazing storytelling indeed.
May 27, 2018 7:50 PM

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Apr 2018
68
That was a nice twist. This episode alone saved the whole season.
Jan 15, 2019 8:34 PM
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Aug 2017
68
I regret my rating of this episode already. I ended up loving it! I love how it ended the season perfectly. Creepy kids are creepy
Mar 28, 2019 12:19 PM

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Nov 2009
202
Terrible season 5/10. Hopefully subsequent seasons will return to the charm and horror that the first season had. Not giving up on it yet.
May 30, 2019 10:02 AM
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Jan 2017
704
what the fuck with the nding,, the drawing bow was the masked man huh.. and its very interesting when see the terror like this hmm good enought 710
Jun 11, 2019 5:28 PM

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Oct 2015
6916
I liked how they merged the boy in the opening to this last episode. I thought he was just that, an opening material but I guess he had a story line. That was impressive. But the repetitive ending didn't impress nor scare me. Poor Teacher though, she just started for goodness sake.

Overall this wasn't a Good season at all, the worst one was where the boys were on a field trip and the other was telling his friends about a bizarre dream he had. But all of them weren't good and were mostly mediocre. You should see the swimming pool monster at episode 12, it's so mediocre you would barf!

6/10.
How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb --- Dr Strangelove

Jul 6, 2019 5:48 PM

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Sep 2008
11495
Great way to end this season. I've been enjoying all 3 seasons so far. Always interesting to see what new stories they come up with.
Nov 9, 2019 1:08 AM

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Nov 2013
974
Pretty lame season but this final episode was just outstanding.
Jun 1, 2021 5:59 PM

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Feb 2014
7792
Ok, this episode actually explaines where all those monsters with seemingly no backstory or origin whatsoever came from, definitely a season saving episode.
Sep 27, 2021 5:17 PM
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Jul 2020
2
Punkero said:
Ok, this episode actually explaines where all those monsters with seemingly no backstory or origin whatsoever came from, definitely a season saving episode.


I second this the last episode made the rest of the season clearer
Dec 27, 2021 5:41 AM

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Feb 2020
95021
It was nice to see the storyteller again, but this season was still pretty weak.
Jan 11, 2022 10:28 AM

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Feb 2021
22943
That was hands-down the best episode of this season. The twist at the end lol. It was the fricking masked story teller all along!
◑ ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐
"Everything I've witnessed... This whole system you have built has always rejected me. Now I'm ready to reject it. That's why I destroy. That's why I took this power for myself. Simple enough, yeah? I don't care if you don't understand... That's what makes us... Heroes and Villains."
◑ ━━━━━ ▣ ━━━━━ ◐
Oct 17, 2022 3:39 PM
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Mar 2019
9103
Complete series of Monster Scares.
Jul 9, 2023 8:51 PM

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May 2021
33
I don't want to be too harsh but I really tried to enjoy this season it just didn't work for me, most of the episodes seemed too ridiculous or over the top.
I think I only liked the one with the taxidermy and the one with the handshake man, other than that not too much to highlight, maybe say that the outro song was cool and the settings themselves were creepy just not the plot that accompanied it.
                                                                       
Jul 11, 2023 8:58 PM
Deadhead

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Dec 2018
3808
I thought it was cool this last episode explained why the original storyteller wasn’t there, so the kid telling the stories the whole time IS the storyteller we know, right? That’s what I got from it lol, but rip that teacher tho, she got assaulted by every monster in the season lol. I didn’t find the episode scary but it was cool for story, and that final scene was also trippy.

But with that, Season 3 of Yamishibai is done, I finished it in 3 days I think, I would have taken it slower but I’m trying to catch up to the newest season at a decent pace. And comparing this to previous seasons, I think I like it slightly more than Season 2 but it’s not as good as Season 1, but it was still a good time.

This season seemed to be focused more of monsters and body horror, which also kinda reflects it’s all being done by a kid lol, i though a lot of them were interesting but some didn’t quite hit, one that didn’t for me was “In the Water”, I felt the execution was kinda weak in that one but the concept was good. If I had to pick favorites from this one, I think I’d go with “Lend It To Me”, “Tunnel”, “The Fourth Man”, and “Merry-go-round”, those all did cool stuff and were either scary or creepy. The ED this time was good too although I do miss Miku lol.
Oct 2, 2023 9:17 AM
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Oct 2023
2
the kid from the opening and the monsters of the season, best episode of the serie for now
Oct 2, 2023 9:18 AM
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Oct 2023
2
s2 is weak, this is slightly better 7/10
Nov 3, 2023 8:08 AM

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Jul 2011
1086
The is a pretty cool episode and I liked the twist and the fact the ending with the additional head every episode turned out to be relevant was fun.

Unfortunately, this last episode doesn't salvage the rest of the season which is just meh and random.
Still, it does end on a relatively high note.
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