Japanese Ghost Stories!
Three Very Different Anime Series On the Spirit World
Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day (2011)
Format: TV Series
Director: Tatsuyuki Nagai
Writer: Mari Okada
Where to watch: Netflix
If you are looking for a good ghost story you can binge in a weekend, this sad but also uplifting little show is a perfect choice. Aside from it being a solid, heartfelt drama about growing up and dealing with loss, the portrayal of the ghost creatively uses details that seem to come straight from real life stories of paranormal experiences.
The story follows a group of childhood friends who drifted apart after the sudden death of their friend, Menma. Now teenagers, each of them are still dealing with the trauma in their own way. Jinta (one of the teens) believes imagining seeing the ghost of Menma is just his way of processing his grief. Spoiler alert: it actually IS Menma’s ghost who is trying to get something she never got, and she can’t remember what it is, but the one thing she knows for sure is she needs all of them back together to get it! (I mean, I’m getting all teary just writing this. HOW DO YOU DO IT, JAPAN??)
Side note: I actually watched this one last fall, so I rewatched the first episode as a refresher. It’s as emotionally touching as I remember it, but I do admire anime’s ever present obsession with teenage hormones and—more specifically—girls’ boobs. Right out of the gate there is the most unnecessary boob comment overheard by the main character. It’s almost as if they just wanted to get that important priority knocked out right away so the story could continue. Anyway, if you are new to anime like I was a few years ago (and this isn’t a complaint), those Japanese artists tend to make one thing clear: boobs rule.
Toilet-Bound Hanako-Kun (2020)
Format: TV Series
Director: Masaomi Andō
Writer: Yasuhiro Nakanishi
Where to watch: Hulu, Crunchyroll
Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun is about as poor a title as I can imagine whether you are speaking English or Japanese. (To explain, it’s about a ghost who haunts a bathroom stall in a high school connected to the spirit world by seven demonic beings. What more do you need to know?)
Despite its humor being clearly geared toward a younger audience, this anime still had some redeeming qualities. Mainly the art direction. The show uses modern technology to bring the aesthetics of paper manga to life. Vibrant colors, textures, patterns, “hand drawn” ink lines of varying weights, and comic frames within frames all make it (at the very least) fun to look at. But if that’s not something you’re into, I doubt many grown people my age will make it as far as I did through this one—even if ghosts are your thing.
I will suffer through a lot in some animes (Demon Slayer) to appreciate the parts I enjoy, but sometimes the scales lean a little too far toward the overly childish humor and cringey moments. This is one of those cases, so just giving you fair warning: if it’s your thing, you may love it, but if it’s not, that’s okay. I will not judge you either way.
In/Spectre (2019)
Format: TV Series
Director: Keiji Gotoh
Writer: Noboru Takagi
Where to watch: HBO Max, Crunchyroll
Okay, so if you’re one of the new-to-anime types, and you made it through the above options, I thought I’d throw in a more adult, advanced-anime-watcher option. I started watching this one because it said it had a ghost in it, but I was completely unprepared for the assault of anime insanity that came next. Here’s just a sampling:
Teenage girl is turned into a Goddess of Wisdom because spirit world creatures cut off her leg and took her eye. Now both prosthetic.
This beret wearing Goddess of Wisdom has a crush on a dude who is secretly—or not so secretly—immortal himself after eating the flesh of a mermaid
There’s a serial killing ghost on the rampage smashing people with a steel construction beam. She has no face and—you guessed it—enormous boobs!
After getting about two episodes in, I wasn’t sure I would make it much further because the humor and character interactions were annoying, but something about the strange premise kept me hanging on to see where the whole thing was going.
So I stuck with it and began to figure out that Kotoko (the Goddess of Wisdom) is a sort of genius Sherlock Holmes character who figures out crimes. So this is an anime about how she’s going to solve a series of murders, right? WRONG!
Lest we forget, unlike Scooby Doo, anime ghosts are actual ghosts, so the problem isn’t who is the real murderer—the problem is who created the spirit murdering people and how can we kill it with some good old fashioned brain games!
Sound impossible? Well, Japanese anime just said, “Hold my biru.”
After wading through forest spirits, demon fights, eating mermaids, and crappy relationship antics between Kotoko and Kuro, somewhere in the last 4 or 5 episodes the story’s hidden genius starts to appear. Without giving too much away, Kotoko’s problem solving skills don’t just propose multiple possible solutions to the same crime, but instead, the entire ending becomes a brilliant commentary on our modern Internet society.
As weird as it is, it somehow works, and it is a humble reminder Japanese people like writing some smart shit. Just be sure it comes with violence, boobs, and demons fights.
BONUS ANIME GHOST!!!
When Marnie Was There (2014)
Format: Movie
Director: Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Writer: Masashi Andō, Keiko Niwa, Hiromasa Yonebayashi
Based on book by: Joan G. Robinson
Where to watch: HBO Max
This ghost story is a movie, not a series, produced by the famed Studio Ghibli. The story follows a teenage girl, Anna, who is struggling with low self esteem and the confusing emotions she is feeling about growing up in foster care. After having an asthma attack, her doctor prescribes her to spend the summer in a place with cleaner air, and she is sent to stay in a rural seaside town with relatives of her foster mother. Close by is an old mansion that Anna explores on her own where she meets a young girl, Marnie, and guess what? Turns out there’s ghosts!
Okay, I’m making it sound more trite than it is, but I don’t want to spoil anything because like a lot of these animes, right when you think you know what it’s about, it can turn into something very different. This story starts off seeming like a normal ghost story, but it becomes something much sweeter by the end.
Plus, like Anohana, these writers approach the mechanics of how the spirit world interacts with our own in a very thoughtful and creative way that makes it feel mysterious and yet somehow logical and true. As a result, you can forget thinking about how it works and just be drawn into the characters’ story. So if you are in the mood to spill out those giant, glassy Studio Ghibli tears, this movie is just what the Japanese doctor ordered.
Sterling Martin is an artist and designer living in Chicago, IL. His background includes drawing, writing, theatre, teaching, improv & sketch comedy, and whatever else he can get his hands on to be creative. You can find him on the internet at:
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