Anime for this Spooky time of the Year

By Luiggi Cavanna

Halloween is around the corner and we all are in a nice spooky mood to watch nice spooky anime. For that reason, I decided to make a nice spooky list of things to watch, well, maybe not that spooky but definitely, it will have some paranormal things in it.  Now without further ado, let’s just jump right in.

Hyouka is not a Spooky anime, it is a good detective/mystery one though… Let’s just move on.

I want to make this list a bit different so I might not feature the anime that you might expect. So no “Another” or any of the “Blood” anime, Vampire Hunter D, Hellsing,  you know, the usual stuff. That being said let’s start with….

Bakemonogatari

Well, the whole Monogatari series in general, but if we’re going to start somewhere let’s do it with the one that says “Monster” (Bakemono) in the title. I’m just going to put this out there, this is one of my favorite titles. It’s a hard recommendation though, it’s not for everybody. The Monogatari series is heavy in dialogue, a matter of fact, the meat of the show is in the dialogue. Especially the banters between Araragi and Hitagi are delightful to watch.

The series revolves around our protagonist Koyomi Araragi, that constantly finds himself trying to help girls from his school with their paranormal problems. Perhaps this is due to the fact that he had a previous encounter with the supernatural that left him a quarter vampire. Araragi can’t help himself but help others with “oddities” as the show calls them.

It’s ok, Araragi knows a guy.

The most interesting part of the Monogatari series is the deconstruction of tropes. Nisioisin is one of my favorite writers and the way he survives in this light novel environment where the public just consumes the tropes like water. He gives us that but not at all. For example, you could say that Hitagi is a “Tsundere”, she even refers to herself as a tsundere, but using that stereotype to refer to herself should be a clue that there’s something else to it. The tsundere title is just a mask that she uses to cover up the real reason of why she behaves the way she does with people.

The characters in this stories seem to be your stereotypical anime heroines, but deep down they have their reasons for acting in certain ways. They are real people with very human problems and those problems are the ones that connect them to their respective oddities.

And everyone has problems!!

I can’t recommend this show enough but I can understand if you’re intimidated by how many parts it has, Nekomonogatari, Nisemonogatari, etc etc. Let me tell you something, start with Bakemonogatari and if you can survive the lengthy dialogue, the flashing letters, and the shaft head tilts, you will enjoy the rest of the series.

Studio Shaft really loves their head tilts yo!

Also if you managed to go pass Bakemonogatari you’ll be able to experience the spookiness that it is spooky Ougi!

Spooky Ougi is spooky!!

The next series is an old one, matter of fact, I had to go rewatch it because for the life of me I couldn’t remember anything about it. I stopped watching after episode 2 because I told myself, “I’m going to watch this on Halloween”.

Boogiepop Phantom.

Boogiepop Phantom is an anime based on a series of light novel of the same name that could be considered the granddaddy of light novels like Bakemonogatari. The story takes places a long time after a strange pillar of light appeared in the city one night, and a series of murders as well. The anime follows an array of different characters, mostly high school students because of anime, and their experiences with abnormal situations. Most of these abnormal situations involve the disappearance of students in mysterious ways, and mostly everybody blames these disappearances on the urban legend Boogiepop.

She doesn’t look that bad.

First, let me tell you, this is old. Like, remember when you used to watch TV and your image was a square? Yeah, that old. Like good old anime of yesteryears, this show gets weird, like really weird! A fun thing about the show is that the stories of the characters overlap with each other, for that reason you’ll see some repeating scenes, but from a different perspective. Don’t worry though, doesn’t matter from what angle you see something, things will still be freaking weird!

I mean, this dude is eating ghost spiders that he pulls out of people's hearts!

This a perfect show in which you can grab a friend and ask “hey you wanna watch something and get weirded out for Halloween?”. Well enough of that, the next show I’m going to talk about is super cute, and you know what that means right?

DON’T F’ING TRUST IT!!

Gakkou Gurashi!! If Madoka Magica, and most recently Made in Abyss, has taught you something, it should be... don’t trust in cute sh’t!! Unfortunately, a lot of people passed on this show just for its looks, and it’s hard to try to recommend this show without spoiling what it is about. This show relies on the shock of a major plot twist. Fortunately, unlike Madoka Magica where the twist comes in episode three, we get the shocking revelation on episode one!

Look how cute the character design is, but there’s something odd about this scene.

The show is about a group of girls that belong to the “School Live” club. What does the club do? Well, they stay in school and live there. Why do they have to live in the school? You would like to know that wouldn’t ya? At first glance, this anime is just a slice of life about cute girls doing cute things. The show does its best to portrait that image throughout episode one, but if you are observant, you will notice clues to the true nature of the show. That is cute girls doing cute things because what other choice do they have.

This chick carries a shove around 24/7, that’s flipping weird right!?l

You’ll have to trust me on this one. I can’t say much without ruining the show for you, matter of fact, I think I already said way too much because now you know something is up with this anime.

Forget I said anything, their biggest problem is when the dog

starts running around like crazy.

So do you have a show that you’re going to watch during Halloween? Are you just going to stuff your face with lots of candy? Let us know. Now I return to the deepest darkest corners of my dwelling. Good-bye, for now, my friends.

Have a spooky good time!!