By: Justin Dedrick
Ghost Stories is a Japanese anime by the animation studio Pierrot and Aniplex released in 2000. Originally voiced in Japanese, the show follows 4 friends and their possessed cat trying to hunt down ghosts and spirits and put them to spiritual sleep. They combine their ghost hunting adventures with school activities, and are often drawn to the old haunted schoolhouse next door. The main character, Satsuki, uses her moms old diary to learn how to defeat the ghosts, many of which are based on stories from Japanese folklore and culture.
The show was a massive flop. Its serious tone and lack of humor in the original version led to it being considered a failure on all levels. In 2005, the show was picked up by ADV Studios for an English dubbing, and everything changed drastically.
ADV Studios had very little supervision or rules for their English dubbing. All they were told was to keep the names of characters and ghosts the same, and stick to the base idea of the plot. The rest of the script was entirely left up to the studio and they were told to “do whatever it took to sell the show”. The director, Steven Foster, decided to turn Ghost Stories into a Gag Dub by tossing out almost all of the original script and improvising it into a comedy.
It became a show filled with dark humor, offensive jokes, fourth wall breaking, and pop culture references from the time. According to the director, whichever voice actor arrived to work first got to set the tone for the day, and the other voice actors followed. That led to chaotic episodes with drastic changes in humor and jokes from episode to episode. They continued to push the boundaries of the jokes they could make, and it seemed like every episode had another jaw dropping moment that would never be allowed on TV today.
They took a horrible show with low expectations and turned it into one of the funniest anime and shows of all time. They pushed the boundaries of the creative freedom they were given and treated the production as a complete joke, which of course, it was. Every episode is full of improvised jokes and lines which keep viewers on their toes.
Today, Ghost Stories has become a cult classic for comedy and anime fans alike. Clips from the shows English Dub go viral on the internet and you have likely seen a clip from the show before now knowing where it came from or that it was a real unedited clip from a real Dub. The jokes are too offensive and dark for me to put them into this article, but there are plenty of Ghost Stories funny moments compilations to search for and I highly recommend doing so if you ever need a good laugh.
If you want to watch Ghost Stories in full, Crunchyroll and Amazon Prime Video carry the Dub in its full 20 episode length. My only advice before watching: go in expecting the worst show of all time, and you’ll end up loving every minute of it.