“Notice of Termination of Service”
What They Say:
Yamishibai is a picture-story style of animation whose motif is surrounded and based on the rumors, and urban legends throughout the history of Japan.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While skipping a few seasons of this means that I’m not seeing repetition within the show, being a mild fan of Japanese horror means a lot of this is way too familiar to begin with. What we do get are the pieces that feel just new or different enough in the modern sense to really connect. Such is the case of the salaryman here who is away on business a lot here and is on a trip where on the way to his hotel comes across a funeral. There’s a dark air to the town in general and he’s feeling like this place is very off in a lot of ways he can’t quite pin down. The slow foreboding aspect is nicely handled, especially when he gets a termination notice left in his room and it doesn’t seem like it makes much sense to him. It takes an even darker turn when the TV is just filled with noise before shifting to showing the recently departed and it telling him that it’s time to say goodbye…
In Summary:
The episode raises the tension quickly and pushes our salaryman into a panic surprisingly fast but everything keeps mounting in ways that push at him psychologically pretty hard. Though it plays to expectations in most ways, it’s watching that build work from the quiet foreboding elements at the start to when it shifts into hard and fast, breaking him down. It certainly will play on the fears of those who dislike the noises and sounds of a hotel where you aren’t quite sure what’s what.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
