“Manga Cafe”
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 not exactly a meta piece it’s always a bit fun when pieces of the hobby make it into the show, such as this episode focusing on a manga cafe. The focus is on a young man who works in a manga cafe and has a woman that comes in looking for something but she’s presented in such an intriguing obscured way that you can’t help but be drawn to it. That she essentially hangs around in the place, walking down the aisles and just coming across in a creepy way is effective and it sets a mild panic into our shopkeeper combined with the rumors and urban legend material that his coworker tells him, all while looking nervous. It’s a good setup to amp up the tension along the way and put our lead into a panicked state that’s almost self-generated.
In Summary:
The visual design of this episode worked better for me than I expected, especially considering it’s not really animated in the traditional sense but moved around still images that are updated. The young woman was positively creepy from the first moment and I liked seeing how that played out with more just the idea of her presence stimulating the tension and fear combined with what the coworker presented. It has a good buildup to it and the payoff is pretty decent overall, but it was the escalating tension that really worked for me.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
