“Sleeptalking”
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)
The season draws to a close with this episode and we get something that feels pretty similar to a lot of what we’ve gotten. Here, we focus on a college student talking bout his childhood with a friend. Kido’s got a good memory for his past and since it’s late he opts to crash with his friend rather than hit the streets. What he discovers is that his friend does a lot of sleeptalking looking for something and that kept Kido up all night, which he relates to him in the morning. That leaves Kido’s friend feeling pretty out of sorts with what he’s learned and what it might explain, so he sets up a camera to record himself at night. He sees himself looking for something intently through the whole apartment, making an intense mess, and the ramped up nature of how he feels is stressing him out watching it, which turns surreal when he starts to hear Kido’s voice and we see Kido disappear on the picture that he has of him.
In Summary:
Though the why of much of the episodes of this season, this episode included, were hidden, what we got was something that delivered a good bit of tension and curiosity through it. It wasn’t a show where I was looking to see the monsters or the murders happen and so forth. The mystery and uncertainty worked really well and as each episode revealed itself, I enjoy the slow but steady descent into madness that most of the cast went through. This episode mirrored a lot of the season and it delivered what I was looking for, especially after the previous season didn’t have much to offer with good chills and quiet horror.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
