“Sairen Station”
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)
As we get closer to the end of the season, the show delivers another bit of disturbing material. This time, the episode introduces us to two men together that went to check out the abandoned Sairen Station rail section where there’s a mystery and myth about it and how it’s connected to reconnecting with past loves. We see some of this happen for the man being introduced to the place, and highlighting the love that left him years ago, and the way that this makes a real impact on him. While not completely believing in things, he ends up trying to reconnect by leaving something at the station that will draw her back to him but it instead he learns that she had died some time prior, which now has her haunting and coming after him in the afterlife as she’s drawn to him now…
In Summary:
Watching as the main character her panics about everything and realizes that he’s opened up something bad by trying to get her back, it works well to hit the right kind of scares at the end after building the tension that it needs to. It’s got the right kind of horror and delivers a pretty solid experience in a short amount of time. It could be refined a bit more structurally, such as how long she’s been gone in both senses, but overall it works and is a bit more memorable than a lot of other episodes this season.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
