Anime and horror are a match made in heaven. The medium of anime allows for everything from gore-soaked slasher series to surreal nightmares that twist the very nature of reality. While franchises like Higurashi have been able to build up large international fanbases, a lot of horror anime ends up forgotten or unloved.
However, if you want to take a walk on the spooky side this Halloween, here are four horror anime that have been confined to the crypts of obscurity for far too long.
Mononoke
Not to be confused with Hayao Miyazaki's classic film Princess Mononoke, Mononoke was made by Toei Animation and broadcast in 2007. It acted as a spinoff of Toei Animation's 2006 horror anthology series Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales. However, you don't need to have seen Ayakashi to enjoy Mononoke.
It follows a nameless character, only referred to as the Medicine Seller. The Medicine Seller hunts down mononoke, which is an evil spirit that survives by binding itself to negative emotions. However, the Medicine Seller can not simply find and get rid of the being. Before the Medicine Seller can perform the exorcism, they must learn three things about the mononoke: its shape, its truth and its motivation for existing. Once the Medicine Seller knows this, they can draw their sword and exorcise the spirit. Over the course of 12 episodes, the Medicine Seller learns about and deals with five different ghosts, with the tale of each ghost taking two to three episodes.
When it was released, this series was praised for its use of digital animation techniques. Looking like a classical Japanese artwork come to life, the show's use of color and its fantastic blending of the normal and the surreal make it an utter treat for the eyes. These visuals help capture the strange and otherwordly nature of the ghosts and give the series a very unique atmosphere.
Le Portrait de Petit Cossette
Released in 2004, Le Portrait de Petit Cossette is a three-episode OVA series. This series follows young art student Eiri Kurahashi. One day, while working at an antique store, Eiri spots the image of a young girl in a glass. However, this girl is not painted on. She seems to be moving and living her life within the glass. Eiri falls head over heels in love with this strange girl, until one night, Eiri makes contact with her. The girl tells Eiri that her name is Cossette and that she was murdered in the 18th century. Her soul is trapped and she will only be freed when a man willingly takes the punishment her killer deserved.
What follows is a dark and twisted gothic tale as Cossette manipulates Eiri using his infatuation to draw him into a self-destructive spiral as those around him try to free him from Cossette's clutches. The series is dark, atmospheric and deeply disturbing. It focuses on the nature of obsession, revenge and psychological suffering as well as how easily sanity can fray. The show's soundtrack was composed by Yuki Kajiura, and its haunting but catchy melodies are the highlight of this series. It is worth watching the show just to hear the music in its original context.
Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories
Yamishibai first hit screens in 2013 and has now been running for seven seasons. Its animation is designed to emulate traditional kamishibai storytelling -- a type of street performance where a narrator will tell a story and use hand-illustrated boards as a visual aid.
Kamishibai also acts as the show's framing device. Most episodes start with a group of children sitting down to watch a performance by a masked kamishibai narrator whose tales focus on monsters and horror. Each of Yamishibai's episodes only lasts for a couple of minutes, and each one tells a different ghost story, usually drawing from Japanese urban legends or traditional tales.
Crunchyroll has all seven seasons available with English subtitles, making it a fantastic way to get a quick dose of horror whenever you need one. If you love spooky stories or are just fascinated by Japanese urban legends, you should check out Yamishibai. At least one of its tales will be making cameos in your nightmares for weeks to come.
Gregory Horror Show
Gregory Horror Show has been going through a little bit of a resurgence thanks to many popular streamers discovering the PlayStation 2 game and plucking it from obscurity. However, few people know that the game is actually based on an anime. Running from 1999 to 2003, Gregory Horror Show was a CGI anime that was broadcast by TV Asahi. The show had three main series with another two series existing as DVD exclusive side-stories. The first and second series focuses on a mysterious hotel run by the mouse-like Gregory.
At the start of both series, a new guest arrives and finds themselves drawn into a series of strange events as the odd hotel and its even odder guests starts to take a toll on their sanity. The third series is a little different. Set on a strange train, it follows Gregory himself, exploring his origins and his hidden desires as he tries to escape both the train and his role as the innkeeper of the hotel.
The show's animation is very unique, with all of the characters resembling papercraft dolls due to their large square heads. While the CGI has obviously dated, this works in the show's favor, making it feel even more unsettling to the modern viewer. The series isn't as outwardly terrifying as the others on this list but it does offer a creepy and unnerving experience full of strange and interesting characters that will stick with you long after the show has ended.
