with halloween coming up there's no better time to put on your couple's
costume with that special someone grab some snacks and cover your eyes
from some scary anime whoa careful now this is the scariest
anime ever made according to
Yahallo and welcome back to kinda neat i recently put out this poll
asking if you guys have ever been genuinely scared by an anime before
and what i learned is that half of you guys are total babies
nah i didn't just ask to make fun of you guys for whatever reason
I love that anxious stomach pit feeling that movies like hereditary and
Midsommar give me and i wanted to find an anime that could
do the same a countless number of anime have made me
mad relaxed cringe laugh and even cry i mean i've seen people cry
a tough guy like me would never do that
turn it off but i can't recall an anime ever making me feel afraid
so i began my search and there's only one man for a job like this
mrpotato123 that's an odd way of spelling higurashi
unanimously everyone online seems to agree that
when they cry is the scariest anime of all time and it looks like i'm in luck a
new season just started
the scariest part about this so far is that he's still wearing that same
bizarre outfit it's been 14 years it's time for a new
look keiichi so i just watched the first three episodes of the new series
and i'm not impressed the juxtaposition of the slice of life aesthetic with
is unsettling at first and would be a great plot twist if the title wasn't
literally written in blood but the novelty wears off pretty quick
and then just starts to detract from the spooks and
nooks i guess in that sense i actually found the plot
twist in magi modika to be far creepier
not only is it not spoiled anywhere in the marketing but since it goes so far
towards the moe extreme when it does pull a sick 180
it's far more jarring it's hard to tell if a more realistic
art style would make higurashi any scarier
but i'm leaning towards no although not really horror
made in abyss did have some genuinely disturbing moments
despite its overtly cartoon style and that's not to say higurashi didn't also
disturb but the moments were few and far between
and when i say disturbing i don't mean like happy sugar life disturbing
but more in a thrilling empathetic don't go into the basement kind of way
akin to being trapped in a re zero esque murder loop or
endlessly reliving the death of a loved one steins gate style
although neither of those are remotely horror i think they both do a better job
at pinning you to the edge of your seat than higurashi does so why isn't higurashi
scary psychologically it's just about there
the show focuses a ton on world building and by the end you know the town of
hinamazawa's story and layout like the back of your hand
and thanks to the show's anthology format every few episodes is a new
mystery where you don't know which of the girls
are kawaii and which of them are kowai really japan you couldn't have come up
with a better antonym but higurashi is definitely missing a few
key factors that typically define the horror genre
first off and i can't believe i'm about to say this but
would it kill you to add a jump scare oh
i guess it would i'm honestly convinced that no one has ever attempted a 2d jump
scare and it's not entirely just a cultural
thing since japanese horror films like ringu
and jojo the grudge do use them sparingly but the closest thing we get
in anime is this
which is actually a really great moment but i need moe
no not moe more i know jump scares are kind of considered cheating and
usually i'd agree but i think what's more important than the actual jump
scare is the potential of a jump scare the fun
part is waiting nervously on the edge of your seat for something big to happen
whether it does or not is actually sort of inconsequential
but rarely have i ever felt that way while watching anime
maybe only once or twice like in this scene from another
which is literally just them driving with a little bit of background music
but without anyone saying a word it manages to build up
so much tension using nothing but our understanding of how the world works
without spoiling too much everyone in the car knows
that the curse they're under can only affect them while they're within the
limits of their city so the further they drive the closer
they are to safety creating an incredible sense of doom for
both the characters and the audience again without anyone
saying a word this is a great example of an anime
building up to a jump scare regardless of whether or not what
happens but although another screams look at me i'm a horror anime most of it
is more just a really good mystery romance
unfortunately i don't have time to watch every anime so i'd really appreciate it
if you guys told me in the comments what scene from anime that you found to be
the most scary mine has to be episode 1 of the promised
neverland and what makes this episode so brilliant
is the way it lulls you into a false sense of security right from the start
you recognize that the characters live in a strange world with more going on
than meets the eye but thankfully isabella is there to watch over them
she is quite literally the mother figure there to raise and protect the kids
so when the truth is revealed her betrayal is all that much more intense
hmm i think i just had a brain blast
in both my examples most of the horror is derived more from the story than it
is the actual execution and since i had a hard time really
getting into higurashi that might explain why i was held back from getting
scared if you're one of the people who did find
higurashi scary let me know in the comments how you felt about the show
overall the only thing holding back the scene
from the promise neverland aside from it being followed up by 11 boring filler
episodes is what also holds back higurashi and
most other horror anime sound design and editing i don't know if
it's due to budget limitations or just artistic preference but anime sound
design is done very differently than live action
it's generally more two-dimensional no pun intended
which generally isn't too much of an issue but when it comes to spooks
and ukes it's all about that bass no treble
ew and when i say it sounds 2d i just mean that there aren't a lot of layers
like literally layers you can really pick out where every sound effect starts
and ends and the ambient sound and music
seems very isolated from the dialogue and sound effects
compare this
to this there's so much more going on at once
that it overwhelms our tiny lizard brains and puts us into fight or flight
mode again this could just be an artistic
choice but i've never once found an anime to use sound design in this way
the last thing holding anime back from haunting my nightmares
is the pacing even the edgiest of horror anime
tend to use the same editing style as shows like hitoribochi
or takagi-san which are so over-the-top wholesome that it'll make your eyes
bleed in a good way shots are mostly static and cut around in a very
predictable rhythmic pattern and over-the-top reactions are
played for laughs even climactic scary scenes utilize classic anime split
screens which take me out of the moment obviously these tropes are what make
anime anime and i love them all but i think when
used incorrectly can contribute to an overall lack of
tension and thus make the show less scary but you
know what is scary not being subscribed to kinda neet if
you enjoy having conversations like this one about
anime and japan i've created a kinda neet discord server for you to join
so that i'm not always alone in my room talking to a lens