(spooky music)
When there's something strange in your neighborhood
let me ask you something,
who ya gonna call?
I mean, I don't have the answer,
I think you should probably look up Paranormal Investigators
on Yelp or Angie's List or something, because I'm busy.
I'm busy putting together a selection of some the best,
spookiest, and downright scariest horror anime around.
Because it's Nerdoween, goddammit!
And you deserve to have the pants
literally scared off of you.
Literally.
Parasyte: The Maxim.
What's your greatest fear?
Is it having worm-like aliens forcefully invading
your body through your nose and ears,
and then turning into a horrible monster?
Because that's exactly what happens in Parasyte.
When an alien invades the body
of 17 year old Shinichi Izumi though,
it misses his ear holes and takes over his right hand.
And together they have to fight for survival
as other horrifying alien beasts
have taken over his loved ones and try to murder him.
And you thought tapeworm was bad.
It is though, please,
if you have tapeworm, see a doctor, Jesus.
Another.
Transferring to a new school
can be a terrifying proposition,
it's even scarier when you transfer to a middle school class
that just so happens to have been cursed by a student
who died in the 1970s.
And even scarier than that,
is when that Final Destination style curse comes back
and starts claiming the lives of your classmates.
And then a weird girl named Mei,
that only you can see, appears.
Well,
funny you should mention because
that's exactly what happens to Koichi Sakakibara
and the results are pretty, pretty, pretty gruesome.
I mean, man, the whole school (bleeps) sucks, huh?
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, a.k.a. When the Cicadas Cry.
The year,
1983.
The month,
June.
The rural village, Hinamizawa.
The story, a carefree, charismatic kid named Keiichi Maebara
who befriends four girls.
Sounds pretty good, right?
Sounds pretty chill?
And it mostly is until Keiichi learns that the town
harbors a dark secret.
A murder-y secret.
It's murder, that's the secret.
And once Keiichi learns about it
his friends get pretty weird.
And he suspects they might be out to get him as well.
And now that you mention it,
Jessica Chobot's been acting pretty weird too and...
Oh no!
Monster.
Dr. Kenzo Tenma was a wildly successful
Japanese brain surgeon working in Germany.
He was on the verge of a big promotion.
He had a lovely fiance, and he was handsome at surgery.
Basically everything was coming up Milhouse.
But then everything changed,
when Tenma chose to save the life of a child
over that of the local mayor.
Because years later it turns out
that child became a brutal, murderous psychopath.
Ya know, that old chestnut.
That old,
I thought saving a child's life would be worth it
but it left me up to my neck in corpses, chestnut.
Ew, gross chestnut.
Perfect Blue.
In director Satoshi Kon's psychological thriller
a former pop star named Mima
give up her career as an idol to become an actress.
Which turns one of her hardcore fans
into a hardcore stalker.
And while working on her film,
weird things begin happening to people on set.
Weird in that they're being murdered.
The deaths lead Mima to have a mental breakdown.
But the real question becomes,
is the stalker behind the killing,
or is there something dark, deep buried inside of Mima?
Who knows?
Except the mysterious deaths on the Dan Cave set
that definitely aren't my fault.
Definitely not.
Not me.
Must be someone else.
Elfen Lied.
Sweet, buttery Moses.
This anime is deeply messed up.
And it's kind of perfect if you wish Stranger Things
was even more (bleep) up.
Basically, a human-looking mutant girl named Lucy,
with incredible telekinetic powers,
escapes a government research lab
and kills all the guards on her way out.
She gets shot in the head in the process,
which causes her to develop a secondary,
childlike personality called Nyu,
and loses most of her memories.
Fortunately for Lucy
a local university student and his cousin find her
and take her in.
Unfortunately it also leads to
lots and lots murders most foul,
as government strike teams and other psychic mutants
attempt to recover her.
And the worst part?
She doesn't even get to eat Eggo waffles!
Why Eleven and not Lucy?
This is bull (bleeps), man,
bull (bleeps).
Hellsing.
While this isn't the scariest anime around,
it's also one of the most enjoyable by far.
The short lived series
follows a badass vampire named Alucard,
spell it backwards,
who, alongside Seras Victoria,
a police officer turned vampire,
works for a U.K. based organization called Hellsing.
Their mission, should they choose to accept it,
is to protect Great Britain from all manner
of supernatural threats.
Now, once you throw in battles
with the paramilitary wing of the Vatican,
super gory action, and some seriously suave style,
you've got a recipe for success.
Spooky success.
Paranoia Agent.
Now you might think that Paranoia Agent is more
of a thriller slash mystery,
but honestly, the idea of a kid on rollerskates
beating people to death with a golden baseball bat
is pretty goddamn horrifying.
It should come as no surprise
that this series came from Satoshi Kon,
because that dude specialized in making
deeply messed up anime experiences.
What will surprise you, though,
is the psychological terror that unfolds
around the police detectives investigating the case,
and a shy character designer
who's trying to follow up her previous success.
Honestly, it's the most unsettling instance
of a baseball bat this side of Negan.
Shiki.
Now, you might think that life in the countryside
would be nice and relaxing with all that
fresh, clean air,
I mean, hey, it certainly can be,
but things get significantly more stressful
when villagers start getting murdered one by one.
They get even more stressful
when those villagers return from the dead
to drink your blood.
And they get the most stressful,
when basically the entire village gets turned into vampires.
So that is why you should watch Shiki,
to remind you never to move to the countryside.
Boogiepop Phantom.
I love this name.
Guys, there's nothing like a good urban legend
to send a shiver up your spine, am I right?
That's exactly what the excellently named
Boogiepop Phantom traffics in.
This series takes place in an unnamed Japanese city
where five years after a string of grisly serial killings
people have begun to disappear once more,
and rumors have begun flying around the town
about this entity named Boogiepop,
who's supposed to be kind of this avatar
or angel of death.
Now, what a group of local teens doesn't realize, though,
is that Boogiepop is all too real,
and a whole new dimension of sepia tinged terror
is about to envelope them.
This show is eerie, it's unsettling,
and it sounds like a child is trying to name a ghost.
Hell Girl.
The internet is a dangerous place.
And in Hell Girl, it's super dangerous,
because there's a website called Hotline to Hell,
accessible only at midnight,
with a simple function:
you can enter anyone's name into the search bar,
and they'll be taken straight to hell,
as in, do not pass go, do not collect $200,
go directly to hell.
That sounds pretty good if you're a spiteful bastard, right?
Except there's a catch,
there's always a catch.
Whoever uses the website also condemns him or herself
to also burn in the lake of fire after they die.
And that, my friends,
is why you always read the fine print.
Terra Formars.
Look, guys, I'm just as excited as the next person
that Elon Musk wants to take us to Mars.
I think colonizing another planet is super chill.
But I'm also very worried about what would be waiting for us
after seeing Terra Formars.
The anime features a far-flung future where,
in order to make Mars habitable,
scientists have sent cockroaches and algae to Mars
in order to basically seed the planet for human life.
What happens though,
is a team of researchers sent to Mars
discovers that the cockroaches have mutated into
these giant, anthropomorphic murder machines.
And the only solution is to either capture these bugs
or exterminate them.
And trust me guys,
if you've ever lived in like, a super (bleeps) apartment
this is both deeply unsettling,
and super satisfying.
And that, my friends,
is a selection of some of the best horror anime around.
But tell me, what would you add to this list?
What are your favorite horror anime?
Let me know in the comments below.
And be sure to leave me a terrifying thumbs up
while you're there.
Boo.
That's all for today's show.
Be sure to join us next time when we talk about the story
of a young woman who gives birth to a child
that three bumbling criminals try to kidnap,
only to realize that it's the spawn of Satan himself
in Rosemary's Baby's Day Out.
Until next time,
keep on digging.
(tinkling electronic music)