Friends of This Side: Yamishibai Season 3: Part 2

Another reminder that our favorite storyteller doesn't open the episodes, but does make an appearance at the end (more on that later). Now it should be noted, for those who haven't seen any Yamishibai, or have but don't understand the pacing and style of the story telling that these little short stories have their roots in the hyakumonogatari kaidankai traditions, which you'll find some info on in a previous article here, and comes from great source book I picked up called Yurei: The Japanese Ghost by Zack Davisson. See, the "100 ghost story game" came about during the Edo period of Japan, when stories of the supernatural were taken at face value and shared amongst storytellers during such games or even just by word of mouth. Calling them urban legends really only scratches the surface; they're more like local tales and folklore: kaidan which is normally translated as "weird tales" but can be most literally be pinpointed as "a discussion or passing down of tales of the weird, strange or mysterious" (1).

Kaidan do not have much in the way of a traditional narrative: they simple are what they are. A tale or report of something strange. They are often "very short, without a beginning or an end but merely recording some strange occurrance that they had seen or heard of." (2) There wasn't a question as to whether or not they were true, nor did it matter that they didn't have a beginning middle an end. What mattered was that it happened, and this is what happened. There is no why. You don't ask every day why traffic was snarled on 237 on an off-hour or why your yard was wet and your neighbor's yard wasn't at all, or even you bought a coffee that day. No one cares about the why; they only care about the what. That said, each Yamishibai episode encapsulates that, combining the tradition of a kamishibai with kaidan (though one would argue they were already linked anyway), and tells you some weird tales. There are only weird tales here, there is no Zool.

The Noisy Hospital Room

A patient has a dream of him walking down a hospital corridor, encountering an operating room where people are laughing uproarishly, only to find himself being operated on in that very room. This episode has a "room for one more" feel, in that the victim dreams of his doom before it happens. Unlike the western story however, prior knowledge of his fate doesn't delay it. In fact his curiosity compels him to follow through on it--despite warnings from the very dead pan nurse and another elderly patient that may or may not be next in line for "surgery". Some of the creepy points in the story that stood out to me was the odd lorry/ flat bed truck that had people standing in it driving to and from the hospital, both in the dream sequence and in "reality". Its not addressed more than the fact it happens in the dream and at the end, which makes it more creepy.