I can’t figure out why the writers of the Yami Shibai series decided to mess with their core variables now after two successful seasons, but they did, and it’s a shame. With the narrator gone it is a master-less kami shibai play, done merely in the style of paper cutouts rather than in the spirit. If the opening introduction and closing of the theater from the first two seasons feels unnoteworthy, that is only because until now we’ve never had to go without it. There is a flavor missing from the get-go, even with the replacement of a child sketching in a park to open the story. Yes they make reference to it at the very end, tying everything back to the narrator we know and love, but for a season without his gentle but twisted guidance, things feel a little lost.
This is coupled with the fact that the stories are getting noticeably weaker. Every single one is a slow and predictable build towards a jump scare revolving around the most disgusting amalgamation of flesh and creepy facial features possible. They already did the hair monster, the girl walking home from school meeting random passersby, the teacher with a creepy kid in her new class; most of the monsters are just a more grotesque version of a previous incarnation. The art improved again, but with the overreliance on showing us what new monstrosity they’ve thought up this time, I wish they had been restricted to the more polygonal forms of the original Yami Shibai. None of them fit the atmosphere of the story, none of them get us feeling like some horrible fate will befall us in the middle of the night, none of them are even scary. This time around, we are riding on shock factor and nothing else.