Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

Renting Urotsukidōji in 1991. Back then the Anime Boom was just getting started and as kids in highschool my friends and I were watching anything we could get our hands on. Urotsukidōji however taught me for the first time that not all anime is good anime, and to be selective about what I watch.

Horror anime that go for scares instead of gore, and do a good job of it, seem pretty rare. The only one I can think of is Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories. They're short episodes done on a non-existent budget, but some of them are creepy as hell. It's on Crunchyroll if anyone's interested.

Actually, one moment in a non-horror anime that I find eerie is when a certain character burns to death at the end of Lupin the Third: Secret of Mamo. The sequence is rendered in a sketchy art style, and looks like something from a twisted Eastern European animation.

Probably the most stomach-churning anime I've ever seen was Genocyber. Internal organs splattered all over the place in nauseating detail. I feel a bit ill just thinking about it.

I remember seeing Jin Roh at the Smithsonian theater back in 99 or 2000, there was a nightmare scene were a girl is run down and attacked by a pack of wolves in a sewer. It has stuck with me all these years as being horrific.