A police officer named Hatanaka decides to teach others about road safety by doing his ventriloquism act with a doll named "Taro-chan" act. The act begins smoothly enough until Hatanaka briefly panics when the doll's head gets stuck and a talisman falls out of it. Afterwards "Taro-chan" convulses and seemingly gains a consciousness of its own and explains experiencing a bicycle accident much to Hatanaka's horror. As Hatanaka desperately struggles to remove his hand from "Taro-chan", the crowd believes it all to be apart of the act. However Hatanaka manages to throw "Taro-chan" down stage where it says that the accident "hurt".
Every week at 5 p.m. an old man shows up at a children's playground and tells them ghost stories based on myths and urban legends]of Japanese origin. The man tells the stories on the back of his bicycle using a traditional kamishibai (紙芝居, Paper Drama) method and features a new tale each week.
Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories also known in Japan as Yami Shibai (闇芝居, Yami Shibai, lit. Dark Play) and Theater of Darkness is a 2013 Japanese animated series. The first season was directed by Tomoya Takashima, with scripts written by Hiromu Kumamoto and produced by ILCA. Each episode was animated in such a way so as to mimic the kamishibai method of story-telling. The series is organized into a collection of shorts with each episode being only a few minutes in length. Each episode features a different tale based on myths and urban legends of Japanese origin.
The first season premiered on TV Tokyo on July 14, 2013 and ran for thirteen episodes until September 29, 2013. A second season began airing from July 6, 2014. It will be directed by both Takashi Shimizu and Noboru Iguchi along with scripts written by Shōichirō Masumoto. The first season spawned a host of merchandise and a mobile game while also receiving mixed reactions at the end of its broadcast.
