I didn't watch the first series, and most of the stories were very new to me, so my first impression of this is that the ideas proposed to the horror genre were innovative at the least. There was a lot of dry humor in this series as well which was jarring at first since most experience I have with Junji Ito is from Uzumaki. Once I got used to it though, the Soichi stories really made me laugh, as did the balloon episode. Of course the main complaint for this series for me is a general lack of effort from the Maniac team. For most of this series it felt less like a Netflix original and more like a BET exclusive. There were a few exceptions though, for some reason. I mean, "The Bully" episode was bright and colorful as if everything was innocent and nice, but as soon as the girl started being a demon to the boy, it was genuinely puzzling, and I was hooked. It looked like someone colored it straight out of the manga, which is what this series was meant to be (since it's obvious that a fresh take on these ideas was not the main goal). The intro was also great to look at, but they made the questionable choice to make the intro a trap-themed, psychedelic joyride into the world of Junji Ito, despite having the word "Macabre" being the most descriptive word in the title. I'm guessing that there was some kind of communication issue between the creative directors and the actual animators of the episodes, almost to the point that I'm convinced that whoever made the intro may have never read a Junji Ito story in their lives. Moving to the outro now, it seems like it was made by a completely separate team that was equally tone-deaf. After every episode with an ending that may leave you questioning what kind of world could conceive something so grim, in comes a Nujabes funk-jazz style song that completely upsets the tone that some of the darker episodes end on. ᴰᵉˢᵖᶦᵗᵉ ᶦᵗ ᵃˡˡ, I wouldn't even say that this series is necessarily bad, but it's clear that the source material carried this show because nobody would ever watch it for anything else. In general the animation was pretty chunky and the 3d models stood out in a bad way, but sometimes all you need is a good idea to get your own imagination going from the viewer's perspective. For example, "Ice Cream Bus" was a fascinating idea, not because I find the presence of uncomfortably attractive ice cream men calming/creepy, but because the divorced father wanted his son to enjoy his time with him due to a stressful split custody situation. After he finds something that his son enjoys, he quickly finds that getting him to stop will be tough THEN by the time he does something, it was too late; the son just... died. God damn. Where this series fails though isn't the lazy/ uninspired animation, but the stories lack any originality. The only reason why anyone would watch this is if they're too lazy to read the manga to get the better experience. The ice cream bus story could've been something heart-wrenching if more factors had been introduced, such as the father wanting to make the kid like him more than the mom, or some foreshadowing situation, such as a neighbor's kid disappearing. I'm anxiously awaiting the Uzumaki anime (practically salivating with anticipation), but this did very little to ease my nerves. I've seen the live-action Uzumaki movie, I've now seen the Japanese Tales of the Macabre, and Uzumaki is the only thing giving me hope for a good Junji Ito adaptation. Why can't people do these amazing stories justice?