I did a review of the game a while ago, sometime within the span of this year, now it is time to do a review of the anime that was inspired by the game.
If you've played the game, and as far as I'm concerned you should, than about half of the stuff isn't very new to you. The whole underlying plot is there; do the little ritual, get sucked into a creepy elementary school full of corpses or soon to be corpses, and try to solve who really killed who, oh and watch your friends die before your eyes. What makes the anime different from the game is that not everyone lives to see the end who did so in the game, but you live to see them die in new ways.
The anime series is a very very short one. Most of the anime series run at least twelve episodes and if they are long they run twenty four. Though there are exceptions to the rule; One Piece, Naruto, Dragonball Z, and Bleach are all series that either run more than fifty or simply refuse to end for one reason or another. Given that it is rather short, it means that they have to cram and speed things along. Which to me takes away some of the value that could have been there.
The music is mostly that of the game. The opening and the ending are both melancholic. The opening gives off a feel as though one is marching to their doom but has a sudden upswing to it (I say upswing but it really isn't much of one. Perhaps it is the sudden increase of tempo that leads me to think so) and then back to the same melancholic rhythm. The ending gives off a ballad feel to it and is rather somber.
The visuals are very well done and will perhaps haunt your dreams if you watch it intently enough. That being said there is a bit of fan service here and there. Which, while it was in the game a little, there isn't as much as there is in the anime. Which begs the question as to how much is in the manga. One of the more unique things about the anime is the camera shift. They really like having the character at a ninety degree angle and then go to a forty five degree angle.
I think that they did a fairly good job at depicting the characters as they are in the game. Refer back to my review of the game to get a grasp of what they are.
As I mentioned before the pacing is rather fast. Which leads you to wonder sometimes as to how they got from one place to the other and what led them there. Lack of knowledge of the game and not having a forgiving heart will most likely make you look upon it with a bit of disgust and bewilderment.
I can't tell if I enjoyed Corpse Party: Tortured Souls or if I am incredibly annoyed by it. It doesn't give off the same horror feel it did in the game. If I had to label it I would have to say it is shock horror rather than the same eerie horror that the game gave off. It is defiantly something for the gore hounds to watch though. Although the screams would be great for sadist.
Perhaps my final thought on this: given the fact it went straight to Blu-ray (there is almost no way that they could have gotten away with as much blood and gore as they did with a TV release, nor do I think that they could have censored it all without some sort of negative feedback) that means that there is only the Blu-ray release and I found that it is rather taxing on my system. Just have it in the background playing is causing my computer to falter here and there. The audio keeps flickering in and out here and there as well. Without full devotion to it, I can't enjoy it at all, if I enjoyed it at all.