Trivia
- Dueling Works: With Wonder Egg Priority, which also involves girls in an alternate dimension fighting otherworldly creatures and one of the characters trying to find a long lost friend. Both anime also feature a main character who has heterochromia.
- Meaningful Release Date:
- The anime adaptation of "Kisaragi Station" was released in February 1, 2021 to coincide with the episode's title, since Kisaragi in English means "February", translating it to Station February.
- The anime adaption of "Attack of the Ninja Cats" was released on February 22nd, 2021. February 22nd is when Japan celebrates Ninja Day
(not to be confused with International Ninja Day) and is Japan's version of National Cat Day.
- Playing Against Type:
- Yumiri Hanamori is known for voicing young boys, Genki Girls and mostly childish characters. Sorawo Kamikoshi in this anime is a far cry to many of Hanamori's Typecasted roles, as she's an agoraphobic, introverted Byronic Hero haunted by her past trauma.
- Ai Kayano is often known for portraying Shiro, who is a cute little sister but is an analytical genius; as well as women with serious personalities like Alice. Toriko Nishina is an upbeat Action Girl who deals with her own insecurity of being friendless, stemming from her Friendless Background.
- Rina Hidaka often voices Token Mini-Moe, younger characters who are often acting as Nice Girls to the cast. Kozakura, despite being one, is anything but. She is a short woman who is very ill-tempered and choleric, is older than the main cast and is also a scaredy-cat. She's also much older than the characters Hidaka tends to voice (a la younger girls), the other being Claire Kagenou.
Others
Urban Legends and Net Lore in Otherside Picnic
Many of the creatures and phenomenon in Otherside Picnic are based off of preexisting Japanese urban legends and net lore (think Creepypasta). At the end of each novel, Iori Miyazawa cites the works that he based his writing on.
Kunekune Hunting:
- Dating back to mentions in 2003, the kunekune is said to resemble a pale, wriggling humanoid shape that appears in open fields. In most variations of the urban legend, looking at the kunekune up close will cause the viewer to go mad.
- Toriko's method of riding an elevator to several floors in a specific combination in order to enter the Otherside is a reference to "The Elevator Game." The legend is thought to have originated in an East Asian country sometime in the 2010s. As in Otherside Picnic, most versions of the urban legend mention a woman or creature who will inevitably attempt to board the elevator on the fifth floor that you must never, under any circumstances, let enter.
Hasshaku Survival:
- Hasshaku-sama originates from a tale that was originally posted to a scary story thread on 2chan. The story involves the narrator visiting family in the countryside and encountering a woman over two meters tall wearing a wide brimmed hat. She has a distinctive "po... po... po..." laugh, and people who encounter her have a tendency to die suddenly.
Kisaragi Station
- "Kisaragi Station" is another story that originated from a 2chan thread. The poster, known as "Hasumi," posted on the 2chan forums in real time about riding their usual train only for it to go without making any stops for far longer than usual. The train eventually stopped at an unmanned station called Kisaragi Station, which turns out to be written with the kanji for "devil."
- The scene inside the train is inspired by "Monkey Dream," another story that originated from a 2chan thread.
Time, Space, and a Middle-aged Man
- Like Sorawo's experience, “Jikuu no Ossan” (or "The Time-Space Man") is a story in which the narrator suddenly wanders into a world where everyone else has vanished. The narrator then encounters a middle-aged man wearing janitor work clothes who is surprised to see them, giving them cryptic warnings before the person suddenly returns to the real world. "The Time-Space Man" notably sparked a wave of people writing stories based on the same character.
The Operation to Rescue US Forces at Kisaragi Station
- The kankandara originates from a story of the same name that was originally submitted to the scary story website "Scary Story Submissions: Horror Teller," later reposted to 2chan.
Resort Night At The Beach of the End
- The boarding house is inspired by the story "Part Timer At A Resort," another submission to Scary Story Submissions: Horror Teller about a university student who works part time at a boarding house where the mistress of the house takes a tray of food up to supposedly unused second floor every day, eventually making him suspicious enough to sneak upstairs and see what's up.
- Most of the other phenomena in this story is based off a 2chan story called "At Suma Coast," in which a middle school boy talks recalls an incident at Suma Coast in which he was attacked by bikers, but the story gets stranger and stranger and dissolves into nonsense.
