Emi Ishikawa's Zekkyou Gakkyuu (Screaming Lessons) is a shoujo horror anthology wherein most of the stories revolve around a young girl who comes across some kind of cursed item or creepy happening that ends up killing her at best or giving her an even worse fate than that. The happy endings in these one-shots are few and far between, and the protagonist usually has to go through hell to get it.

The only consistent character between chapters is Yomi, a ghost girl and the teacher of the titular 'screaming lessons'. She narrates the opening and ending of each story and usually provides a moral to the reader relating to each story. Many of these lessons seem to be metaphors, albeit rather strange and twisted ones, for things that may affect the young girls these stories are aimed at, such as struggling with school (Supplements for the Brain), cyberbullying (Black Forum) or eating disorders/weight loss (The Requirements of a Belle). Some of the morals are tacked on and directly contradict the ending of the story it is attached to (The Bonds of a Curse) and many of them are extremely pessimistic and questionable life advice to give to an adolescent girl (The Do-Gooder Club). Despite this, Yomi's narration does an excellent job of establishing the theme of each piece and giving the reader something to think about before reading the next chapter.

The girls who appear in these stories exist mainly to suffer -Madoka Magica has nothing on some of the misery these characters go through. Most of the heroines are more or less the same -a grade or middle school girl (though some protagonists are older) who has some kind of flaw or insecurity that is exploited so she can have her life ruined by supernatural curses, serial killers, or something else similarly horrible. A few chapters have a twist in which it is revealed that the protagonist is really the villian, hiding their insanity or their true cruel personality behind a facade of niceness, which is fun to shake things up a bit. For the most part though, the leads are generic nice-girls who really don't deserve the awful fates they meet.

Yomi stays calm and collected yet still creepy throughout the manga. The two-part story 'The Truth About Yomi' that explains her backstory gives her some more characterisation beyond her role of the story's narrator, and is definitely a high point of the series.

The artwork of Zekkyou Gakkyuu is rather typical for shoujo manga, with the standard cute art style. Yomi's uniquely cat eyed appearance is rather appealing, and definitely helps establish her creepiness while also being appealing. The rest of the character designs are quite generic, with giant eyes and soft lines, but don't let this fool you -this is a horror manga, after all. Scenes of gore, horrifying monsters and deranged, twisted facial expressions will stare at you from the page out of nowhere, and the artist spared no effort in making these scenes as unsettling as they could get away with in a children's manga. The contrast between cute and scary works brilliantly.

My personal favourite stories from the series are 'The Bus to the Underworld', 'The Ocean is Calling', and 'The Day I Became a Demon'. All of these stories are similar thematically, and also in that they are supposed to be sad rather than scary. These occasional doses or heartfelt sweetness are very much welcome in a series that absolutely destroys its heroines in the way Zekkyou Gakkyuu does, and to me are the strongest chapters in the series.

In all, Zekkyou Gakkyuu is a treat for younger horror fans, though I imagine that older readers would find it immature and silly. The closest thing that I know of to compare it to is the 'Tales from the Crypt' series of comics. If you enjoy shoujo but are tired of cutesy romance you are likely to enjoy this manga.