GeGeGe no Kitaro (2007) Episode 1

June 29th, 2007 by Brack

As mentioned when I did a knee jerk look at spring anime a few months back, there was yet another adaptation of Shigeru Mizuki’s kid’s horror comic this year. Of course it being a show based on one of the most important and influential manga, and aimed at a mainstream audience, it was ignored by fansub groups until recently.

Quick recap of the concept of the show, good yokai (a spirit-monster of Japanese Folk Lore) fight bad yokai to protect humankind. Though often the reason the bad yokai pursue humans is human ignorance of the spirit world.

Isamu Tanonaka returns as Kitaro’s eye-ball father, Medama Oyaji. Tanonaka has portrayed him in every incarnation of Kitaro in film, including the recent live action film. Minami Takayama, the voice of Detective Conan, takes the lead role of Kitaro.

Which is probably why when I watched it Detective Conan sprang to mind, not just because of Takayama’s voice, the clean look of the show and pacing felt very Conan-like too. And there’s an element to the next episode previews that has echoes of early Conan episodes.

However it does feel a little too clean and modern. I think I preferred the first black and white episode of the 60s series that was fansubbed a year or so back. It’s an unfortunate truth that Toei’s animation quality has in general fallen from the great heights it had in that decade. Which is not to say this was terribly animated, it just felt it had more visual cues that came from the typical Toei look in 2007 than from Mizuki. But that probably doesn’t matter to it’s target audience of kids new to the series. The first episode felt like a good, fun horror show for kids that draws on folklore and complete with a moral to respect for cultural history. I’m not sure I’ll make a point of watching it regularly, I’d prefer to see more of the original series, but it’s good that English language anime fandom has paid attention to this character once again.

GeGeGe no Kitaro @ Animesuki

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#32. Gegege no Kitaro

December 31st, 2006 by Brack

I thought I'd written about this already when the fansub of episode 1 surfaced in October this year, but apparantly I didn't.

Another landmark series, GeGeGe no Kitaro is based on the manga of the same name by Shigeru Mizuki. There have been 4 anime series in 1968, 1971, 1985, & 1996.

The 1968 series has some early Isao Takahata work, the 1971 has more Takahata work with him contributing the OP and ED. Interestingly, for me, is that the 1996 contained early work from Mamoru Hosoda (Digimon Movies 1 & 2, One Piece Movie 6, The Girl Who Leap Through Time).

GeGeGe no Kitaro concerns the relationships between Yokai and humans. Yokai is a fairly broad Japanese folklore term to describe a number of supernatural creatures, which is reflected by the wide range of creatures depicted in the series. Kitaro is one such of Yokai, but unlike many of creatures appearing in the series, protects humans from the more malicious Yokai. He is a one eyed child, with hair covering his left eyesocket, and possesses a range of supernatural powers. He is invariably accompanied by his father, who following a bout of body eating disease is simply an eye (with tiny arms and legs).

The design of the central character, Kitaro, echoes through manga and anime following GeGeGe no Kitaro, for example, Sanji from One Piece, and more pertinently, Ginko from Mushishi. In many ways Mushishi uses the same raw material as GeGeGe no Kitaro to different ends.

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