Gegege no Kitarou (2018) – 03

I must confess, this new version of Gegege no Kitarou is winning me over to a larger extent than the 2000’s version did.  The “updates” seem more natural and less contrived, and the whole operation has a lot of snap and panache to it.  If you’re going to refresh an old anime standard (and they don’t get much more standard than Gegege no Kitarou) without totally re-inventing it, this is the right way to go about it.

This episode certainly had plenty of zip to it.  Mana has taken to calling Neko-musume “Nee-san” (shouldn’t that be Neeko-san?), which has rather foiled Catchick’s attempt to turn her into a hated rival.  The standoff between Mana and Kitarou actually had a little sting – he was obviously trying to do the right thing, but then, this whole “youkai and humans can’t be friends” thing has a lot of thematic mileage to it in Gegege no Kitarou.

The bit with the Tantanbo was genuinely dark (as this franchise could always be, surprisingly for a kid show), with the ayakashi trapping children as sacrifices inside stone pillars in an attempt to restore the lost Youkai-jo castle and take revenge on humanity for what we’re doing to the planet (a little moral ambiguity here).  It all just works – the comedy, the plot, the timeless yet still refreshed feel to the piece.  This reboot is a damn good one any way you slice it.

Yowamushi Pedal: Glory Line – 15

I’m gonna be honest – this whole Izumida-Komari freakshow went on for way too long.  With just starting a new job in a new country and the anime calendar being fairly packed as is, I’m just not going to spend a lot of time talking about an episode like this one.  Because it’s currency I don’t have to spend.

The issues I have, apart from the amount of time dedicated to two middling characters and a checkpoint of middling importance, are stuff like another random event (this time a stray Pocari bottle) impacting the race at the most crucial time.  Though is certainly does show that Izumida was the better sprinter if he was able to overcome that and win the sprint anyway.  I will give some props to Komari for conducting himself with a bit of (uncharacteristic) dignity after losing – refusing to touch the niku under those circumstances is the most sane thing we’ve seen from him.

Notable – have we seen Fabian (Cancellara, known as a superb time trialist more than a pure sprinter) as a part of Abu’s arsenal before?  I wonder where he is – obliques, maybe?

Omake:

Captain Tsubasa 2018 – 02

Speaking of old anime standards, that applies almost as much to Captain Tsubasa as Gegege no Kitarou (even more influential in its niche, but less so in the broader world).  And so does the part about it being a really good refresh, because this one is too.  It doesn’t seem to have contemporized quite as much as Kitarou, but as a faithful nod to the older versions, it’s working every bit as well.

Sports anime with this degree of “Shounen Jump moments” don’t generally appeal to me as much as more grounded ones do, but Tsubasa-kun’s love for soccer is so contagious that one can almost believe he’s the freak this series makes him out to be.  I enjoyed the introduction of Roberto Hongo (played by Konishi Katsuyuki here, no less) as the whiskey-loving ex-Brazilian star Tsubasa’s dad sends to coach him as a present.  And the challenge sequence with Wakabayashi-kun is as remembered.

My favorite part of the ep, though, was Tsubasa pounding himself into powder trying to replicate Roberto’s bicycle kick technique.  If anything ever summed up Tsubasa’s character, it’s this sequence – he’s just a ball-talking, bicycle-kicking soccer otaku boy wonder.  It’s no secret that this series made so many new soccer fans around the world, and was preaching to the choir with existing ones – it’s a love story, after all.