In a certain sense, I almost feel as if I’ve grown into being a Gegege no Kitarou fan. I can definitely say this much – while this version of the series is very, very good, I never gave the franchise the credit it deserved. I think a sense of manga and anime in a historical context is necessary to truly appreciate how groundbreaking – and skillfully rendered – this series is, and I didn’t really have that yet when I encountered its earlier incarnations.
Really, it’s Nezumi-otoko who represents the most interesting elements from a character standpoint. He was Mizuki-sensei’s favorite character for a reason, and not just because he’s the one who makes the story go. Shades of grey are always more narratively interesting than black and white, and Ratman is a fascinating contradiction. He’s a scoundrel, no question. He does terrible things, and he’s generally treated as something of a joke by the other residents of Gegege no Mori. But somehow, you can’t help but sort of like the guy – why is that? Part of it is because he’s legitimately funny, but there’s more – he has a genuine sense of someone who the world has been unkind to (and indeed, it has). As a half-breed he’s truly part of neither the youkai or human world, and it’s something he never forgets.
The kicker here is that Kitarou, I think, is in exactly the same boat as the audience where Nezumi-otoko is concerned. One could go back and forth all day about why, but that the two are friends of a sort is pretty undeniable. That Kitarou can still feel genuine affection for Ratman considering all the trouble he causes both for the world and for himself says something about his kind nature, I suppose. This time around Nezumi has gotten himself into the diamond business, and he’s genuinely hoping Kitarou will take him up on his offer of a piece of the action – he thinks he’s got a good thing going, and he wants to share the wealth with the one person in the world he can almost call a friend. But Kitarou knows Ratman too well, and he senses (literally, in this case) that something nefarious is going on here.
That nefarious something is Wanyudo (Egawa Hisao), who’s one of the most famous and terrifying (despite his somewhat ludicrous appearance) youkai in Shinto mythology. He and Nezumi-otoko have struck a deal – Nezumi will provide souls for Wanyudo to eat, and then sell the diamonds their bodies are turned into. Make no mistake, though – youkai or not, this chapter is almost entirely social satire. The diamond industry is one of the most notoriously evil and venal in human history, the poor and downtrodden of the world being exploited so that profiteers can sate their greed by taking advantage of the greed of the wealthiest and most powerful.
It’s a disgusting business, and the irony is that the scariest thing in this episode is probably the “legit” diamond trade thugs from Adamas who show up to stop their business from being undercut. That, and that the RL diamond industry is probably worse than what’s depicted here. But that being said, there’s still the matter of the broken friendship between Nezumi-otoko and Kitarou – and when as usual Ratman realizes he’s in over his head with Wanyudo (and is actually reluctant to go as far as the Adamas goons and Wanyudo want to take things), he desperately wants to call Kitarou in to help, but his pride won’t allow him to. So he sends a letter from “Mana”, though this ruse is rather short-lived as she’s just texted Neko-musume with news of a new cake shop opening in town and seems quite unperturbed.
Kitarou being Kitarou he comes and helps anyway = under the transparent lie that he’s been fooled by Nezumi’s ruse. But for once, it’s Nezumi-otoko who saves Kitarou when the latter is on the verge of defeat – what are friends for, after all? I had real doubt whether those souls that Wanyudo had eaten would be returned after he was defeated, but that would have been pretty dark even by Gegege no Kitarou standards – and it would have made it a lot harder to keep Nezumi-otoko in the role of semi-sympathetic figure, because this was some pretty bad shit went down…
