I don’t toss the word “subversive” around easily, especially when it comes to anime (where there’s very little that merits the description). But make no mistake, Mizuki Shigeru was a subversive. He had to be, for the most immediate of reasons – to try and subvert the pro-war messages in the propaganda pieces the Japanese government forced him to write. As someone who hated war from childhood (and losing his arm in WW II certainly did nothing to soften his views on the subject), Mizuki had to do that in order to preserve his sanity and his sense of self, and it doesn’t get much more immediate than that.
“Ghost School” is a fascinatingly subversive turn for Gegege no Kitarou 2018, and a seeming watershed episode for the canon plot as well. I think the message and the story almost have to be viewed seperately when watching this episode, in fact. Here you have kids who are so beaten down by the expectations of their teachers and their parents that they express a desire to become ghosts rather than continue to live the way they are (the way the OP is tied into this is very clever). And in Nanashi (more on him later) they find a willing facilitator for this wish.
What’s most fascinating about the ghost school is that for a good while there, the kids are happier than they were in their real schools. And indeed, the educational approach of their youkai “teachers” seems a good deal more humanistic than their human teachers. This is anime of course, so eventually this is going to turn – and the youkai do finally show their true colors. Fortunately for them Mana has tipped off Kitarou (the “perfect disguise” running gag had me in stitches) that something weird is going on with the local schoolchildren, and then dragged Neko-musume along to find him when he doesn’t return. And fortunately for everyone Nezumi-otoko is also there to offer a hand(le) in the moment of crisis.
In plot terms, it’s Nanashi who’s the key figure of the episode. He’s been the MacGuffin of this entire reboot, though it’s easy to forget about him for extended periods. The faculty of the ghost school are all youkai that Kitarou and Co. have defeated this season, and while as Medama-oyaji notes youkai don’t die, it takes someone with great spiritual power to resurrect them this quickly. And Mana seems to be the key to Nanashi’s spiritual power – which one assumes is going to have serious consequences for her at some point before all this is over.
Nanashi finally gets a voice – and it’s no less than the great Ginga Banjou. After the combined forces of Kitarou, Mana and Neko-musume defeat the youkai (with an assist from Rat-man) Nanashi appears before Kitarou and Daddy-eyeball. What he mutters is more like creepy poetry than anything coherent, but it’s clear than he’s a force to be reckoned with. He’s also nameless (thus the name), which we know is potentially huge in the youkai world, and someone Medama-oyaji has never seen before. He may disappear again for a while (he has every time so far) but it seems like Nanashi (or whoever is pulling his strings) is going to be the final boss of this edition of Gegege no Kitarou.
Before we finish, though, Medama-oyaji’s final speech to the children is not to be overlooked. I think this is a classic analog of Mizuki inserting one message hidden inside another (as he did when the government forced him to). It’s easy to dismiss his talk as comic relief and a generic “don’t take candy from strangers” caution, but what I heard was more like “don’t trust anyone over 30”. His real message here, is “learn to think for yourself, and they won’t teach you that at school – and the world is full of bad grown-ups.” That’s certainly subversive in a country like Japan, but I think the most subversive – and cogent – thing Medama-oyaji tells the kids is this: “Without knowing society, you’ll be deceived by society itself.” The more one learns about this country and how it works, the more one realizes what a loaded – and dangerous – perspective that is…
