The best episodes of Gegege no Kitarou 2018 have had a mystical, elegiac quality to them that can only come from a timeless source material and a stunning production of it. This wasn’t one of them – in writing terms it was strictly middle of the pack, but for this series that’s still a pretty high standard. No, what stood out about this episode for me wasn’t the story it told but the way it told it – once more the visuals were not only beautiful but emotionally impactful and even thought-provoking.
I’m reading too much into all this, I’m sure, but I was really struck by the stylistic symmetry of this episode. The characters designs and even general art style looked strictly 1980’s to me, and it starred the legend that is Inoue Kikuko (a veteran of the 2007 series). Given that Inoue-san jokingly refers to herself as “forever 17” it would have been even funnier if she’d played the episode’s protagonist Yuna rather than her mother, but of course the ageless Inoue was actually 17 herself in the ’80s. As for Yuna she’s played by Kuwashima Houko, herself a veteran of both the 1996 and 2007 “Kitarou” incarnations (and no 17 year-old at that).
I just loved the look of this episode – it really put me in mind of what an old Adachi or Rumiko anime would have looked like with 2018 animation behind it. The detail (like the rowing crew on the water when Yuna and her mother walked by) was as ever way more than strictly necessary to tell the story. That story was, as noted, fairly standard GGGnK fodder. Yuna’s mother has been abandoned by her husband, which has caused her to impose a draconian set of rules on her daughter’s social life. Eventually everything changes when Sunakake-baba’s scroll (thanks to Konaki Jiji dropping it on the way to trade it for sake) falls into Yuna’s hands.
On that scroll is a painting of a beautiful young man, who eventually finds his way into the 3-D world and plays into Yuna’s insecurity and loneliness. He’s Gahi (Midorikawa Hideyuki, Black Crow in the 2007 series), and there’s something off about him right away. But Yuna is so broken that even when she finds out that Gahi is a youkai who feeds on human souls she can’t bring herself to quit him. And when she discovers her mom is dating a co-worker – hoo, boy… This is pretty dark stuff, but nowhere that this series hasn’t gone before.
I’m very much in agreement with Mizuki Shigeru on Nezumi-otoko’s role in the narrative. He’s my favorite character too for starters, but more than that I think Mizuki-sensei was right in saying that he’s the one who really gives the stories their forward momentum. When he’s not around there’s definitely something missing a lot of the time, an edge and directness. Because Ratman is the most recongizably human of all the cast in terms of his frailties, the trouble he gets into (and causes) is generally very recognizable and relatable. The standard of this show is high enough that it pretty much always delivers entertaining and gorgeous, but it is more punchy when he’s in the mix – as he hopefully will be next week.
