As much as I’d like to, I can’t in good conscience bury the headline here, because it’s certainly foremost on my mind as I consider this episode of Gegege no Kitarou.  There was a lot going on here, as this episode was tasked with setting up the storyline which apparently will drive much of the second half of this series, but once more GGGnK chose to dip its toes into some dangerous waters – and this time around, the results were considerably more troubling.

My first thought when it became clear where the story was headed with the refugee youkai was “Oh, no – are you really going there?”  And yes, they certainly were.  The B-part moved on to more plot-driven matters quickly enough, but the aura of that scene hung in the air like a miasma over the rest of the episode, and once it was over it was all I could smell.  I’m certainly OK with this show tackling sensitive topics – it’s shown great dexterity in doing so before.  But when I paused to consider whether I was in fact offended by what I saw, I couldn’t deny that I was.

The really sad part for me is that clearly, in its dealings with matters such as WW II, workplace bullying and free thought in schools, this incarnation of Gegege no Kitarou has shown itself to be quite forward-thinking in most respects.  It’s certainly not the mindset of a nationalist lite novel.  But when it comes to foreigners, even “liberal” Japanese fall into the same trap.  If it’s not abject racism (that’s the bailiwick of  the nationalists, and anime has that covered amply) it’s the kind of condescending paternalism we saw in this episode.  I don’t think I need to explain what I mean – I believe it’s pretty clear in the way events played out – but it’s depressing as hell.

I’d love to talk about the rest of the episode – we have a youkai war coming up, and a whole passel of “western youkai” on the way to wage it in Japan – and in truth, I was planning to when I started typing.  But I don’t have the stomach for it, to be honest – we’ll get to all that next week, but at the moment I kind of want to forget this episode ever happened.