Maybe it’s OK to pretend most of the last couple of months of Gegege no Kitarou never happened, because it’s showing serious signs of having turned the corner. The last two episodes were quite good in a mostly stand-alone sense – while they were tied in to the Backbeard storyline they were mainly self-supporting plots. But now we have an ep which fully embraces the Western Youkai arc, and does so more convincingly than any has so far. It’s too early to celebrate but that can only be a good sign.
The disappearance of Konaki Jiji is the trigger event this week – we know Backbeard is behind it and it doesn’t take long for the Gegege denizens to figure it out too. It leads to the cancellation of the youkai getaway, which Agnes has finally (with Mana’s gentle urging) convinced herself to attend at Kitarou’s invitation. This puts Nezumi-otoko in a foul humor (though there’s some question of whether he was invited anyway after befouling the bath last year). Eventually he’s drawn in by Carmilla, who uses him as a prop to try and break the unity of the Japanese youkai.
Having been witness to many political rallies much akin to the one we saw here – annoying freaks loudly decrying the presence of foreigners in Japan – I found Nezumi-otoko’s little demonstration hit quite close to home. It’s nice to see Gegege no Kitarou swing to this side of the divide, because I thought it had waded into some pretty distasteful waters with its earlier handling of this arc. I’m still not fully convinced on this score (again, it’s too early to celebrate) but this is certainly a step in the right direction.
Nezumi-otoko, for the record, seems not to actually believe all the nonsense he was spouting – he was just playing a role. But it’s effective in persuading Agnes to bolt – which soon enough gets her captured by Backbeard, just as Sand Witch, Nurikabe, Itan Momen and even Neko-musume have been. Things are looking pretty grim for Kitarou, as he’s forced to defend himself from his friends who’ve fallen under Backbeard’s control and finds his attacks on Backbeard (who, one assumes, is not physically present and thus in no danger) ineffective. Fortunately Nezumi-otoko steps up with his special attack, which is… effective, if nothing else.
The upshot of all this is that with the help of Nezumi-otoko’s upshot, Kitarou and Agnes manage to team up and drive Backbeard off for the nonce. And Agnes finally acknowledges to herself that Kitarou really does consider her a friend, and she has a place among his extended youkai family. But Backbeard’s comment about Agnes being suitable to be the “core” of the Brigadoon project does not go unnoticed by Kitarou, and it seems to imply that she’s more important to Backbeard than she’s been letting on. Judging by the preview it looks like next week’s episode is going to be a very eventful one indeed – and I’m most curious to see how Nanashi (who for my money is a much scarier big bad than Backbeard) is connected to all these Western Youkai developments.
