I could take as long as I wanted, really, to list all the reasons why it’s a mistake for so many anime fans in the West to not watch Gegege no Kitarou 2018. But just to single out one, if you aren’t watching you’re missing out on seriously one of the creepiest seiyuu performances ever. Like, seriously creepy – that’s Ginga Banjou as Nanashi. The character design and the way it’s animated helps too (this ep was full of examples of the latter), but most of it comes down to Ginga-san. Holy Hell, he’s good.
As a general rule, I’ve found the conventionally plot-driven episodes (and arcs) of GGGnK to be less effective than the more usual Mizuki-esque stories, but this was one of the better ones. It finds Kitarou accused of “Obliteration” – a serious crime not charged against anyone in the youkai world for a century. The victim is Hitotsume-kozo (Reimi), a harmless youkai Kitarou would obviously never obliterate. The courtroom is the domain of the Karasu-tengu, the defense attorney is Neko-musume, and the prosecutor is Momon-ji (Saito Shirou, veteran of the 2007 series).
There are a couple of headlines here, but of course that Kitarou is innocent isn’t one of them – we knew that. The problem is, he’s not innocent of obliterating youkai, something we’ve seen him do on numerous occasions. He’s doing it to protect humans or keep the peace, but Nezumi-otoko’s supposition that all this could be a grudge for taking the human’s side so often seems to make sense. The problem is, it turns out Nezumi-otoko has betrayed Kitarou – which I definitely do consider one of the headlines. Yes it was for a shit-ton of Yen from Momon-ji and yes, Ratman is a corrupt guy – but still, to betray someone whose friendship he seems to genuinely covet struck me as right on the edge of being out of character.
The other headline for me is the aforementioned Nanashi (did I mention Ginga Banjou is fucking creepy?). It turns out that he’s the one behind the frame-up we know is taking place, using Momon-ji as his puppet (the first thing I noticed about him was his nose hairs, so I was pleased to see they were plot-relevant). This is really proactive by Nanashi standards – he’s usually hovering on the periphery more than manipulating events directly, which leads me to believe he’s getting ready to instigate whatever his final plan may be. And that’s a pretty scary thought, especially for Mana.
While it doesn’t end up being the reason for his troubles this time, the courtroom scene is still pretty telling as it relates to Kitarou. No question, he’s bound to have created some bad blood in the youkai world doing what he does – not just among purely evil youkai, but among those that believe their shared nature should trump the specifics of any particular crime against humanity. Kitarou would surely argue that he’s not on anybody’s side, that he’s just trying to keep the peace. And he’d be right, too, but for some in the youkai world that surely isn’t enough to justify his choices.
Nanashi is a mysterious character in the best way. Why did he set up Kitarou like this? Well, it seems as if he was feeding on the miasma created by the anger of the youkai at Kitarou, but I’m not sure that was the entire reason. We do see him seemingly use that miasma to affix yet another Kanji to poor sweet Mana, who has yet another terrifying half-perceived encounter with Nanashi. “Empty vessel”, “neither human nor youkai” – if we don’t know what Nanashi is after, we also don’t know just what Mana is (and what she isn’t, perhaps human).
Aera
February 4, 2019 at 4:39 amThis episode heavily reminds me of first episode in Hell’s Chapter of ’80s, as well as the manga adaptation of Gegege no Kitaro 2007 version (I believe it’s titled Gegege no Kitaro: Youkai-sen Monogatari, which was illustrated by Ryuichi Hoshino). Both versions included the episode where Kitaro was accused of betraying youkai, everyone was trying to back him up, Nezumi Otoko betrayed Kitaro (in a very similar fashion as well, by giving out false statements to the judge, though in manga it was very dramatized), everyone somehow found out that Kitaro is innocent and managed to free him. Nezumi Otoko’s behavior here didn’t seem to be out of character for me (nor did his behavior surprise me) because it happened in previous iterations as well
I have always been interested to Nanashi’s role here. Other than him being extremely creepy villain, he seems to replace one main villain of Gegege no Kitaro series that appeared in previous iterations as far as I know: Nurarihyon. He is a very, very irritating villain that appeared in every single iterations, except this one. Which is a great idea since I personally am not really fond of Nurarihyon’s character (he’s a really annoying villain) and Nanashi is a mysterious, yet interesting one too. Nanashi’s existence as antagonist is such a breathe of fresh air, making this version of Gegege no Kitaro becomes unpredictable yet also keeping the greatness of the original as close as possible.
Anyway, I’m pretty worried about what Nanashi is up to with Mana (poor girl, she does not deserve this) and I’m pretty curious what will happen next. Just my guess, but maybe this will end at episode 51 or 52? Perhaps that is why it’s starting to go to the main plot and solve it, since they don’t have much time left. I hope Gegege no Kitaro remains interesting and great as it starts to solve the main plot.
Thank you for being so dedicated in writing weekly review of Gegege no Kitaro.
Guardian Enzo
February 4, 2019 at 6:46 amYou’re very welcome – it’s literally a pleasure. And as far as I know this is scheduled to run for a year, so 50-52 eps most likely.
As to Nezumi-otoko, remember I did say “right on the edge”. I don’t think it quite crosses over into being out of character.
Alejandra
February 6, 2019 at 3:14 amWell, now that Nanashi placed another mark on Mana, I can say that first of all, he was collecting human malice but, after the incident with Backbeard and also that Agnes kissed Mana’s hand, that allowed Mana to have a stronger conection with the Yokai World, therefore, when Nanashi placed the third mark, it was with half humans half yokais; and now, he only needed Yokai malice…
I wonder what will happen to Mana but surely, Nezumi-otoko pissed me for doing that to Kitaro…
This is just a guessing but I believe Nanashi might end up hiring him in order to place the final seal in Mana
Guardian Enzo
February 6, 2019 at 9:30 amIt’s possible. But we have seen a couple of times that Nezumi seems to have a particular weakness for Mana. Affection? Maybe that’s too strong, but it could be a factor.