This was about as down-the-middle as an episode of Gegege no Kitarou gets, thematically.  It features a youkai who’s been a regular in the franchise since the beginning, a classic morality play, and a stark reminder that there are limits to how far Kitarou will go to protect humans.  But just because it’s safe territory doesn’t make it mundane – this was a very solid episode on the whole, with some more of the excellent animation we’ve been seeing in this series for over a year.

There are times when I wonder if Mana is like Natsume, one of those humans whose connection to the youkai world draws youkai activity to those around her.  Taken individually most of these cases seem coincidental, a product of Mana’s friendship with the Gegege clan, but take Miyabi for example – this poor girl has gotten caught up in it several times already.  She’s a good kid, just like Mana, but that’s certainly no protection from the likes of Ushirogami (Kuwashima Houko, a regular both in this version and earlier ones).

Ushirogami is the antagonist of the piece, but not really the villain.  She’s behind a string of disappearances that have been happening all over town, all in houses with a view of the local airfield (or perhaps more than one).  Eventually that includes Miyabi’s house – first the dog (nothing better happen to the pug), then the parents, and finally Miyabi herself.  This is good old-fashioned Japanese ghost story fodder, quite creepy, and in fact historically speaking Ushirogami is one of the most ghost-like of all youkai in appearance.  She’s using a youkai cactus to eat people and take over their houses, and Mana receives quite a welcome when she goes to check up on Miyabi after she’s cut off mid-text.

As for Kitarou, he’s become involved after the boyfriend of one of the earlier victims asks him for help.  It’s Nezumi-otoko who gets to the bottom of things first, though – he was eaten himself a few weeks earlier, having listened to Ushirogami’s story.  The real villain here is Mitamura (Tanaka Kenta, a rare newbie to the franchise).  He takes advantage of women and then disappears, Ushirogami included.  In fact Ushirogami’s story is rather human – a girl from the mountains comes to the big city and gets taken in by a smooth-talking ikemen.  Mitamura didn’t know what he was getting into with this victim, though.

I quite liked the moment when Kitarou was eaten and threw Medama-oyaji to Mana to keep him safe on the outside – though he was nearly a lot worse off then if he’d been swallowed.  And Mana shows her usual pluck in letting herself be eaten to pass along his message about the cactus’ weak spot to Kitarou.  I would say Kitarou was, if anything, too generous to Mitamura in giving him a chance to repent – not that it was ever likely to take.  But that’s as far as his kindness goes because we’ve seen where the line is for Kitarou – he can’t (or won’t) save humans from their own greed and stupidity, especially when they’re victimizing youkai.  No, he got what he deserved, and frankly for him to stick to his ways after having seen what he’d just seen, it’s impossible to muster any sympathy for him.