You know, in a sense Gegege no Kitarou is very lucky.  But as they say, talent makes its own luck, and I think that’s the case with this series.  It has a tremendous catalog of thematic options to call on, thanks in large part to the masterful writing of Mizuki Shigeru.  Mizuki drew on the legends of a thousand years and more in Japan and made them his own, and he gifted the franchise a stable of characters who can take the story in almost limitless directions.  But it all comes together because Toei assembled an amazing team of writers and animators for this series, creators good enough to take advantage of the resources at their disposal.

It’s hard to say who has more of a history in Gegege no Kitarou, Yamata-no-Orochi or the man who plays him here.  Orochi has been in just about every version of the anime (as well as the manga, obviously) and is one of the most important figures in Japanese mythology (it was even the inspiration for King Ghidorah in the Godzilla-verse).  And it finally gave GGGnK 2018 a chance to use the great Shibata Hidekatsu, the 83 year-old legend for whom this is his eight incarnation of the series, which may be a record (Shibata also has the distinction of playing Enma-Daiou not just in this franchise, but Dororon Enma-kun).

“I have no obligation to help selfish humans.  But I will this time.”  If any line of dialogue ever summed up Kitarou – and this episode – that would be it.  The selfish human in question is Saitou Fujio (2018 series regular Numata Yuusuke), a lowlife salaryman who can’t get anywhere with women and generally hates his life.  He sees a LINE ad for the “wish-granting Orochi of Mt. Oguro”, and suckers himself into far more than he bargains for.  This is pretty much your classic “Monkey’s Paw” scenario, which seems to be common to the lexicon of every culture on the planet – when you try to “cheat at life”, it never works out for the best.

We’ve met a Yobuko (Matsuno Taiki, ’96, ’07 and ’18 veteran) before in this series, but he was quite different from the one we see here.  His job is to “protect” the Orochi but in this case he seems more intent on luring him in (as we’ll find out).  Once the fish is on the hook, things move along in pretty predictable fashion – every time Saitou makes a wish ill fortune befalls someone else to grant it – and eventually of course the recipient will be Saitou himself.  Kitarou tries to give Saitou a freebie and take the Orochi (whose presence is made material in the form of a huge diamond) off his hands, but naturally the greedy bastard will have none of that.

I will give credit to Saitou for some clever thinking in coming up with the “bring me someone who can kill you” wish – apparently the Orochi has to abide by his own rules, and Saitou managed to craft a wish that followed them.  But he wishes away his last hope for redemption when the Yakuza show up looking for him over his debt, and pays a stiff price for it.  I’m not sure Kitarou could have helped Saitou at the end even if he’d wanted to, but the fact that he didn’t was only one reason why the denouement of this episode was rather chilling.