Another milestone, another stellar episode, another bleak Sunday morning for Gegege no Kitarou and its audience.  After a week off (as was the case with several series) GGGnK returns with its 80th episode, and it’s yet another beauty.  When this series takes the gloves off and goes full tragedy mode, there are few that can hang with it.  I wouldn’t want it any other way, though I’m kind of glad we don’t get this sort of ep every week as that would eventually be too much for my heart.

This week is the story of Takagi Tsutomu (Shiraishi Ryoko back in this cast, and as always rock-solid playing a boy), Mana-chan’s classmate.  He’s forever looking haggard and tired, and busybody Mana can’t help but worry about him.  She suspects something funny is going on when she follows Takagi-kun home and sees something strange at his window, and calls Kitarou and Catchick for help.  They’re especially interested given a strange illness in the neighborhood, with a series of residents falling into mysterious comas.  You can probably see where this is going.

The villain of the piece is the Onmoraki (Hiyama Nobuyuki, veteran of the 2007 but new to this version), and it’s clear from his first encounter with Kitarou and Neko-musume that this is an exceptionally strong youkai.  Mizuki Shigeru seemed to have a special affinity for corpse demons – those who eat them and especially those who possess them.  There’s little that unsettles and triggers our sense of wrongness more than this sort of creature, but the real tragedy here is that Tsutomu has already lost one parent – his father died a year earlier, leaving him alone with his mother.

We can say this much – it’s a good thing Mana disobeyed Kitarou and Neko-musume’s order to go home once they knew there were up against a major youkai power, because who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t been around to dig Kitarou out of the berm where Onmoraki planted him (Catchick was already indisposed, and would have been worse if Kitarou hadn’t lent his chachanko to save her).  Mana is becoming more and more a full-fledged member of the team lately, which I think is a positive thing, and I expect her to have a major role in the final (and presumably really final) showdown with Nurarihyon.

The other thing that struck me about this story’s denouement, which was really tragic all-around, is just how much Medama-oyaji loves children.  We’ve seen evidence of this before, but he makes no allowances for which side of the divide – he longs to protect kids, and suffers when they suffer.  It should be noted that Nozawa Masako (who was playing Kitarou 50 years ago, for goodness sake) is doing a wonderful job communicating just how compassionate Medama-oyaji is, and keeping him from becoming a joke despite his physical appearance.

As for poor Tsutomu-kun, well, that was a real heartbreaker.  He knew the truth all along of course, and despite Medama-oyaji’s efforts to spare him from watching what had to be done, he ended up having to do it himself.  Even here, Daddy does his best to console and support – but how can you console a boy in Tsutomu’s position, really?  I know this isn’t that sort of show but a part of me was really hoping that Mana would take him home and try and talk her parents into adopting him, but Gegege no Kitarou does absolutely nothing to soften the blow in the end.  I wouldn’t want it any other way – but maybe just once in a while wouldn’t hurt…