It seems as if spending part of summer in Tottori is an annual tradition for Gegege no Kitarou 2019, which is rather a nice thing given Mizuki Shigeru’s fierce and undying love for his home prefecture.  And as with episodes 16 and 17, we’re apparently following the pattern of a comedy-driven episode followed up by a darker and more serious one.  These Tottori eps definitely have a different feel to the rest of the series, but that’s quite fitting given Mizuki’s personal history.

Tottori is indeed the most lightly-populated prefecture in Japan (though Kagawa is physically the smallest) and as such, it probably does has some mixture of fierce pride over the distinction and an inferiority complex.  It also wrestles, as many places in Japan do, with a population decline – a very serious subject that’s openly acknowledged here, albeit in comedic fashion.  And comedic fashion is how Governor Nozawa (Numata Yuusuke, a regular in the GGGnK company) – a friend of Mana’s Uncle Shouji – chooses to deal with the problems of a place that’s all too easy for the rest of Japan to forget.

This is all fairly lighthearted, self-referential and silly, but there is nevertheless a melancholic tone to it given how close it hits to home for places like Tottori.  After Kitarou, Neko-musume and Medama-oyaji arrive in Sakaiminato for a “real summer vacation”, they – and Mana – are surprised to learn the governor has seceded from Japan and launched “The Great Tottori Empire”.  Here, one must fill out an application to get a drink at “Showbucks” (ROFL), enforcement of the Tottori-glorifying rules is aided by a giant crab and pear (the prefecture’s most famous products) and those who dare speak ill of the fatherland are send to a reeducation center.  It’s funny but also a little not funny, if you know what I mean.

Of course there’s a youkai behind all this, and for once Ratman isn’t involved – the culprit is Mabyo (Takano Urara, new to GGGnK but a name that should be very familiar to anime fans of a certain age).  He’s some sort of cat youkai whose main crime is loving Tottori too much, and he’s body-snatched the real Nozawa and taken his place, brainwashing the subjects of the G.T.E. with his cat powers.  What’s interesting here is that Kitarou and Catchick (along with Medama-oyaji) get brainwashed themselves pretty early-on, more or less leaving it to Uncle Shouji to take down Mabyo with Mana’s help.

Next week’s episode will, as noted, likely be the more serious, but one can guess that it will be no less sentimental about the place of Mizuki Shigeru’s birth.  I imagine part of Mizuki’s motivation when writing Kitarou stories set in Tottori was to help spur tourism (likewise a goal of the “Mizuki Road” in Sakaiminato referenced in the episode) for a prefecture already losing population 40 or 50 years ago.  As such he’d no doubt be thrilled to see this new series follow his example – but then, it’s an updating of the franchise that’s never treated Mizuki or his ideals with anything less than complete and total respect.