Gegege no Kitarou 2018 has been remarkably timely in its plotting, so with umbrella stalkers being such a topic of concern in Japan lately, it only fits the series to pluck a story right out of today’s headlines. I kid of course, but like almost everything else in Japan, there’s an enormous amount of ritual around the humble umbrella. I suppose what with this being such a rainy country that makes sense, but all the whole tsukumogami angle and you’ve got quite a wellspring of stories to be told.
The umbrella at the heart of this episode is Karakasa – ofttimes going by Kasa-bake. He of course is a resident of the Youkai Apartment and thus, we met him in the wonderfully sentimental Episode 23, but it’s always nice to have the huge presence of Inada Tetsu (Jomon Man just a few weeks ago) back in the cast. This episode is far more comedically-driven than that one, but Inada’s energetic portrayal of the seriously obsessive Karakasa brings it in for a safe landing.
I have a lot of umbrella-related stories related to my time in Japan, to be sure. To begin with it’s the single item I forget most often, which I’ve always chalked up to the notion that we tend to forget that which we’re not used to carrying every day. The forgetting of umbrellas is endemic in Japan to be sure, but that ties closely into the pure disposability of them. The 100 Yen umbrellas many folks buy at Daiso or the like are pretty much useless in any wind whatsoever, so it’s no big deal if you do forget them – or if they break, of if you grab the wrong one leaving a shop or restaurant. Once in Tokyo I was leaving a ramen-ya without an umbrella in a light rain, and one of the employees ran after me and insisted I take one with me.
The other totem of the episode is Kitarou’s Chanchanko, which is certainly an eponymous part of his identity and mythology. Karakasa is envious of the cheap and colorful modern umbrellas he sees in use (the same ones whose owners treat them as disposable), and Nezumi-otoko lets is slip that if a youkai wears Kitarou’s chanchanko, they can transform into whatever figure they wish. When Karakasa sees a college kid named Kouichi (Kishio Daisuke, a wonderful seiyuu and GGGnK 2007 veteran we hardly hear from these days) grab the wrong (but seemingly identical) plastic umbrella when leaving the konbini, his obsessive side blossoms into full flower.
The thing is, you know, Kou-chan is right – he’s really not doing anything pretty much every Japanese person under 70 does these days. It could hardly be sadder from the perspective of a tsukumogami (that word “disposable” is especially cold and hard) but that, as Medama-oyaji says, is just modern life. Thus there is just a whisper of pathos to this story, but mostly it’s Karakasa growing increasingly unhinged for comic effect as he takes on (sort of) human form to more effectively terrorize Kou-chan. As the more lightweight Gegege no Kitarou eps go this is one of the more self-assured and effective and as always, the casting has a lot to do with that.
Aera
September 2, 2019 at 7:30 pmNice little episode. As someone who is very forgetful, forgetting an umbrella is not an exception, and this episode hits close to home.
Just like you, I often forgot my umbrella (and mixed it up with someone else’s) whenever I went to konbini during my brief visit to Japan, especially since those you can buy at Daiso are often very identical to one another. My mom and my dad borrowed an umbrella from an apartment and accidentally left it in a bus. They brought a new umbrella as a replacement and I apologized to the apartment owner, explained the situation as well, but the owner said “It’s okay, that happens a lot. We can always buy a new one.” Until now, I still feel bad anyway despite he reassured me so.
What Medama Oyaji said, that the way we live right now makes us forget to appreciate things, really rings true. The moment I watched this episode, I instantly remembered about the similar-colored white umbrella that I left when I went to Lawson, and another white-colored one that I think I mixed up with someone else’s, as well as the apartment’s umbrella that my mom and my dad accidentally left in the bus. Kou is right, indeed. People use and throw away the cheap umbrella that often, then buy again and throw it away again and so on. When I packed up to leave Japan, I had to leave the umbrella away too. Perhaps, I should learn to appreciate even little things like this.
A nice little episode that teaches the viewers the bitter reality of disposable things, as well as an episode that teaches the viewers to appreciate things. Thanks for the review as always!
Guardian Enzo
September 2, 2019 at 8:04 pmThanks for that – fantastic observations. It’s funny how sentimental we can get about even the smallest and most seemingly trivial things.