martin

The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe

This movie was released as part of the celebrations around the hundredth year since Shigeru Mizuki's birth. It is without a doubt the most mature and best Kitaro movie, not that there are that many to compare it to, sadly. The movie is a treat to all Shigeru Mizuki fans like me (I own most of his manga and can't wait for D&Q to release his yokai album later this year). It is a prequel to the 2018 series, and as the name suggests, it tells the story of Kitaro's birth. It is only vaguely based on his origin story from the manga, though. Some of the main beats are the same, for example, Kitaro's adoptive father works for a blood bank, his company by mistake deals with yokai blood, taken from Kitaro's parents. But it also adds a lot of new things to the otherwise short and direct story. From what I know, the origin story in the manga is something of an afterthought, so changing it isn't that big of a problem. Some of the changes work very well because they allow the creators to explore more mature topics than the manga. Some of them even come in the form of references to Mizuki's autobiographical work, making this movie also partially a semi-biography of the legendary mangaka. Most of these references come in the form of the backstory of the protagonist, also named Mizuki. Just like the mangaka, he is a war veteran who was stationed in Papua New Guinea, is given an order for noble death, and is later disfigured during a fight. A lot of the flashbacks in the movie seem to come or be inspired by Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, possibly my favorite Mizuki work, which was awesome. The movie explores not only the war, but also its repercussions for Japan and the country's economy and sense of self-worth. From Mizuki, we learn that the ones who were hit the worst by the war were the normal people like him - they lost family members, their houses, means of sustenance. While the rich who actually forced the lower classes to fight in the war not only kept their position in society, but even got richer. Seeing this brought to mind numerous works from the past few years such as Godzilla Minus One which deal with similar topics. The rich warmongers who get richer after the war are represented by the isolated Ryuga clan whom Mizuki visits. They are creators of the medicine M used by the Japanese Imperial army during the war and its successors, the salarymen, in the post-war years. The medicine is needed by the blood bank because it makes the people who drink it almost invincible, allowing them to work tirelessly, But while the M used by the actual soldiers and workers in Japan were methamphetamines, here it is yokai blood. And more precisely, the blood of a type of superhumans that is being harvested by the Ryuga family in their goal to make Japan the greatest and strongest nation in the world. Pretty fascist stuff, but not very far from the actual politicians ruling Japan for the past 70 years. Mizuki's visit to the isolated family allows for the movie to go into the horror territory that some chapters of Kitaro explore, while continuing to be critical of the politics in the country. The isolation and desire for purity leads to abuse, incest, and madness, while the hiding of the misdeeds in the past leads to resentment. In the movie it takes the form of a very powerful yokai who consists of the angry ghosts of hundreds, possibly thousands of people who were wronged. This amorphous, explosive hatred has the potential to destroy everything if it is not acknowledged and appeased, the movie suggests. Not only was the origin story of Kitaro changed, the design of most characters was, too. His parents look very different from the manga, the father is more like a big version of Kitaro and not the mummy-looking zombie from the manga. The same applies for iconic characters like Nezumi Otoko, who is much cleaner-looking than in the manga. But what's worse, none of them, not even the old characters, look like they were designed by Shigeru Mizuki. The 2018 show suffered from the same thing, but here it seems to be even more pronounced, with important characters looking as if they came from the Apothecary Diaries, for example. This, coupled with the very slow first half, makes for a not so pleasant experience at first, but once things get into gear, it's pretty good fun. I hope there will be more Kitaro movies like this one. It's fun, modern, mature, and introduces younger generations to a classic work of manga.

vinguson

The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe

Little gore than i expected. Plot is kinda confusing too (i didn't follow the anime) but the ending scene is so beautiful i mean a lake and sakura tree made from dead people? Oh that's beautiful, ghost island is beautiful (but not with the humans). Is it wrong if i'm shipping them together? I mean you guys keep together to solve the problem. 😭