#kitaro blogging

[clannfearrunt]

official geta complaint: splatoon please add appropriate clopping noises when walking around with the wooden sandals on. I am acutely aware of it Not Clopping and it is distracting to my gameplay. My brain automatically picks up on the lack of clopping for normal reasons

[animanga-stuff]

Kitaro from Gegege no Kitaro

[gauchestardust]

oh my god DAMN YOU gegege no kitaro for making me cry

why does the episode have to be so sad,,, i feel bad for sunekosuri and his owner too...

[gauchestardust]

why is this so fucking funny 😭

[tamamatango]

HAPPENING……MAYBE!! (Addressing the anime rumors + Keroro’s birthday plan revealed)

*holding my hand out toward you with sparkles framing me* Let’s take copium together!

Not the post I was planning to make next, but here’s a sudden update for a couple of reasons. Some very exciting rumors which you may very well have seen have been floating around for the last day or so, and while I was initially hype as fuck to corroborate it as fact, there’s a little asterisk to the whole thing that I wanna tack on before we shit our pants too much. In addition, the official accounts have revealed what they’re planning for Keroro’s birthday this year, and while it’s not that closely related, I might as well cover that too.

So, a summary of what alleged info just came out:

A typically reputable anime news/leak account, SugoiLITE, shared yesterday that the Keroro anime series is planned to be broadcasted in Spring 2025, and a new movie is planned for 2026. However, the only publicly verifiable info hinting toward this is a recently released interview in an anime magazine with animation director Fumitoshi Oizaki (from the original series, and was also credited on April’s PV), where he describes the series and movie projects but does not specify the series name. This info is per another credible reporter, blogger ryokutya.

Now, here is my translation of Oizaki’s quote as presented in the post: “Details haven’t been made public yet, but I’m working on a series to be broadcasted next spring. Concurrently, a movie scheduled to be released in 2026 has also started production.”

Sadly, the blog post does not specify which anime magazine this was in, so I don’t have the full context for the interview or the question asked. I checked a few table of contents from recently released anime magazines and didn’t see Oizaki’s name in any of them. My hunch is telling me that it’s Newtype, which doesn’t have a digital version, so there’s no feasible way for me to have it that quickly. So yeah, we’re kinda stuck with that quote floating in the void for now.

I can’t go too deep into it so you’ll have to trust me on this one, but I’ve got a little knowledge myself about roughly how and from where anime leaks usually get sourced. It is very possible SugoiLITE does indeed know this information in advance, but it’s also equally possible he only saw this same quote and extrapolated the most likely scenario from it. If it is the latter, I’d say he made a pretty safe bet anyway.

In the quote, what I chose to translate as “concurrently” can also mean “in parallel”, so the interpretation I’m getting is that the spring 2025 series and 2026 movie are connected and being developed in tandem. Ryokutya also guesses that the work in question is Keroro since it does have a project announced. I’ve speculated that the new series will air in either spring or summer next year for a while now (BNP has a mysterious gap in their schedule, with two series airing in January and the Gintama spinoff announced in late 2023 being pushed to October). A movie in 2026 also make a lot of sense, since it’s the 20th anniversary of the first movie. Oizaki does work on other franchises with recent relevancy, such as Kaleido Star which had its 20th anniversary in 2023, and some works in the Shigeru Mizuki-verse like Akuma-kun and last year’s Gegege no Kitaro prequel. But given the specific language in the quote and just Occam’s razoring it down to the fact that we know Keroro is getting things already, I think this double feature is pretty likely what’s going on. Maybe it’s the hopium talking, but it’s certainly not a reach (trust me I’ve made reaches before I was here for the nothingburger that was the anime’s 15th anniversary).

Okay, tl;dr: Given the one available source we have and the credibility of both reporters involved, I think there’s a pretty good chance the anime will really be next spring and there will be a movie in 2026 as people have been corroborating. But the probability that this is an educated guess and the probability that it’s confirmed are pretty much equal at the moment. So get excited! But not too excited. Just like a bit above average excited. You may draw the party popper pull string back about three quarters.

When I first started drafting this post, I was looking forward to saying that we’ll likely find out next month what the truth is, knowing that today the official accounts were going to reveal what this year’s Keroro birthday celebration is. But…they explicitly stated there will not be any new anime info at the event they have planned. Booooooo. Well, here’s what we are getting:

It’s actually not a physical event like they held last year. This time, they’re commemorating Keroro’s birthday with the first episode of a new live radio show called “Kero! to Radio”, featuring Keroro’s voice actress Kumiko Watanabe and Tamama’s voice actress Etsuko Kozakura. It will be broadcasted irregularly on the official Keroro YouTube channel, and next month’s premiere will be here. There will be various different segments of the show which feature messages and questions sent in by listeners. Submissions are sent in via the program’s Onsen page, which also has details about each segment. You do need an account to send messages, but I don’t think a Japanese address is required unless you want to enter the optional raffle. I’ll play around with it later and potentially do a separate post going more into the show’s structure if that’s something people are interested in (obviously you need to know Japanese to really get anything out of this, so I’d like to gauge if it’s worth it first).

While it’s disappointing that there seemingly won’t be any news about the new anime revealed on the legendary birthday, it’s pretty neat to have another VA radio show. It seems like this is sort of following in the footsteps of Keroro and Giroro’s Earth Invasion Radio from back when the original show was still airing, although Keroro Channel also had been doing its own livestreams featuring the BNP/Kadokawa staff running the channel giving updates about the series’s various collabs and stuff (the majority of these episodes were done before the new anime announcement). It’s unclear if this is going to replace those or not; this is quite different structurally. It would be really cool if they rotate the voice actors out each episode and change the segments up a little since the broadcasts are irregular anyway. I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

*Exhale* All right, that’s enough yapping for today. I know the wait for more concrete details on the anime has been excruciating, especially now that we have a very tantalizing possibility dangling right before our noses. But if spring really is the airdate, it can’t be too much longer now. We already waited over a decade—what’s a few more months, right? Heh heh... (I’m dying Squirtle.)

[ghoooooooooooooooost]

i caved and made a bluesky but.... idon rlly like it.... don't like starting over + a lot of artists i follow on twitter still aren't on there + your blocks are public (scary). n i'm still wary of staff if i can be honest

(rambling under readmore)

it kinda feels like..... "u wanna flop worse than u do on twitter on a twitter clone w less artists n without the comforts of blogging or repeatedly rbing the same post or locking posts from tumblr? n u can't make a priv"

like i think if i'm gonna fully commit, twitter has to go down. offline.

some ppl are putting bsky on too high of a pedestal; there's still hateful bigotry there's just less users lol (n didn't staff say they wouldn't delete nzis). you have blocklists but again your blocks are public bc it's ~decentralized~ <don't know if that's related to how it was apparently gonna be an nft trading site until ppl started posting sex

there's extwitter artists who Only post there now so its like fuuuuuck ig i'll keep it even if i don't post much of my own art. also i had to unfollow one of them bc they started resharing kitaro x mizuki art on bsky when their twitter acct was "no shipping" i threw uuuuuup

anyways i do think it's good to have more sites i just wish they would be different to justify me rebuilding. atp i'm not even scared abt twitter scraping my art for ai bc all art i've posted before on any site has probably already been scraped; i'll just fight it without running for now

in conclusion: i need elon to die so everyone i follow can move back to twitter

[dailydemonspotlight]

Backbeard - Day 61

Race: Foul

Alignment: Dark-Chaos

July 1st, 2024

ZEHAHAHA- wait, no L. Unfortunate. Today's Demon of the Day is, strangely, a modern version of a classic type of monster, and one that originates from a very specific source- a manga. Yep, we have another one that leads you in circles in research, though in this case, it's because it might not even exist. Enter Backbeard, a yōkai that originates from GeGeGe no Kitaro. Before I start digging into what little there is to offer, I'd like to give a huge thank you to @kanekocribs 's fantastic post about this subject, which also had a great delve into Porewit, which you all know my very... intense feelings about.

For the most part, Backbeard's origin is incredibly hard to trace; the purported origin of the yōkai in the book "100 Ghosts and Hauntings of the World" seems to have just been made up by the SMT fandom wiki, as the closest thing I can even trace to that name is the series of woodblock prints from the 1830's called "One Hundred Ghost Stories" which can be further traced back to a set of parlor games called "Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai." In these sources, though, I can't find any reference to Backbeard or even just a single-eyed entity, which appears to be the primary trait for a lot of depictions. Even going back and trying to find anything related to an August 1965 edition of Shonen Book, which the wiki page cites...

Sends you right back to GeGeGe no Kitaro. Please get some sources cited Megaten wiki. Regardless, though, what on earth is GeGeGe no Kitaro even about? It's about yōkai, of course! In the story, Backbeard appears as a major antagonist, leading scores of the 'Western Yōkai,' effectively meaning groups of classical horror movie monsters such as the Wolfman, Dracula, Witches, etc. He's seen as the main antagonist of several of the stories, but in most adaptations he's cut for more personal antagonists. I'm not well versed in GeGeGe no Kitaro, especially because I haven't read it, but the design says all it really needs to say.

Later on, it's attributed and believed that Backbeard may have taken inspiration from several sources conglomerating together, though I could not find a source for the LIFE OF ME regarding the first one. TW for body horror and bugs below, but some people purport that Backbeard may have been based on the 'Eye Bugs' from the aforementioned magazine '100 Ghosts and Hauntings of the World,' though again, I have no idea where this picture comes from, and searching is turning up diddly squat. The second picture, though, I can attest to existing- a piece of art called the Shinjuku Phantom Chimera by Masatoshi Naitō.

Ironically, I pulled this from another blog! Special thanks as well to @littleeyesofpallas for this post about Bleach that ALSO goes into Backbeard. Finally, we can trace the inspiration for Backbeard and Shinjuku Phantom Chimera all the way back to the 1800's, wherein we have this painting by French artist Odilon Redon, simply called Eye Balloon.

So, cool! What do I do with this? I have no idea! There isn't really a moral at the end of this, or any grand message, and my hours of digging have dealt me many, many headaches with not much else in return. I guess, at the very least, I satisfied my curiosity, and also found out that Bleach has a GeGeGe no Kitaro reference in it.

[clannfearrunt]

after a while this mutated from "let's cobble together some favorites for this quick fun thing :)" to "I need to find the crustiest images of each character to put together"

some people in one of my servers are doing something called "take 4 of your favorite characters from different media and pose them together against a weezer blue background" and i'm obsessed. i think this should be a new trend

[kryptonbabe]

Japanese Superman?

No, a common mistake - this is actually Rocketman, Kitaro Mizuki's 1958 brain child, his debut manga with cover art by Koji Kata (against Mizuki's will, which I get it, the character on the original cover - 2nd image - barely resembles the one in the book). If you look at the inside panels Rocketman is obviously a Superman ripoff, but his story is way different than Clark's origin. Although buying a copy of this would cost me a small fortune where I live, I managed to find some versions of the book synopsis online.

Dr. Uetsuto departs via rocket to investigate a second moon that appeared in the night sky, but the rocket is sabotaged by his rival Dr. Dorai, so it crashes and Uetsuto's corpse sinks to the bottom of the sea. However, right before the crash, Uetsuto came into contact with a mysterious being named Guraya who enters his body like a parasite, causing Uetsuto to later resurrect and with superpowers. Uetsuto becomes the mysterious hero Rocketman and battles against Dr. Dorai's giant robot Neo-Dorai.

The "powers through parasite infection" concept reminded me of Venom, a character I'm not really knledgeble about, but I do know his creation happened in the early 1980s, which means Rocketman super-powered parasite pre-dates Marvel's symbiote by 20 years or so... and I mean nothing by this, ideas come and go, Mizuki himself was no stranger to ripping off occidental comics (which I don't get nearly as mad as when it's occidental companies ripping off artists from other countries, I admit I'm a biased person).

On the other hand, another synopsis online doesn't even mention Superman Rocketman, and the plot seems to revolve strongly around the two opposing scientists and a giant jellyfish creature, described as the Guraya/Dr. Uetsuto creature (below).

My main sources were blog entries translated from Japanese and fan made wiki pages, so it's really hard to know for sure the details of the story that were not lost in translation or omitted (to avoid spoilers maybe - although there's no translation of the book in any western language that I managed to find). I wish I had the source material to write a more accurate description of this oddity, for now that's all I know.

Below it's Mizuki Shigeru's intended and unused cover art for Rocketman, inspired by Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (two Metropolis for the price of one) and H.G. Wells' Space War, a far superior art compared to the one they used.

[karan-koron]

If you don't mind, what is Nintama and why so many Genazo fans are getting into it?

Hello! Nintama Rantarou is an anime that has been airing since 1993. Just like Gegege no Kitaro, it's a huge household name in Japan, but is fairly unknown in the West. It's about the titular character Rantarou and his friends attending a ninjutsu school during the Sengoku period. It's an anime aimed at children, but it has a big following of adult women due to the attention to detail in regard of historical accuracy, its humor, and obviously its large cast of cute, dominantly male characters.

Recently, it's been getting a boom fandom-wise because a movie came out in Japanese theaters on December 20th. A lot of people are getting into the fandom or coming back to it, so it's generating quite a lot of discussion and buzz on social media.

As for why Genazo fans are getting into it... I guess there are multiple factors? Like Gegege no Nazo, the newest Nintama movie is a more serious, dramatic take on kodomomuke anime (though Nintama movie is still very family friendly and nowhere as gruesome as Genazo is ; but still! they showed the ninja being hurt and BLEEDING!! I was in shock!! a-hem), so it was bound to catch the interest of adult fans who are involved in fandom on social media. The movie also focuses on an EXTREMELY beloved character within the franchise, who is a parental figure to one of the child character, and happens to be voiced by.... Seki Toshihiko, same voice actor as Gegero! I think this is what drew a lot of Genazo people into Nintama :) because of the new movie! I guess Seki wasn't done giving us oyako feelings.

More specifically about the Western side of things... Like I said, Nintama is pretty obscure in the West ; it has never been licensed by any English companies, so any translated stuff you can find online is the work of fans. Here too, though on a much smaller scale, Genazo people got into Nintama probably because of Seki and the kodomomuke anime with a dramatic backdrop appeal lol. My friends and I have a fansubbing group for Nintama. We're doing what we can to foster community on the eng side at our scale, and maybe because we're also active sharing Genazo stuff there's overlap in circles happening on the English speaking side of fandom too?

It's a very fun franchise to get into to be honest, I really recommend it! Watching the TV anime is a good way to disconnect my brain and relax personally (friends and I call it fujoshi cocomelon for a reason hahaha), but it also has very good characterization and a touching cast of characters who all have their own individual quirk and story. It's g-rated but implies a lot of drama going on in the background, it being the Warring States period and all, so it inspired a tons of exciting fanworks as well. I've been dedicating a lot of my free time translating it, and I think we will be able to release the two previous movies soon (the one that came out in theaters last month is the third movie actually!). I hope these will work as a good entry way into the franchise for English-speaking fans.

...i'll also link my personal blog about the franchise if anyone wants to read about my meta posts and my translations.... Come say hello !!

[clannfearrunt]

duuuuude nintendo wii and DS confirmed in GGGnK worl

[sundove88]

Artwork Countdown to Christmas Challenge!

Everyone… guess what.

I’ve been fiddling around about what to do for the holidays, and I’ve got a genius idea.

A “Countdown to Christmas” Art Challenge!

So here’s how it goes- you select 24 of your followers (The 25th being you, cause you’re beautiful and unique in your own special way) and you draw a character from one of the fandoms each follower is in! Here’s mine! And don’t worry- you can either draw them in Christmas themed wear or in their standard outfits doing a holiday activity!

Day 1- Big Man (Splatoon 3) @lunartearrose

Day 2- Henry Stickmin (Henry Stickmin) @thehyperrequiem

Day 3- Princess Kaylo (OC) @kayssweetdreams

Day 4- Bumblebee (Transformers) @jettthespeeddemon

Day 5- Fettuccine Cookie (Cookie Run) @sam-rexian

Day 6- Jotaro Kujo (JJBA) @kindabizarretbh

Day 7- Spike (Brawl Stars) @lovelyteng

Day 8- Milla Vodello (Psychonauts) @thetropicalfairy

Day 9- Barnaby (Billie Bust Up) @a-little-ray-of-fantasy

Day 10- Cordie (MementoMori) @ultimatestellar

Day 11- King Dedede (Kirby) @hardrockhurricane and @stardustshimmer

Day 12- Vi (Bug Fables) @artisticangel

Day 13- Bulma (Dragon Ball Z) @spinomaster17

Day 14- Peso (Octonauts) @ham-sandwich-lol

Day 15- Cirno (TouHou) @cheezecirno

Day 16- Shigeo Mizuki (Gegege No Kitaro) @gerbelx2000-blog

Day 17- Jack Skellington (The Nightmare Before Christmas) @jezabatlovesbats

Day 18- Toriko (Toriko) @plasticoceanpearl

Day 19- Hilda (Hilda) @rosemary-posts-random-crap

Day 20- Litwick (Pokemon) @stormrider824

Day 21- Frost Fairy (Balan Wonderworld) @alex-frostwalker

Day 22- Ringmaster Raven (Poptropica) @pinklightningmc

Day 23- Kasumi Toyama (BanG Dream!) @spookyspooki

Day 24- Alucard (Helsing Ultimate) @artsy-jandi

Day 25/Christmas Day!!!- Linker of Choice (Project Link Up) @Me!

And don’t worry, followers who I didn’t tag. You’re free to join in the holiday fun!

[kachikirby]

Welcome to My Garden!!

This is the Tumblr account for Twitter user KachiKirby. I go by the same name on other social media platforms, too.

And yes, "English SD Gundam Queen" is an actual title I was given due to essentially being a walking encyclopedia of SD Gundam lore and one of the few English-speakers who have studied it extensively. I wear this title proudly.

I'm also the world's biggest Vassal Duke Strike Freedom x Valkyrie Gundam Hazel shipper. I love Saddrac Knight Saga.

Feel free to draw any of my OCs and tag me if you do!

Please note that I have been diagnosed with anxiety and can occasionally suffer from attacks. Please be patient with me.

Toyhouse | Ko-fi Page | Bluesky | Comfort Character list

Comms Status: OPEN (0/3)

Other blogs -

@theorganizationofficial - Ask Blog for my Kirby AU

@artofrikka - Blog for just my art

This is a multifandom blog, so rough list of some things I like:

Gundam (Especially SD Gundam, but mainly the older OVA and BB Senshi works like the Musha and Knight Gundam stuff.)

Kirby

Mecha anime in general (Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet is my favorite of all time. Other favorites include Back Arrow, Star Driver, and Mashin Hero Wataru)

Bleach

Black Jack and other Osamu Tezuka manga

Vanillaware games (Especially 13 Sentinels, Odin Sphere, Muramasa: The Demon Blade/Muramasa Rebirth, and Unicorn Overlord)

Live A Live

Fate/Grand Order (+ Fate series in general. I have specific servants I hyperfixate on in particular.)

Classic films (Favorite director is Alfred Hitchcock)

Gegege no Kitaro

Mononoke (The TV series)

and more...

Quick Links:

Link to Table of Contents for GranEssex Chronicles

Link to SD Gundam Masterpost

Link to my Do's and Don'ts list for my OCs.

Important tags to know:

GranEssex Chronicles (tag for my Kirby OCs. Will also be the tag for my Kirby AU. This is followed by character names.)

wow cool art op (basically means "art by op")

rikka random rambles (Random talk tag)

art of rikka (tag for all my art)

it came from the magic box (asks from the ask box)

kirby light novels (for the Kirby light novels I've translated)

sd gundam manga (for the SD Gundam manga I translated)

Rikkaposting (shitpost stuff)

i'm dying of laughter help (stuff I think is funny)

rikka hot takes (for when I post my cringe takes)

art from other homies (drawings from other people, comms or otherwise. drop a visit to them!)

baileycore (posts related to stuff that my bf @gundam-bailey specifically likes or things that remind me of him)

-Terfs, bigots, p3dos, zoos, and pr0shippers, DNI-

[mysticstars02]

KW: Miscellaneous (RAW)

this is the best image i could use for this blog. ik there's one i really luv to use (it's the huge collab art made by yumikosudou where they transform YW characters into those gegege no kitaro art style characters you see in the right). Buuut i think it's safe to use this image here haha

Featuring two collabs with actual stories! And also some stuffs I find that Idk if it'll fit or I never seen these before lol

Cells at Work! Collab

(ngl i did not expect this to collab a series i barely know of. I don't watch but the concept looks cool!)

GeGeGe no Kitaro: Great Yokai War (?) Collab

most pure thing i ever seen. it's like seeing the interactions and the epic fights...but in chibi style XD

The Great Trial of Challenges

OH THIS ONE! I really wanna talk about this cause i think this is a pretty cool feature they add. Sadly I didn't get the main gist of this buuut I'm pretty sure this feature requires a shit ton of your playtime experiences and some competitive thinking (rambling warning btw lol)

How it works is that you have those green keys you can spend ONLY on the Great Trial and let me tell you: the Great Trial...is srsly a trial. Y'know those competitive features in the YW mainline games where you can set the rules only to specific rank of youkais (Like set the rule to an only Rank A or C battle), the Great Trial of Challenges is kinda like that...except it's very mean (It may be easy if I have some translation skills but it may be not haha XD).

Let's set up a real example coming from a KW player: If I remember, the trial is set up by 3 stages. Each stage contains restriction and certain aspects for tribe AND rank.

The 1st stage is free-for-all style meaning no restriction/rule, just put out your best team.

The 2nd stage gets a bit harder. There are now rules and restrictions. Let's say the rule for this stage says you can only use Rank A or lower youkais (I believe this also applies to Gunmashin/War Demon God's Rank???) AND you cannot use this following tribe: Enma and Kaima tribe

Now comes the 3rd stage, this time it's serious. I believe they add more rules and restriction to this stage so now, you can still use Rank A or lower BUT you are forced to use them from this tribe like you can use Rank A-C but only from the Slippery tribe. This also will go for the Gunmashin as well (You can only use the demon god's from this specific class)

Sometimes the rule will keep you using Rank Sho but you can't use Rank Paradise/Heavenly Rank youkais

Very challenging but it's also pretty cool! You may think that this looks like it's worth to try it out...yet I haven't mention why this feature is very mean. I haven't gone that far yet I also forgot how many challenges I clear (I think I clear at least 50???) BUT...there is a challenge that will forever be a wall to me before this game announce to go defunct. What challenge is that I struggle the most?

On the 3rd stage of the challenge I was on (again Idr what it is exactly), there is one rule...that is so mean idk how the f- am I suppose to do. These are the following restrictions: Rank Sho, Any tribe is acceptable, Gunmashin is allowed, you are forced...to use one youkai

Yeah

A rule said to use one youkai against a team of 5 Rank Sho youkais

Part of me thinks that maybe with quick summoning, instant collision damage and bulky stat could work right? Ngl, I got my ass kicked like so many times on this freakin 3rd stage of the challenge I was stuck on (I tried to use Rank Sho Rinne on this challenge, 3 seconds later and he immediately got his ass kicked asksa)

Again, pretty cool feature for challenging players and huge props to the user responsible for the Heavenly Rank's stories (bc I'm pretty sure you unlock those scenes by completing certain amount of trials. I'm very positive you have to beat EVERYTHING and my poor brain is not enough :'''>)

Never-see-before events (well for me lol)

I found a few of these videos coming from the user who's responsible for the Heavenly Rank stories. I actually don't remember seeing these events during my KW playthrough (I might have misremember it but yeah)

More interaction with Gunmashins? Part I

More interaction with Gunmashins? Part II

[rabbityshen]

not sure who this post is for.

i think i just needed a way to get out some of my brainworms about genazo and some of the observations i've made about it as a movie and fandom phenomenon that's big in japan but basically not at all here. it was originally gonna be a pitch post on my Main, Professional writing blog but it came out kind of too.....silly for that. which is why the grammar and capitalization are generally proper and the tone is more formal (and has images). i wrote most of it back in august/september but have edited it so it's relatively current to right now.

it's mostly a bunch of rambling and info tidbits about genazo. cant imagine who would be interested in it, except genazo fans, but then it's also written as if to be read by ppl who don't know what genazo is. again, very confusing post. my bad. if u wanna read it go ahead, but lol (lol).

but if ur like "what's genazo?" well then this the post for you. maybe.

edit: added some more fun images for myself 😊 and some (spoilery) CWs for the movie at the very end

They say honesty is a virtue so I might as well start off by saying that my curiosity about this movie was not sparked by the anniversary productions being made for Shigeru Mizuki’s 100th birthday or through keeping tabs on the latest anime films coming out, but because I saw fanart and I thought the main character, Mizuki, looked hot.

After some sleuthing, I tracked down the source material and was surprised that it was from a movie, Kitaro Tanjo: GeGeGe no Nazo (which I'll shorten to GeNazo), part of the GeGeGe no Kitaro franchise.

If you don’t know of GeGeGe no Kitaro or Shigeru Mizuki, I’ll pause here to give a little bit of background info. Shigeru Mizuki was a mangaka born in 1922, who made manga at the same time alongside other influential artists like Osamu Tezuka (Astro Boy) and Shotaro Ishinomori (Kamen Rider). Mizuki would ultimately become famous for GeGeGe no Kitaro (which I'll shorten to Kitaro from here on out), a manga series following a yokai boy named Kitaro and his adventures. Kitaro is on par with Asto Boy in terms of being a national icon. He’s credited with popularizing yokai stories for the modern masses, his imagery becoming what people would most associate with the classic folklore. Besides the 2023 movie, there was an anime adaptation that aired 2018 - 2020, which was also a 50th anniversary production based off of the first anime adaptation that first aired in 1968.

I had some passing, bare minimum familiarity with Kitaro, as much as anyone who’s liked anime and manga for decades would have, and I had never seen a character from it who looked like Mizuki. Clearly, the movie wasn't a straightforward adaptation, even if it was taking one of the manga chapter titles as its own (“The Birth of Kitaro,” which shows the origins of the eponymous character). Not only that, but the promotional material was fairly bloody and dour, obviously aimed at a more mature audience than the usual child demographic the franchise was geared towards, as with the 2018 Kitaro anime. The character design for Kitaro on the movie poster was very similar though, so I figured they likely shared the same continuity.

(i don't have enough relevant images to adequately disperse throughout this post so im just adding random screenshots of mizuki for enrichment and personal indulgence 🙂)

Since the anime series had been officially licensed and subtitled by Crunchyroll, I assumed the same had been done for the movie but that was not the case. It had been released in Japanese theaters back in November 2023 but as of April 2024 at the time, there was (and still is) nowhere official and legal to watch it with localized English subtitles. I had little interest in Kitaro otherwise so I shrugged and decided I would let my shallow interest taper off. It did not.

Instead it plagued me for months (my friends can testify to this). I can't exactly articulate why; The heart wants what the heart wants I suppose. So I finally caved in and found…other means of watching it. I'm not sure if I expected that to sate the brainworms already festering in my head, but basically the opposite of that happened. Now having context for what I was already seeking out on Twitter, new depths of investment were opened up. And that's when I discovered this movie was quite popular.

Now granted, this is still in relative terms. This was the year that other animated hit films such as The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Boy and the Heron came out. Even other anime franchise films such as Case Closed: Black Iron Submarine and Spy x Family Code: White were much bigger domestic and international hits from around the same time. However, while GeNazo never reached the status of being the #1 movie in Japan for the week, it was one of the top five grossing movies for four consecutive weeks (and in the top ten for a consecutive 11 weeks), making over two billion yen (~$17 million). It was also selected to be shown at the 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival in the Countrechamp category. A new version of the film called the “True Version” (真生版), which contains redone cuts and rerecorded dialogue (but no changes to the narrative), as well as bumps up the rating from PG-12 to R15, was released a few weeks ago.

And when you zoom in closer from a fandom subculture perspective, its popularity is undeniable. The doujinshi made for the GeNazo fandom and sold through the retailer Comic Toranoana is not only numerous, but has dominated the female-targeted section rankings for months (both “All Ages” and “Adults Only”), alongside doujinshi for much more internationally popular series like Jujutsu Kaisen and Slam Dunk. (Another way to compare this, Kitaro has a total of 2500+ listed and Delicious in Dungeon has a little over 40 items listed.) In the 2023 poll for yumejoshi (similar to the concept of “self-shipping” fandom) to pick their favorite characters for the year, the two main characters made it to the top twenty (Gegero at #15 and Mizuki at #9), even though the movie was released quite late into the year. Then in Animage’s annual Anime Grand Prix, GeNazo was voted as the top favorite anime for 2023, with Mizuki and Gegero also voted as the top favorite characters. At COMIC CITY SPARK 19, a popular Tokyo doujinshi event held last week, GeNazo is the third most popular fandom represented (above other fandoms including Haikyu!! and Honkai: Star Rail). Several months ago, a film concert event was held and it must've done more than well enough if they're holding the event again for two days in November.

So obviously, I was very much not the only one infested with brainworms! But in comparison, no one over in English-speaking anime fandom circles knows anything. On Archive of Our Own, there’s a tag for “GeGeGe no Kitaro (Anime)”* that only has under 50 works in English when accounted for the movie’s release. (In comparison, there are over 2,500 works in the tag for “ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon” in English when accounted for the anime’s release. For possibly a more equivalent comparison, there are a little under 200 works in the tag for “Bang Brave Bang Braven (Anime)” a show that did receive an official English translation and was ranked second in the Anime Grand Prix.) Every time I peek into Japanese fandom, I feel like I’m stepping into a parallel universe. The gap is striking.

Anime has never been more accessible to foreigners, specifically Americans. Piracy still reigns supreme in terms of frugal personal finances, but it's less convenient and full of pitfalls, requiring some sophistication in navigating platforms and torrents. As a thirty year old with a full-time job, the low-risk convenience on its own is worth the money of subscription. It’s also easy to think in the age of streaming and simulcast—with plenty of titles getting licensed but then instantly buried under the oversaturation of Content and lackluster efforts at marketing—that we have legal access to everything, or at least everything notable. But similar to this year's cult hit Girls Band Cry (until the official English language translation available through Hoopla and, soon on November 6th, Crunchyroll as well), GeNazo fell through the license cracks. 

I shouldn't be too surprised though. While Kitaro is an iconic series with a deep cultural legacy in Japan, its popularity in the USA is much milder. In my experience, people who do know about Kitaro tend to regard it as a piece of classic manga history rather than engaging art or storytelling in its own right. As an older, episodic children’s series fundamentally focused on traditional Japanese folklore, its potential appeal to international audiences is less universal and it's less likely to be taken seriously by manga fans invested in more serialized storytelling. So it is a shame that this movie isn't licensed and officially localized. Tomohiro Harafuchi, the director of Mizuki Productions, said in an interview at the Annecy Festival that he hoped that screening GeNazo there would “inspire the international audience to discover these universes” since Kitaro is less well known outside of Japan. Especially since it stands out as fairly unique work among the other Kitaro movies, series, and other related media.

At this point, you might be wondering what GeNazo is actually about and what my pitch is for watching it besides Hot Anime Guy.

The version that's short and to the point: A nice horror mystery with some decent fujobait and anti-nationalist themes.

The version with a premise like you're reading the back of a DVD case: Mizuki, a salaryman working for a blood bank during Japan’s postwar era, is tasked with visiting a remote village. He hopes to curry favor with a powerful family whose patriarch has just died, causing a power struggle, as well as find out the secret of the miracle drug that they manufacture. Along the way, he meets a mysterious man searching for his missing wife. Violent, strange deaths begin occurring however, and Mizuki soon finds himself wrapped up in a disturbing conspiracy he never anticipated. Find out the twisted origins of one of Japan’s most beloved characters…

My actual, extremely condensed opinion: A fun 3/5 stars movie that I'm kind of ambivalent about.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” you may be wondering, “You wrote all of this about a movie you rated 3/5 on Letterboxd?” The answer is “yes” and I wish I had a better one.

That'll be for another post though, since I can't discuss it without really getting into spoilers.

Note [possible spoilers]: Content warnings for GeNazo include gore, war trauma flashbacks, non-graphic and referenced incestuous CSA, alcoholism, child death.

[thatoneweirdowhoknowstoomuch]

Taking Art/Writing Requests

Trying to get a credit card set up, so I can't do commissions right now, but I will take requests though questions in the inbox. PLS NO NSFW REQUESTS HERE; I HAVE MOOTS WHO ARE MINIORS. IF YOU'RE SO GIDDY FOR THAT SAVE IT FOR MY SIDE BLOG @iwritetumsnottradegies PLS AND THANK YOU!!

Here's my Fandoms, tho I can draw for other dependant on mood:

*Where's Wally/Waldo

*Cookie Run

*Candyland

*Pokemon

*Yokai Watch

*Yokai Watch Shadowside

*Gegege no Kitaro

*Osomatsu (-kun and -san)