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GeGeGe no Kitarō (ゲゲゲの鬼太郎), originally known as Hakaba Kitarō (墓場鬼太郎, "Kitarō of the Graveyard"), is a Japanese manga series created in 1960 by Shigeru Mizuki. It is best known for its popularization of the folklore creatures known as yōkai, a class of spirit-monster which all of the main characters belong to.
- Overview
- Cast
- Origin
- Appearance
- Age
- Family
- History
- Image Songs
- Trivia
- References
(鬼太郎, Kitarō), also known as GeGeGe no Kitarō (ゲゲゲの鬼太郎), is a yōkai boy born in a cemetery after the death of his parents. Aside from his mostly-decayed father, Medama-Oyaji, he is the last surviving member of the Ghost Tribe. He fights for peace between humans and yōkai, which generally involves protecting the former from the wiles of the latter.
His name comes from a pre-war era picture story show entitled Hakaba Kitarō, featuring a character with a similar backstory. Shigeru Mizuki gives credit to author Masami Itō for inspiring the character of Kitarō.
•Masako Nozawa
•First Anime
•Second Anime
•Radio Drama
•Motion Comic
•GeGeGe no Kitarō All Night Nippon
Hakaba Kitarō
The original kamishibai that inspired Kitarō was first written around 1933 or 1935 by Masami Itō. Itō's story was based on local legends describing the same or similar stories. Itō also noted that Kitarō was inspired by Japan's ghost stories such as Kosodate-Yūrei which was originally based on Chinese folklore from 12th to 13th Centuries. Because the original art has been lost since the war not much is remembered about the story. What is recalled is that it told the story of Kitarō(奇太郎) a horrid looking child (or snake-like child) being born out of a graveyard after his parents' deaths and seeking revenge on their enemies.
Mizuki's Kamishibai
Mizuki began using the character that would become Kitarō in 1954 in various kamishibai stories, including Serpent Man, Karate Kitarō, Gallois and Ghost Hand. While Itō's kamishibai wrote the name Kitarō as 奇太郎, Mizuki wrote the name as 鬼太郎, using the character for devil for Ki. However, Kitarō's background in these stories is quite different from the Kitarō to come. In Serpent Man, Kitarō is a human born from the belly of snakes who seeks revenge on those who mistreated him as a child. In Karate Kitarō, he trains under a karate master named Gichin (modeled after real-life karate master Gichin Funakoshi) and eventually faces him in battle and defeats him.
Rental Manga
In 1960, Mizuki introduced Kitarō in the rental manga story The Ghost Family. It is here that Kitarō's official backstory is established. In The Ghost Family, Kitarō is a yōkai child born out of a graveyard after his mother dies.
Kitarō looks like a young boy. He has long brown hair that covers his left eye, and he wears a black and yellow striped chanchanko over a navy blue Showa-era school uniform. He also wears Japanese style wooden sandals, called geta. His school uniform was made out of the beard of a wizard and has lasted over 100 years. His undergarments consist of a shirt made out of a water nymph's robe and an oni loincloth Medama-Oyaji claims to have gotten from Momotarō. He is modeled after Mizuki's nephew when he was 3 or 5. His hair was light gray, white, or sliver in the original manga, but from the 2nd anime on it is brown.
He is missing his left eye. The origin behind this varies depending on the story. In the Hakaba Kitarō manga, it is just assumed he bashed his eye while climbing out of the grave, but in the Hakaba Kitarō anime it is explained that after he emerged from the graveyard, a terrified Mizuki threw him away and ran, and the infant Kitarō hit his eye against the edge of the gravestone. In the rental manga, Kitarō is sometimes depicted missing his right eye instead. It was also common for Medama-Oyaji to rest in the empty socket and emerge from Kitarō's bangs, usually startling people. After the GeGeGe no Kitarō era began, whether or not Kitarō was missing an eye depended on the adaptation.
His birth year is 1954 in Hakaba Kitarō. In Kitarō's Night Tales, he was at the first grade of an elementary school in 1961.
Within GeGeGe no Kitarō series, it was implied that Kitarō could be older than his incarnation in Hakaba Kitarō.
•It was described in the Series 1 Episode 3 that Tantanbō's gang was last seen a century ago and Mr.Yamabiko, who is a near-120 years old elder of the village, said he was around 20 years old at that time, and he noted that he had read about Kitarō in a book "long time ago" when the latest (current) event was in early to mid Shōwa period. His birthday is unknown (Nezumi-Otoko claims it to be February 30 in the 1968 anime).
•He has been alive at least since Edo Period in the 1985 anime and The Battle of Mt. Atago.
•In the 1996 anime, Miage-Nyūdō who was sealed by a monk "long-time ago" by Medama-Oyaji's standard, knew Kitarō.
•In the 2007 anime, he saved a boy from Mōryō and Shibito-Tsuki 50 years ago with the unchanged appearance, and he and others have battled against a group of Western Yōkai on multiple occasions for several decades or more to protect the Amami Tribe and other inhabitants on Kikaiga Island. In the Series 5 Episode 2, Medama-Oyaji noted that Neko-Musume, a hanyo, "would become a beautiful lady in about 200 years", and it is possible for Kitarō to have already lived for more than centuries while there are Yōkai like Miu to age similar to that of humans.
Kitarō is the last descendant of the Ghost Tribe, which is a tribe of yōkai rather than literal ghosts. Although in the manga GeGeGe no Kitarō: Kitarō Jigoku Arc (and it's subsequent anime adaptation) he is said to be the son of a yōkai father and a human mother, this lineage has never been used another adaptation.
•Father - Medama-Oyaji
•Mother - Iwako
•Sister - Yuki-Hime (appeared in Yuki-Hime-chan and GeGeGe no Kitarō only but Shigeru Mizuki Memorial Museum states Yuki-Hime as a sister officially)
•Wife - Mary (appeared in After GeGeGe no Kitarō only but Shigeru Mizuki Memorial Museum states Mary as a wife officially)
•Unborn Son - Mary became pregnant, but as Kitarō lost his physical body, Kitarō's soul possessed the yet soul-less embryo of his son and reborn.
Kitarō's mother, Iwako died while she was still pregnant with him, and she and his father were buried by the blood banker Mizuki. But three days later, Kitarō crawls out of her womb and the grave by his own power. His birth story is usually not depicted in the anime series, with the exceptions of the 3rd, 4th, and Hakaba Kitarō anime.
After his birth he was taken in by Mizuki, but Kitarō treated him coldly and ran away at age 6, leaving on an aimless journey with his reanimated father (see Medama-Oyaji), eventually settling into a peaceful life in GeGeGe Forest. As a child, he attended Yōkai Elementary with Neko-Musume. According to Nezumi-Otoko, Kitarō attended the Yōkai Study Hall with him. In the live-action movies he is said to have attended a semester at Under the Grave Middle School.
•Moero! Kitarō by Keiko Toda (1985 anime)
•Kitarō Ondo by Keiko Toda (1985 anime)
•Kitarō March by Yōko Matsuoka (1996 anime)
•GeGeGe no Ondo by Yōko Matsuoka (1996 anime)
•He is considered an original character of Shigeru Mizuki. Although Kitarō's prototype has appeared originally in stories of Masami Itō, himself never claimed authorship for him during the fame of Mizuki's manga.
•Gegege no Kitarō is the mascot for the Gainare Tottori soccer club. Additionally, J.League Division 1 team F.C. Tokyo also holds "Gegege no Kitarō Day" every season.
•In Episode 6 of the Japanese drama Hana-Kimi, the protagonist Ashiya Mizuki (Horikita Maki) is quoted as saying that Izumi Sano (Oguri Shun) looks like "Kitarō", due to the way Sano's hair is styled. Sano then said that Mizuki must be "Medama Oyaji", since Mizuki always has 'his' eye on Sano. Also, in Episode 7, Noe greets the assembled couples on their way to the roof of the school on the evening of the delayed star festival (August 7) dressed as Kitarō and holding a figure of Medama Oyaji bathing in a rice bowl.
•The exclamation "GeGeGe no Ge!" is used by ShogunGekomon in Episode 15 of Digimon Adventure 02.
•In the last chapter of the manga, Ikujinashi Shiawase (Happiness of a Cowardly Boy) by Naono Bohra, character Kawada is embarrassed to look at the face of his lover, Mori, after Mori gets a haircut. Kawada complains that with his new haircut, Mori's handsome face is "too exposed" and attracts too much attention from other people. He states that Kawada used to have hair like "GeGeGe Kitarō", and he preferred it that way since his face was half-hidden most of the time.
•Japanese musician Miyavi has also described his hairstyle as a Kitarōu-cut many times (i.e.: official profile, diary, etc...).
1.蛸島 直, もう一人の鬼太郎とその原像 ──伊藤正美作「墓場奇太郎」をめぐって──, 愛知学院大学学術紀要データベース
2.加藤徹著『怪力乱神』ISBN 978-4-12-003857-0 pp.228-231
3.青空文庫・中国怪奇小説集(10)で、岡本綺堂による「餅を買う女」の訳を読める。
4.GeGeGe no Kitarō (1985): Episode 114
5.GeGeGe no Kitarō (1996): Episode 78
6.Hakaba Kitarō Anime: Episode 1
Created in 1960, the original GeGeGe no Kitarō manga became a massive franchise that has spawned seven anime adaptations, two live action theatrical films, numerous additional manga series and more.
GeGeGe no Kitarō is a well-known (in Japan) manga and anime that is largely credited for bringing back knowledge of traditional yōkai and folktales to modern generations. Written by Shigeru Mizuki, it was originally known as Hakaba Kitarō (Kitaro of the Graveyard). The story focuses on the adventures of the yōkai boy Kitaro, who fights for ...
Apr 6, 2019 · GeGeGe no Kitaro is a much-lauded horror manga series created by Shigeru Mizuki, but as beloved as Kitaro is in Japan (the manga has six different anime adaptations, essentially one version per decade), the character and his monster cronies haven't really made a huge splash in America.
- Michelle Villanueva
The work tells the adventures of Kitarou, a blindfolded ghost who fights for the good of Youkai (supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore). The anime premiered in 1971 and was one of the first to address monsters and spirits in a more friendly and comedic way.
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Oct 13, 2021 · The show follows the adventures of a boy named Kitaro – the last survivor of an extinct group called the Ghost Tribe. His father, Medama-Oyaji, is a reincarnated spirit taking the form of an eyeball, and often assists Kitaro in resolving conflicts between the Yokai and human world.
