Graveyard Kitarou, a short review

Today, I'm going to talk a bit about the origins of Hakaba Kitarou (Graveyard Kitarou), and its 2008 anime adaptation. In case you ventured into GeGeGe no Kitarou circles like I did, you would quickly find out that GeGeGe no Kitarou also had a prototypical series known as Hakaba Kitarou.

To start off, Hakaba Kitarou isn't solely a Shigeru Mizuki creation. It actually had its run from 1933 to 1935 as a kamishibai created by Masami Itou, who himself was adapting an old Japanese folktale known as Kosodate-Yuurei. But before I go on, I must explain what those are.

What is Kamishibai?

Kamishibai means paper play. It is a form of street theatre that the Japanese practiced to entertain themselves and their audiences. In an age of no television and no radio, this was what watching anime and reading manga were like for these people.

For a kamishibai to take place, you needed three items.

1. Picture cards with text written at the back. (Your early 20th century equivalent of anime cells)
2. A stage. It was usually made out of wood. (Your early 20th century equivalent of a television set or a laptop screen so that people could focus their attention on it)
3. A narrator. (You had to narrate your story using the picture cards and present them through the stage. You also probably needed some wooden items if you wanted to add sound effects to your "anime")

What is Kosodate-Yuurei about?

I'm not much of a storyteller, so you can read all about this tale here. In short, one of the versions of the Kosodate-Yuurei story is about a ghost woman buying candy from a merchant so she can feed her new born baby she gave birth to, posthumously, in her coffin. Kitarou in Mizuki's series is that newborn baby who grew out of a graveyard.

From kamishibai to rental manga

It is a long and complicated story which you can read about here.

In 1954, Shigeru Mizuki worked as a kamishibai artist. His boss requested him that he created new stories based on Itou's kamishibai, which he managed to do so after getting permission from the original author. After working with kamishibai, Mizuki decided to tackle manga as the art form was growing in popularity, and one of the series he debuted was called Hakaba Kitarou under a publishing company. However, it was a tumultuous period for the author and his manga as he had to switch to different publishers from 1960 to 1964. It wasn't without reason, as his manga just didn't receive the mainstream success it needed to survive beyond more than a couple of stories. Weirdly enough, when Mizuki left his original publishing company over pay, the latter went on to hire Kanko Takeuchi, a new author who took over and continued his Hakaba Kitarou series while Mizuki was also continuing his own version of the Hakaba Kitarou manga under a different name. As you can imagine, It must have been a pretty wild situation for any author to be in.

In 1965, Mizuki finally attacked a different kind of market when he joined Kodansha's Weekly Shounen Magazine. He remade and renamed his manga to Hakaba no Kitarou (Kitarou of the Graveyard), and eventually to GeGeGe no Kitarou. Considering how successful this new version turned out to be in the end, it was quite evident that his manga ideas were actually sellable; they only required a few tweaks. First, he had to tone down the scary aspects of the series as the kids found the original just too damn spooky, and second, he just needed the right audience. Fortunately for him, Kodansha gave him a weekly audience that he could rely on.

Cover of the 1st volume of GeGeGe no Kitarou

The anime adaptation

As a rental manga, Hakaba Kitarou had collected 15 stories by Mizuki, discounting the ones by Takeuchi over 4 years from 1960 to 1964. 9 of these stories would serve Toei's 2008 adaptation while 2 of them were simply additions by the anime.

Hakaba Kitarou (2008) on the left, and GeGeGe no Kitarou (2018) on the right

Just going by these two posters above, Hakaba Kitarou is more visually interesting compared to the 2018 version. To be fair, there’s nothing inherently wrong with the 2018 anime, but it’s perhaps way too shiny for a show that deals with youkai. Furthermore, I’d say the art style just looks more grim, to reflect on the darker original version of the story.

But just because a series looks grim, doesn't mean it also has to look dull. With that kept in mind, I can definitely vouch for Hakaba Kitarou's palette. Whoever was responsible for the visual direction of the series did a great job at bringing the colours while also keeping in mind the darker nature of the stories.

For the music, Toei is known for using the classic GeGeGe no Kitarou theme song every time they rebooted the series for a new audience, but this time, Denki Groove took charge of the opening resulting in a funky kind of music that I wouldn't generally associate with a series that deals with youkai. It is a bold choice, but not a surprising one considering the band also gave us a funky opening for this year's Devilman Crybaby, a series about demons. Yet, for the actual tracks that played throughout, I felt that they were appropriately and sufficiently creepy.

I've mentioned above that 9 episodes from this anime adapt the individual stories from Mizuki's rental manga. The other two anime-only episodes, namely Neko and Fake Kitarou while not bad, simply weren't on the same level as the others. Excluding those two, the stories presented were quirky and original and showcased a simpler time when manga artists were just concerned about telling a fun story, and not so much about having "good" and "bad" characters. In that sense, I have the impression that this aspect of old manga might have been lost when I watch the newer GeGeGe no Kitarou TV anime.

But after watching the Hakaba Kitarou adaptation, I can also understand why the original rental manga was a hard sell. For Shigeru Mizuki, someone who actually believed in the existence of youkai following his World War 2 service, writing about them must have been a real passion for him. However, in the process of doing so, I think that he couldn't quite narrow down his audience. After all, who was the Hakaba Kitarou manga really for? Technically, it was for kids, but they were too damn scared by it, and I don't think adults at the time would have wasted their time reading manga about youkai. For his shonen magazine debut, he had no other choice but to rebrand his manga to GeGeGe no Kitarou. Other than the spookier aspects that were toned down, Kitarou and the rat man were also now far more relatable as characters. Gone are the times like in Hakaba Kitarou, when they were just empty selfish assholes who couldn't care less about humans or even other youkai unless their presence benefited them directly.

From the little I've read of the Hakaba Kitarou manga, the adaptation seems fair enough, but I also know that this series isn't going to be for everyone given its episodic nature and quirky writing. If you're into the more bombastic kind, then GeGeGe no Kitarou is probably the better choice. As for me personally, I'm glad that I got to experience both. You really can't go wrong with either, especially if you too are interested in the deep youkai mythology that Shigeru Mizuki had a deep affinity with.

Beyond the Kitarou series, when Shigeru Mizuki was still with us, he also produced an excellent manga about Japan, and his service in the war. It is called Showa: A history of Japan, which does seem to be worth checking out according to this medium article. As always, see you next time for another review!

Shigeru Mizuki and Kitarou