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Shigeru Mizuki's Kitarō Gets 'New Project' for Anime's 50th Anniversary
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
A website opened for the 50th anniversary of the first television anime of Shigeru Mizuki's Gegege no Kitarō manga on Wednesday. The day marks exactly 50 years since the anime premiered on January 3, 1968. The site reveals the anniversary logo (seen below), and that a "new project" is launching for the franchise. The website also notes that Gegege no Kitarō is the "originator of the yōkai [supernatural entity] boom" typified by Yo-kai Watch.
The site recounts the history of the various anime adaptations of the manga.
The manga, which began in 1959 under the name Hakaba Kitarō, has spawned seven television series (including one Hakaba Kitarō anime), several animated movies, and two live-action films. The stories center on an inhuman boy who straddles the line between the human and supernatural worlds.
Characters from the franchise recently appeared in the Yo-kai Watch Shadowside: Oni-ō no Fukkatsu (Yo-kai Watch Shadowside: The Return of the Oni King) anime film, which opened last month. Masako Nozawa, who has voiced the main character Kitarō in some of the manga's numerous anime adaptations, reprised the role in the film.
Drawn & Quarterly publishes the collected manga in English.
Sources: Anime! Anime! (Katsunori Takahashi), Animate Times
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