Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: GeGeGe no Kitarō
|
Goto page Previous Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Cab329
Posts: 132 |
|
|||
|
So the “new” villain is Nurarihyon (“new” since like backbeard he is a recurring villain across the various continuities in the franchise).
I do like that he’s a villain who isn’t too powerful on his own but he’s able to attack from both sides (Yokai/human) due to his nature. It’s like if Ratman was actually successful and had long term ambitions instead of short term greed. I also like the dread that permeates the air when Kitaro and Daddy Eyeball hears he’s the one behind everything. It does make me wonder what his plan was with releasing the 4 generals was though. He could have just been hoping for a slaughter of only humans but a world war seems like it would have hurt the yokai too (btw only thought of this recently but Ratman yelling how he doesn’t want to go through another war in the generals finale was a callback to the fact that episode 20 revealed he and Kitaro survived WWII). |
||||
|
||||
|
Cab329
Posts: 132 |
|
|||
|
Too bad the thread seems dead since these last two eps have been pretty good.
I loved how disturbing the cat episode got and it really showed the kind of operator Nurarihyon is. Once again he created a situation where humans would get attacked (and at LEAST one got eaten, no telling how many others got eaten or died before kitaro and Nekomusume got there), Kitaro went up against an opponent who could best him, and even when Kitaro won, he used it to drive a wedge between Kitaro and the other yokai. It’s easy to see why Kitaro is scared of him. Also like the visual metaphor at the start where Shu no bon takes care to not step on the flower then destroys it a second later when he breaks the seal: their actions to save the yokai will just destroy them in collateral damage) Last episode was pretty fun though what I really like is the twist at the end (that she ultimately accepted her death and encouraged him while she died...that’s pretty messed up in a delightful way) |
||||
|
||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||
|
The thing that got me with the cat episode was after Kitaro released them all, they still defended the horrid abuses they were guilty of, and were prepared to just keep doing them. Shitty people sure do make Kitaro's job more of a moral quandary than it needs to be.
Didn't much care for the "it's ok if it's you who kills me, just keep taking nice pics" episode. Never been big on the "anything, as long as I'm useful to my man" trope, as though that's noble. At least he got arrested at the end. |
||||
|
||||
yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
|
|||
Getting arrested seemed to undermine that trope, at least to me. The photographer didn't really come across as admirable in any way, just someone driven by blind ambition. |
||||
|
||||
Gurren Rodan
 Posts: 263 |
|
|||
|
I fell behind for a few episodes, but after catching up I'd agree that the show is still going strong. Hopefully Nurarihyon's presence will be more consistent for this arc than Rei was last arc; I look forward to seeing what all he has in store.
After everything this show has done so far, it still manages to shock me once in a while; which it did with the ghost episode. The photographer's indirect murder of his girlfriend was disturbing and cruel in a special way that got under my skin more than might have expected. That she still loved him and presumably even forgave him makes the situation even more tragic, somehow - but I was glad to see it, if only because that's what it took for the photographer to finally admit to himself the atrocity of what he'd done. Humans really do suck sometimes. The Halloween episode was amusing; but more importantly, we're finally getting back to Backbeard! I was starting to doubt we'd get any follow-up from that one-off episode last arc, but here we are. I wonder if Backbeard and Nurarihyon will end up crossing paths? I could see the two of them making formidable allies against Kitaro and mankind. |
||||
|
||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||
Makoto Shishio was the boss villain in Kenshin and he died, but I don't see how that undermined the trope or made Yumi's sacrifice any more idiotic than if he were just your average murderous Josuke. It's practically the foundation of the trope for a woman to sacrifice herself for a jerk. The photographer only gets a couple points for feeling bad about it at the end, since they usually don't. |
||||
|
||||
|
yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
|
|||
|
One of the most tragic episodes in the entire series. Just the sort of thing your average ten-year-old should watch before going off to play on a Sunday morning. Maybe spoiler[Tsutomu could be adopted by Mana's parents.]
|
||||
|
||||
|
Gurren Rodan
Posts: 263 |
|
|||
|
^That'd be nice, wouldn't it? I was hoping we'd see SOMETHING happen to support him at the end of the episode.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||
|
80 was a pretty stark episode all around, what with Kitaro and Catgirl both nearly getting killed twice, and the downer ending. With what I learned about Japanese adoption from Stars Align, his future looks grim if he has no relatives to take him in.
On a lighter note, Nurikabe (Wally Wall) and Hyosube (seen in Ep 35) got a surprise mention in Ep 6 of Cautious Hero this week. 
|
||||
|
||||
|
Gurren Rodan
Posts: 263 |
|
|||
|
Well, I was expecting this week's episode to be a comical one; but lo and behold, it was a completely earnest story about workplace prejudice. It's nice to see a more encouraging example of humans and yokai working together, in spite of the forces working against them.
|
||||
|
||||
|
yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
|
|||
And yet another subtle attack on Japanese xenophobia which has been a subtext throughout this series. |
||||
|
||||
|
Chrono1000
|
|
|||
The show has a complex position in that humans and yokai are very different so they often do have problems but that Kitaro is so used to being called in after tragedies that he is overly cynical. Kitaro thinks that humans and yokai are so different that it is safer to keep the two groups apart, Rat Man doesn't care about either group and will take the side that pays him more, Catgirl thinks that both groups can get along but her faith occasionally gets shaken (such as the recent cat town episode which had some very bad humans in it), and Daddy Eyeball is the voice of cautious optimism. While Kitaro has occasionally been wrong in the past episode 81 was more direct in that Daddy Eyeball told him to not interfere and things worked out well. Ironically for a horror anime it has a message of optimism and I am curious to see where this subplot might go when the series ends. |
||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||
|
81 was a nice change of pace from the downers we've been getting lately. The funny thing is that there are enough mangaka who do hide their faces that they could've just put him in a suit for the awards ceremony and said his face was a mask and passed him off as human.
I chuckled for a moment when the editor said that when facing an artist an editor is always risking his life! But then I thought, oh, wait, these days that's kinda true.  I still liked how the sprinklers going off didn't faze him one bit. Manga-izing the assisting montage was nice too.
How does he get up to Hiderigami's cloud? |
||||
|
||||
|
Gurren Rodan
Posts: 263 |
|
|||
|
Episode 82 was a surprisingly sweet spotlight for Sand Witch and Old Man Crybaby. It's nice to see how the different members of Kitaro's family group look out for each other.
The Nuppeppo are some of the weirdest yokai we've seen yet. Did anyone else break out laughing when spoiler[Kitaro disguised himself as a taxi driver to catch Rat Man? Where does Kitaro even get a taxi of his own? Is that a perk from his Underworld side job]? 
|
||||
|
||||
|
Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11355 |
|
|||
|
82 was pretty sweet. 83, though, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from that. Takumi didn't do anything wrong, but had what he loved taken from him because he showed his gratitude. So...if you're grateful keep it to yourself? The villagers didn't deserve to have their homes destroyed either. It's a tragic story all around, but I'm not sure what the moral is, if it has one. What's a kid supposed to do with this?
Maybe it's a quintessentially Japanese tale though. I often don't understand the lesson in Japanese folk tales, like Urashima Tarou (don't save turtles from sadists or you could lose everything?). They often just seem to be tragic stories of the unfairness of life and no good deeds going unpunished. |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group