Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: GeGeGe no Kitarō
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11330 |
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It wasn't a gravestone. It was either a seal or more likely a memorial stone to honor such lost souls, which as I understand it (admittedly, mostly from Mirage of Blaze  ) is done to appease their angry spirits and give them a place to reside rather than wandering. Knocking it over was disrespectful, and that pissed it off so it went looking for the ones responsible. In fact the act of disrespect may have been what caused it to manifest at all, rather than awakening something that already existed. I realize that doesn't quite fit with the legend, but it makes more sense to me than it arising from just one ordinary grave.
The best part of the episode was finding out that Shiro made it into the yokai world after all. 
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2512 |
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While not any expert, as a learner of Japanese it bugs me that they call Neko-Musume "chick". Not only an outmoded English term (actually Yiddish in origin Ms. Silverman) but inaccurate. "Musume" is usually rendered "girl", "maiden" (more accurately) or "daughter", so why not just let her be "cat-girl"? After all Nezumi-Otoko is rendered "rat-man" in the show and is very literally that...Also, Shiro is OK
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 2606 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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Ach, this you think I don't know Hiroki not Takuyatshik? 
I've seen a few sources (mostly non-OED dictionaries) saying that "chick" meaning "girl" may also have come from the Spanish "chica." Either seems logical to me. It's an awful translation of "musume" no matter where it came from. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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IMO a correct translation of chick to spanish would be "pollita". So while chick and chica might sound alike, if the origin of chick really is as you say, then it is no different from how the japanese take an english word and change the meaning a little (like "maison" which afaik in english is more or less "house" but in japanese it seems to be used for "apartment building" i.e. Maison Ikkoku). So I am no expert, but taking from another anime (was it The Morose Mononokean?) then Shiro probably will not need to take energy from other people while he lives "on the other side", but it sure looks boring ^^; |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2606 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I think the "maison" example is a good one - it means "house" in French, in English (as far as I've seen) it gets used for restaurants or to look "fancy," and so on. I suspect that both the Yiddish diminutive "tshik" (a semi-close translation of which would be the Japanese "chan") and the Spanish "chica" are more to do with how they sound than any actual relation to baby chickens.
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Chrono1000
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The show is entertaining but the tone varies greatly depending on the the type of story. Episode 4 was a kids fairy tale story while Episode 7 was a horror story that was the yokai version of Tales from the Crypt. The gasha-dokuro in Episode 8 had a good design and the fight with it had some of the best action scenes since the first episode.
Mana is a good character with the right balance of bravery and caution for this type of show. I think the reason that Mana is a bit divisive on Twitter is that since she doesn't have any yokai power that means she routinely has to be rescued. That the Crunchyroll translation of Neko Musume is Cat Chick due to the old manga translation probably didn't help with the situation. |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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I would like to push forward an hypothesis. Maybe the original draft for this story did not include the part where the wall yokai ends in the ceiling of mana's classroom (I mean, blushing only would have been ok, mana is cute). Think about it, from all yokai in this series, the one lest fit for such ninja like feat is a slow and heavy walking wall. So maybe, just maybe, someone in the upper echelons of toei was afraid this could plant a seed or worse still, start a fire like the #metoo movement. Someone might say "hey, but why they didn't' stop the episode about suicide in the workplace/bullying? Precisely because there is no equivalent of the #metoo for those kinds of incidents. So the director received the message to soften up the message, make stalking more cartoonish in the end. So the best protest the director could make is use a character that does not fill the profile for such role. At least I could visualize Harvey Weinstein softening any antistalking message if some big hollywood movie under his sphere of influence tried to include it. I mean, the idea that japan is the land where all taboos are inexistant is but wishful thinking and stalking and his big brother (sexual harassment) probably have not changed much in the 50 years since kitaro made its way into TV screens. The ending I wouid have written instead of the wall in the roof would have been a scene where a human being is seen stalking mana (or other girl), the message being, the bigger monsters are not yokai. |
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slusheep
 Posts: 19 |
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I know I'm quite late to this, but wanted to offer a bit of a different take on the Mana dislike. Her early appearances were marked by contrivances to make her relevant to the story, which bugged me. The first ep has her clumsiness cause a Rube Goldberg-esque chain of events that helps Kitaro in his fight against Nobiagari, followed by ep 2's coincidence that her dad designed the stadium Miage-nyudo takes over. It almost seemed to me like they were setting her up to have a sort of lame luck-based power, until the show gave her a few weeks break. Her more recent appearances haven't had this issue and even did a small subversion of expectations with Kagami-jiji hiding her as protection while the audience was misled alongside Kitaro. I think even her earlier run-in with Tantanbou is balanced well, giving her ample opportunity to be brave and competent and helpful even though she is trapped in a pillar. So yeah I'm basically with you now, but those first couple episodes did stick out to me as odd in terms of how they handled Mana. As for this week's episode, I can't help but agree with the review that the Nurikabe joke at the end kinda undermines whatever bit of message the episode itself was conveying, but not to such a degree that it ruined it for me. The concept of each school having it's own set of seven yokai that create different phenomena is a real fun one, and I enjoyed the gags at Rat Man's expense. His masterful avoidance of Nekomusume was surprising and a highlight for me, same for learning Sand Witch has some interesting taste in BL.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11330 |
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Rather than undermining the message, it seems to me there were two messages in this - one for boys and one for girls. Boys were shown that obsessive, one-sided love is creepy, so don't be that guy. Girls were shown that if you are ever nice to a guy, offering basic human kindness or even just thanking him for helping you, he'll interpret that as love and become a creepy obsessive stalker. So don't be nice to guys?
Wally Wall is probably harmless and will stick to hanging out on the ceiling unless Mana is threatened, but the messages aren't really blunted by his reaction to her gratitude. He's still a stalker and she shouldn't have been nice to him. Weird episode... |
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Hiroki not Takuya
Posts: 2512 |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 2606 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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^Emes.
Gina Szanboti, that's a good point, and one I missed by overthinking the episode. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11330 |
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Hmm, to me it looked like she was just a stereotypical politician - she wasn't looking for the best decision to solve the problem so much as weighing all the angles to find the course where she would take the least amount of blame. Everything she did was motivated by the calculation "If I do A, then I'll have to take responsibility if X happens, but if I don't and Y happens, I'll have to take even more responsibility for it! But if I do B and..." That said, I suppose it's a step forward if a woman politician is shown to be equally self-centered as her male counterparts?
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yuna49
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The portrayal of the Japanese government in this episode is very reminiscent of the depiction of government politicians and bureaucrats in Anno Hideki's live-action movie, Shin Godzilla. Unwillingness to accept personal responsibility was a constant theme in that film as well. There the PM was male, but there was a hawkish female defense minister (shades of Koike Yuriko?).
I've read that Anno's take on these matters was strongly influenced by the delays and inaction in confronting the Fukushima disaster. This episode has some of the same feeling. |
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Gurren Rodan
 Posts: 263 |
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I was definitely feeling some Shin Godzilla vibes this episode, too, and I'm sure that's not a coincidence.
That was some seriously good daikaiju-vs-military action, by the way. I'm excited for next week! |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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I am not sure I like how this paragraph ended. While being rude to others is not a sign of good education, in this age of white knighting I think many people are too easy to snap at other peoples comments. Now, there are two takes I get from this episode, call it subtext if you will, and neither of them are popular to say the least, since the episode social commentary divides people in two categories, the conquerors and the conquered. 1) It is no doubt mere coincidence, since this story is old and even if it were not, the plot should have been written at least a month ago for it to be animated, but imo this mimics the recent [New Life+] incident, where one side is too eager to vent grievances over anything that reaches their eyes or ears. 2) This tale talks about the tanuki, who have been ignored for centuries, but now that the tables have turned, they seized the land and made humans into non-citizens (human rights? humbug!) in their own land. |
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