Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: GeGeGe no Kitarō
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Violet Park
Posts: 115 |
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I seem to remember it was Nanashi who put the wood kanji in Mana at the end of the battle with the Tanuki monster. Maybe running through her this ep was part of some activation ritual.
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Cab329
Posts: 132 |
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So...how about that new episode? I got a little teary-eyed at the end. Yeah I've seen that type of starcrossed love story before but it gets me every time. Also, that was a pretty (emotionally) shocking moment when the bodies were found.
It honestly did a pretty good war is hell message since it shows how it messed with and traumatized so many aspects of the world. The youkai created the most terrrifying thing they had experienced so they went with the sounds of war and based on the detail they experienced everything (which is kind of the great thing about family show's for the little kids all the gunfire must have been scary and that's why everyone's so unnerved...older kids and adults though can start to shape in their heads the full extent of what the construction workers have been hearing so it's terrifying for them too) The soldiers who served wound up dying on a piece of land that was forgotten about until it was time to take its resources and their remains meant nothing to their ancestors. I also do like how they used Mana in this episode, both showing the shorthand version kids are taught about WWII (where she talks about "that's when we got invaded") and how it doesn't match up with Daddy Eyeball's (still simplified but it's a kid's show and this episode already was getting pretty heavy and had a lot of plot to get through) account, as well as her eagerness and ability to learn (like when she tries to deal with the ghost as a youkai with skills she's picked up from Kitaro but more importantly at the end when she decides on her own to research things and make a report). It's one thing to just tell kids, "hey, go talk to your elders...go learn more about this but having Mana decide to do it on her own shows both an optimism about youth in Japan but gives an incentive for kids to follow suit without just straight up saying "Yo, go learn about the Pacific war." Looks like next week will be a cute episode...then again, could be wrong. |
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Neko-sensei
Posts: 283 |
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Words fail me. I've rarely seen such an effective effort to make an abstract, long-ago evil a personal experience. Films like Grave of the Fireflies and In This Corner of the World personalize war by investing us in the fate of a few beautifully human characters, but we come out of them thinking about Setsuko and Seita and Harumi and Suzu's lives, not necessarily about the war itself. Episode 20 of GeGeGe no Kitarou has the opposite effect: it left me overwhelmed with a feeling of grief for the entire conflict, shame at the things of which humanity is capable, and even (dare I say it?) anger at a Japan where the Pacific War is remembered merely as a time of suffering and not of aggression. Having lived here for almost five years, I can testify that the younger generations truly have no sense of Japan's role in the war or the astonishing degree to which the Japanese citizenry became a twisted backwards version of itself for more than a decade. (Historically, the Japanese reconstruction focused on discarding the militant past and working towards a peaceful future, in sharp contrast to the kind of self-reflection on the war as an object lesson that marked reconstruction in Germany and shaped modern German politics.) Seeing Kitarou go the extra mile to encourage children to find out for themselves what the war was all about brings a tear of pride to my eye. |
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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Showing capitalist exploitation of natural resources in the South Pacific just reinforced the whole premise. Japanese expansion in the 1930's had a lot to do with acquiring natural resources like oil.
This is such a remarkable show, and sadly one which will attract few older viewers who might write if off as a "kids' show." I was thinking today about whether there is anything in the American canon to which it compares. To me the only contender might be Jay Ward's early Rocky and Bullwinkle shows which always included a satirical edge. When I watched the last Lupin episode I could only marvel at the agility of Sawashiro Miyuki. The contrast between her Fujiko voice and her Kitarou voice is stunning. Oh, and just now reading the review of episode nineteen, the commentary on Japanese education in that episode just foreshadows the powerful indictment in episode twenty. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15457 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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I agree that episode 20 was fantastic, and brave to challenge what I assume is surprisingly common thought, and that history has to be remembered. The sort of good thing compared to something like Kantai Collection that made me feel uncomfortable.
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Dop.L
Posts: 714 Location: London |
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Episode 20 was another stand-out episode of this series, and for what is ostensibly a kids' show showed more grown-up thought than most shows manage. While critical of Japan's part in the second world war and of the current educational system leading to Mana's ignorance of what actually happened, it still remains respectful to the dead.
If you've read Shigeru Mizuki's manga "Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths", partially based on his own war-time experiences, you can see that this episode is totally in keeping. |
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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Mizuki's Wikipedia entry includes this:
That he could still write manga after losing his dominant arm is stunning. I can't draw a lick with my off-hand. |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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Great episode, it made me tear up a little. I continue to be impressed by the way this show manages to include heavy themes in an appropriate way for its target audience but without making light of them.
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Thaumana
 Posts: 120 |
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Words fail me indeed. I was truly suprised about the the load of anti-war-criticism and unadorned commentaries about Japan's misdeeds in this episode. Still it was managed in such a good way finsihing it with a conciliatory tone. I realized once more how good the music direction of the series is. Thanks also to the OST of Yasaharu Takanashi, who is one of my favourite composers and knows how to strike the right keys for achieving a melancholic atmosphere. Each episode is like a small suprise box and I have a good time with this show so far. Wish it could get more attention.
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Chrono1000
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It is a bit sad that even in 2018 a Japanese kids show still has to explain that Japan didn't get invaded by surprise back in the 1940's. I believe that a person is only responsible for their own actions but it is useful to know history so that people can learn from mistakes that have been made in the past. Invading countries to create an empire doesn't work in the long term and one of the most famous examples of that in western history is the Roman Empire. I think the episode did a great job of showing the cost of war and doing it in a way that a child could understand. GeGeGe no Kitarō is an impressive show in the range of serious topics that it is willing to cover.
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Violet Park
Posts: 115 |
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This new episode gave us cute yokai becoming friends... and Rat Man's fanservice. Just why
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dm
 Subscriber Posts: 1354 |
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I wonder if Amefuri-kozo's robot form isn't an homage to the recently retired Honda Asimo robot.
A nice episode, and something of a relief after the grim history of episode 20. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11335 |
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They retired Asimo? OO Awww...
But, yeah, I figured that inspired the robot design. 
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Violet Park
Posts: 115 |
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That Kitaro transformation is going to haunt my nightmares. Also, weird that there are still incredulous folks when it comes to yokai, didn't they learn anything from the tanuki invasion?
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yuna49
Posts: 3804 |
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I'm always impressed by how the random humans they meet take it all in stride. I mean, how often do you encounter a walking, talking eyeball in the course of your day? Yet the common folk Kitarou and company interact with seem to think talking to yokai is a normal part of life.
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