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Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe Film Gets Stage Play in 2026
posted on by Anita Tai
An official X (formerly Twitter) account for a stage play adaptation of the Kitarō Tanjō: Gegege no Nazo (The Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe) anime film launched on Friday, announcing the play will run in Tokyo from January 9-25, in Osaka from January 29-February 1, and in Saga from February 7-8.
Hiroki Suzuki (left in photo above) stars as Kitaro's father and Ryouta Murai (right above) plays Mizuki.
The cast also includes:
- Hina Okamoto as Sayo Ryūga
- Ise Hashimoto Tokiya Osada
- Kōichi Kosse as Tokimaro Ryūga
- Kei Kato as Kōzō Ryūga
- Yōko Soumi as Otome Ryūga
- Ichirō Mikami as Katsunori Ryūga
- Harumi Shuhama as Hinoe Ryūga
- Mikiko Okauchi as Toshiko Osada
- Shinji Rachi as Genji Osada
- Shōma Nakata as Nezumi
Norihito Nakayashiki will direct based on a script by Nobuhiro Mōri. Kenji Kawai will compose the music.
Shigeru Mizuki's Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro manga is also receiving a new stage play in August. The play is running at the Meiji-za theater in Tokyo from August 2-16 and will run at the Shin Kabuki-za theater in Osaka from August 18-25.
Gō Koga (Gegege no Kitarō: Nippon Bakuretsu!!, One Piece Episode of Sabo) directed the film at Toei Animation, and Hiroyuki Yoshino (Macross Frontier, World Trigger, 13 episodes in 2018 Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro) wrote the screenplay. Tōko Yatabe (2018 Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro's third ending sequence unit director, Evangelion: 3.0+1.0: Thrice Upon A Time assistant director) designed the characters.
Kitarō Tanjō: Gegege no Nazo Shinsei-ban (True Birth Version), the recut version of the film, opened in theaters in Japan on October 4. The new version has about 327 retaken cuts, as well as some re-dubbed lines. The new version is rated R15+. The film's original screening run had a PG12 rating.
The film is part of four "big projects" commemorating the 100-year anniversary of Shigeru Mizuki's birth. Mizuki died in 2015 at 93 years old. Another project is the Akuma Kun anime that premiered on Netflix in November 2023.
The latest Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro anime — the sixth television anime incarnation — premiered in April 2018 and replaced Dragon Ball Super in the same timeslot. The show ended its run in March 2020 after 97 episodes.
The 2018 anime starred Miyuki Sawashiro as Kitarō and Masako Nozawa as Medama Oyaji. Both reprised their roles for the film, although Nozawa is credited as "Kitarō's Father" instead of Medama Oyaji.
Mizuki's 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.
Sources: Birth of Kitaro stage play's X/Twitter account, Comic Natalie
