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GeGeGe no Kitarō
Episode 12

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 12 of
GeGeGe no Kitarō (TV 2018) ?
Community score: 4.0

If there's anyone we should feel sorry for this week, it's Ittan Momen, AKA Rollo Cloth – I can't think of worse punishments than being forced to be a tanuki's underwear. That it's also one of the lighter moments in this week's episode, which says quite a bit about the direction this particular storyline has taken. Lifted directly from the manga story arc about the 808 tanuki, this week's episode follows up on the tanuki takeover of Tokyo that happened in the previous episode. When we left things off, humans were under tanuki rule and Kitaro had been turned to stone by a powerful artifact that no yokai can touch, leaving Mana and the rest of the yokai gang in dire straits. That Mana also had a tanuki transformation curse placed on her only added to the bad news.

Like most episodes of this series, there's a point to all of this despair. The message this week is about how we treat others, and there's a definite edge of the conquered versus their conquerors. With tanuki having taken over the city, there are harsh punishments for perceived anti-tanuki language and actions, which can simply come down to ordering a bowl of tanuki udon. Given that the dish, like kitsune udon, has no actual tanuki in it, this may seem unnecessarily harsh on the part of the humans' new overlords. But if you think about it in a different way, it can also be seen as a message to consider the effects your words have on others – my family and I have certainly been hurt by casual anti-Semitic language used without the speaker thinking about their words. It shouldn't be taken to the extremes that the tanuki do in this episode, where houses are left to burn if the owners were anti-tanuki, but it does say something about the power our language and attitudes can have on people who don't look or act like us.

Of course there's more of a driving force behind all of this as well – the mysterious yokai who has it in for Kitaro is revealed to be manipulating things behind the scenes at the end of the episode. We've actually seen the results of his work throughout – every time someone gets angry, clouds of black smoke seem to envelop them. By the end we realize that he's manipulating peoples' emotions in order to produce that smoke, an outward manifestation of their inner hatred and anger. (Or at least of emotions building towards that.) Whatever his plans are for Kitaro, he's figured out that using humans in general and Mana in particular is a good way to achieve his undoubtedly nefarious purpose. And he's definitely planning to use Mana – after she gives Kitaro the power she took from the Kaname Stone, strange red energy pulses in to fill the space. It briefly forms a character before dissolving into Mana's arm, and we end things with the mystery man watching her and chuckling evilly about filling up the empty vessel over images of a young woman running from men with swords bent on killing her…and possibly more. To call it a disturbing scene is putting it mildly, especially since folklorically speaking this puts the story in the realm of AT333B, the Little Red Riding Hood story known as “The Cannibal Godfather.” Given that all of the variations of AT333 can be read as parables of sexual violence and the series' willingness to explore harsh topics, we should probably be concerned what he has planned for Mana specifically.

This week, however, is a chance to show how Mana's bonds with Kitaro and the other yokai are strengthening. It's not the first time she's saved them, but it is the first episode where she's been instrumental not just once, but twice: first in freeing Kitaro from his stone skin and second when she provides him with the power he needs to defeat the kaiju blowing up Tokyo. She's made herself not just Neko Musume's human friend but an important part of the team, and that's something that the mysterious yokai is certainly going to use to his advantage.

With all of this danger looming, it's too bad that next episode will be back to Rat Man doing his con artist thing, although that by no means precludes another message delivered or a chance to show how this most recent battle has changed the group dynamic. Whether or not the tanuki really needed Rat Man to get as far as they did isn't clear, so the rest of the gang may be willing to overlook his role in it as just his usual brand of opportunism. Even if that's the case, a little breather probably isn't a bad idea, because we've definitely got some serious stuff coming up further down the line.

Rating: A-

GeGeGe no Kitarō is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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