GeGeGe no Kitarō

Episode 22

Gyuki is one of the more varied yokai in Japanese mythology. Also known as ushi-oni, or “cow demon,” it makes appearances in several regions and in a few different forms. The one used in this week's episode of GeGeGe no Kitaro is native to fishing areas in Shimane, an enormous sea monster that eats fishermen and takes the form of a bull-headed spider or crab. (Another native to Kagawa looks more like a giant bull-headed flying squirrel. Do the writers of Squirrel Girl need any new ideas?) He's definitely one of the odder looking yokai in the show if only because his face is so…inane. Not all bovines have sort of dippy faces, but this guy's harmless visage combined with his taste for human flesh and body out of your nightmares makes for a fascinatingly creepy visual that really works to give Gyuki an air of almost childlike glee as he blows up gas stations and chows down on tourists.

This is actually one of the scarier episodes of the show. Once again it takes for its overarching theme the idea that humans really shouldn't mess with things they don't understand and that listening to the stories of the older folk can prevent a lot of the problems people create for themselves. In a call-back to episode one, when Gyuki initially appears, freed by a couple of reality TV crewmembers looking for a new occult story, people's first reaction is to just stand there and snap pictures and selfies. They have zero idea that they might be in danger, their first reaction, like the YouTube star of episode one, to just assume that it must be for their entertainment and amusement. It isn't until people are actually eaten that they realize that maybe this isn't a product of the Internet era.

The disbelief in local legend and folk wisdom is less a statement of modern credulity (and if you think about it, believing conspiracy theories online isn't all that different from believing in supernatural forces) and more one about the loss of folklore and culture. In this episode as in several earlier ones, it is the old people who know how to defeat the monster and who quickly accept the existence of Kitaro and Daddy Eyeball with barely a fluttered eyelash. This week it is a resumption of belief in a local deity that allows everyone to be saved, a potent reminder that, as Kitaro says in the opening to each episode, the world you see isn't all that's there.

Another interesting point to notice is that the local deity says that he came from a foreign land, and his iconography is much more Buddhist than Shinto. Given that Buddhism was imported while Shintoism is indigenous to Japan, that's worth paying attention to, especially since Gyuki is himself part of native Japanese folklore. That could make part of this episode's statement also be about the decline of belief in general, suggesting that all belief in the supernatural, whether folkloric or religious, is equally important in maintaining a connection to the past.

All of that aside, this is one gorgeous episode in terms of animation. It's scary animation, to be sure, but it would not have been nearly as effective without the details of Kitaro's transformation into the Gyuki, from the quiver of his knee before it bends the wrong way to the bulge of unnatural muscles and the shift from fingers to talons. The change in the color scheme works as well, juxtaposing light and dark in a particularly effective way as the island transforms from tourist trap to terror town.

The only sort of off-note this week is the way that the locals don't want to capitalize on their Gyuki legend. While that may speak to latent belief in Gyuki as an evil creature, it would seem much more in line with a modern tourism industry that produces reams of local ghost story books and offers overnight stays in murder houses if the island advertised its homegrown monster. This may, of course, be something that's much more prevalent in the US than in other countries, where even my tiny hometown has produced a book of local ghosts and we still get people in the bay looking for the specter of The Royal Tar.

Speaking of hauntings, that looks like the theme of next week's episode. It'll be worth paying attention to how they handle it as either an attraction or a detriment to the building in question. One thing's for sure – whatever the case, GeGeGe no Kitaro is certain not to disappoint.

Rating: A-

GeGeGe no Kitarō is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.