The episode that aired here last week was themed to GeGeGe no Kitaro a manga series by Shigeru Mizuki. (Presumably because one of the frequent guests on the show starred in last year’s live action adaptation). The characters kept popping up in the show, effects were superimposed on the celebrities, and the whole thing seemed like a ton of fun.

I was aware of Mizuki’s work, mostly from SH Morgan’s excellent Obakemono Project website and a mention on the Drawn! blog. His artwork directly inspired the parade scene in one of my favorite movies, Pom Poko, and just about anything that deals with yokai (Japanese goblins and spirits) is drawn directly from his interpretation. Plus, there’s a museum and a road lined with statues of Mizuki’s characters in his hometown. But I’ve got to admit that I’d dismissed it as a cultural blip, like Rat Fink.

You can’t really appreciate what a huge impact GeGeGe no Kitaro has in Japan — and is slowly, gradually getting outside Japan — until you see a bunch of people who grew up with the comics and cartoons and are really getting into it. And really, how could you not get into it? It’s early 60s cool combined with Japanese folklore, and I think it’s time we in the US admit that Japanese ghosts and monsters beat ours by several orders of magnitude. I’m guessing the closest equivalent we have in the US would be if The Munsters had been based not on a bunch of movies, but on centuries-old folk tales. Or if Charlie Brown had magic powers and lived in a graveyard with the eyeball of his father and was charged with keeping peace between the human and goblin worlds.

And had a really catchy theme song. Here’s the opening to three of the manga’s animated incarnations on TV. The late 60s (unquestionably the coolest):

The mid 80s:

And last year:

Now I’ve got to make a pilgrimage to Sakaiminato to see the yokai up-close and in person.

And here’s a clip of “I.Q. Supplement” in case anyone’s wondering what that’s all about. If it helps anybody figure out what’s going on: the only one I could get was around 0:50,because a Japanese word for “squirrel” is risu.