First Date: Hakaba Kitarou
- Title: Hakaba Kitarou (Graveyard Kitarou)
- Studio: Toei
- Genre: Horror
Ratings (out of 5):
- Story: ♥♥♥
- Animation: ♥♥♥♥½
- Characters: ♥♥♥
- OP/ED Themes: ♥♥½
- Overall: ♥♥♥
Thoughts:
Hakaba Kitarou isn’t just the umpteenth adaptation of Shigeru Mizuki’s manga of the same name, it’s also the most recent attempt to actually go back to the original source material, both in style and story. The anime opens with the story of Kitarou’s birth, a tale which involves his parents– the last two remaining members of the Yuurei (Ghost) Tribe –and an insurance agent of some kind who stumbles upon the couple researching a strange case at a hospital. Long story short, the human adopts baby Kitarou, a youkai (demon) child, and then he and his mother are both confused (and, in his mom’s case, horrified) when the kid doesn’t turn out perfectly normal. *cough*
The first episode is chock-full of exposition and, as such, suffers from slightly-too-speedy pacing (as is common enough in first eps). But the visuals more than make up for it. This is what TOKYOPOP’s “imanga” would look like if they really went the whole nine yards– not that anime is TOKYOPOP’s goal, really, but if you took the basic concept of adapting manga into something that you watch in a video format, and then gave it a huge budget, plenty of time, and a team of pros, you’d get Hakaba Kitarou’s style. You can practically tell what Mizuki’s panels were in the original manga, and the art is very faithful. It can be a little disconcerting to see humans depicted in such a relatively realistic fashion and youkai in a more cartoon style, but you’ll get over it, because the show is honestly just really neat to watch.
As for the story: the characters are interesting, and Kitarou isn’t what I expected either. I’ve never read the manga, but from what I’ve seen and read I always expected him to be much more of a peacenik do-gooder type. Thus far, he’s actually quite the trouble-maker, causing a lot of trouble to his foster-father (you actually do feel pretty bad for said foster-father, even if he’s a bit of an idiot– he meant well. His mother can go choke and die though).
I definitely recommend watching at least the first episode. It’s a faithful adaptation of a true classic and a really innovative art and animation style combo. You may decide that the story and characters aren’t your cup of tea, but the visuals will definitely prevent you from feeling like it was a waste of time.
Tags: first-dates, gegege-no-kitaro, hakaba kitarou, shigeru mizuki, winter-2007-8
January 24th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
The animation is definitely worth checking out! Mixed with the spooky mood it really turned into a fun episode.
January 26th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Hakaba Kitarou breathes life to the undead, bringing a whole new meaning to this world / underworld :)
too bad spooky series aren’t really my cup of tea; otherwise I’d definitely be watching this.