Intro To GeGeGe No Kitaro

The Kaiju Transmissions Podcast

Byrd, Tom, Kevin, and Lux are back to give a crash course on Japan's biggest yokai franchise, GeGeGe No Kitaro. The franchise, created by famous mangaka Shigeru Mizuki launched Japan's yokai folk creatures into the mainstream, where they have been ever since. GeGeGe No Kitaro is about a yokai boy named Kitaro and his friends often trying to resolve a conflict between the human world and the yokai world. For this podcast, we looked at a sampler of Kitaro anime adaptations from over the years: 1968's Daikaiju (loosely based on a 1958 Godzilla manga written by Mizuki) in which our protagonist turns into a giant whale monster. Next we have the 1986 movie version of The Great Yokai War (which Daiei would take inspiration from for several of their yokai films), in which Kitaro and friends go up against Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein's Monster and the wicked witch. We follow that with 1997's Yokai Express: Phantom Train film, which combines the Great Yokai War storyline with the Ghost Train storyline, this time seeing the classic Western monsters hijack a train from hell. We close things off with two choice episodes of the recent 2018 Kitaro anime. We'll get into the history of Kitaro, the career of Shigeru Mizuki, and give our thoughts on the various adaptations. Relax and enjoy the show!