(CR) New Gegege no Kitarou

[Cloudedmind]

I'm probably the odd man out here, but I actually liked this ending. It strayed from the cliche, she just needed some guy to accept and love her in order to recognize her true worth message we always get.

[Guardian Enzo]

I'm with you. I definitely saw it coming, but I liked it better than if the ep had ended 1 minute earlier.

[SeijiSensei]

A comparatively more "light-hearted" episode, it presents a legend also recounted at the beginning of the second arc of Mononoke entitled Umibōzu. The monk telling the story exhorts his listeners to bring a ladle without a bottom when they go out on the ocean.

You'd think the yokai would catch on after a while.

Wally can be on my tug-of-war team anytime.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

A comparatively more "light-hearted" episode

I think this episode has more than mets the eye. From what I read the manga author was from that same fishermen town and mana's dad never appears, so I feel the writer is telling us that mana is a "spiritual daugher" of Shigeru Mizuki. I am also surprised no one noticed that some of mana's hair has lost color, not going completely white but still the contrast is quite clear. Also, by the end of the chapter (after they defeated the yokai, anyone notice how everytime they lose a physical body they expel that black/purprlish energy?) her ears are pointy, another feature she lacked at the start of the season.

[Blueknight78]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

I think this episode has more than mets the eye. From what I read the manga author was from that same fishermen town and mana's dad never appears, so I feel the writer is telling us that mana is a "spiritual daugher" of Shigeru Mizuki. I am also surprised no one noticed that some of mana's hair has lost color, not going completely white but still the contrast is quite clear. Also, by the end of the chapter (after they defeated the yokai, anyone notice how everytime they lose a physical body they expel that black/purprlish energy?) her ears are pointy, another feature she lacked at the start of the season.

this must be the effect of whatever the other big mysterious youkai did on her in the first season ending, where he place something "inside her", it can be turning her in a youkai or something where he can take over her body for himself which looks like being his goal.

[LG-MAX 2.o]

I finished episode 7, and my god, what an incredible episode, seriously, it touched on sensitive points of Japanese culture and even served as a warning about how karma is terrible, seriously, it did not even sound like anime to children.

[Guardian Enzo]

Another really stellar bittersweet episode this week -what an impressive revival of the franchise this is. But I especially loved the way this ep gave the RL bronze statues in Sakaiminato a great origin story.

[Guardian Enzo]

What a crime this show is getting so little attention outside of Japan. It's truly stellar on every level.

[BBOvenGuy]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

What a crime this show is getting so little attention outside of Japan. It's truly stellar on every level.

It's been steadily growing on me as I've gotten used to the setting and the characters. I'm not as fond of Nezumi-otoko as some people are (including, apparently, the original series creator).

A few weeks back, I said Kitaro has the same place in Japanese pop culture that Doctor Who has in British pop culture. It's been around so long, surviving by reinventing itself and adapting to new times, that an outsider can have trouble finding a way in. But it can be done, and it's definitely worth the effort.

As for this week's episode, I liked getting to see different sides of Neko-musume, although I really wish she'd drop the interested/not interested in Kitaro routine.

[Guardian Enzo]

A couple of thoughts on Neko Musume...

On the surface, yes, she’s a fairly traditional tsundere archetype. But there are a lot of really cute and clever little touches - like her mouth turning into a cat’s head when she smiles, and leaving gifts outside the house of the person she loves (which cats commonly do). She also has a truly beautiful character design - all the design updates are great of course, but hers is really lovely.

On balance she’s not my absolute favorite part of this version, but I still think she’s pretty great. And the way she taught Mana about traditional bonds with nature in this episode was one of my favorite scenes of the year so far - really tremendously written and executed.

[BBOvenGuy]

D'oh! I completely missed the leaving-gifts-outside-the-house thing! And I'd just seen them use it in the latest episode of the CW series The Outpost, too.

And now that you've clicked that piece of the puzzle into place, the tsundere behavior makes more sense overall. Cats often act like they don't care about someone they're caught caring about.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by BBOvenGuy

D'oh! I completely missed the leaving-gifts-outside-the-house thing!

My kitty not only brings me gifts, she brings them to the nice pair of middle-aged sisters who live in the other half of my duplex. Zoe only brings them presents when she sees that they have been away for a while like over a weekend. It's a little "welcome-home" ritual.

When I brought out a back-yard table to use in the summer, Zoe started leaving my presents next to the table just in case I was looking forward to a nice chipmunk. Asirpa in Golden Kamuy would probably eat it and say "hinna, hinna!"

And, like BB, I didn't notice these things either until you pointed them out, Enzo. Thanks! I agree Neko has a lovely character design. Mana-chan is cute, but Neko-musume is beautiful.

[Cloudedmind]

My sisters cat use to bring us mice, mostly still alive. I'd much rather get vegetables from Neko musume.

And both of our cats have a habit of acting like they don't want to be around you, but as soon as you leave them alone in a room and move to another, they come waltzing in five minutes later to plop down in a spot three feet away from you.

[SeijiSensei]

Will the key to defeating Nanashi be

Spoiler:

discovering his name or giving him one?

Those kids in the mixer should have been horribly beaten up unless Kitarou protected them somehow.

So was Daddy-Eyeball's admonition at the end about not trusting adults supposed to be taken seriously? Seems an unlikely moral for a show with a bunch of kids in the audience.

Mana needs to stop hitting Souma. Instead of slapping him (off-camera) when he asked her to do some of his homework, she could have offered to help him with it. Looks like they would both enjoy that, too. I know she's a 13-yo tsundere, but it's time for her to move on from that meme. Unfortunately adopting Neko-musume as her role model won't help!

I was sad thinking Kitarou would end soon, but while I was over rereading the show's entry at ANN, I was happily reminded that its planned run is at least fifty episodes. Suppose Nanashi will be the main opponent all the way through? Or maybe just to the end of this half in a few weeks?

[mangamuscle]

So, Nanashi is using Mana to store yokai energy, the odds of mana losing her humanity went up a bit.

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

So was Daddy-Eyeball's admonition at the end about not trusting adults supposed to be taken seriously?

Dunno if it is due to a different translation, but my take was that he was talking about not trusting strangers offering wonderful things, I mean, what could go wrong?

Suppose Nanashi will be the main opponent all the way through? Or maybe just to the end of this half in a few weeks?

Dunno, to me no-name seems like a non sentient being (like the mothman from the 2002 movie) or a mask or something driven purely by emotion, I feel he(it?) either is a middle-stage boss (we are a bit fa from the episode 26 middle of the road mark) or that it will have another more powerful form later on.

[SeijiSensei]

He does suggest the world is full of dangerous adults, which rather goes against the grain of how Japanese parents send their kids out alone at an early age. He also says they don't need to go to school. Wonder how many Japanese parents are hearing today from their kids that "Daddy-Eyeball says I don't need to go to school."

Is Japan moving in the direction of "helicopter" parenting like we see in America these days? I admire how Japan has had a culture that fosters childhood independence and self-sufficiency. It would be sad if that got lost.

[Blueknight78]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Is Japan moving in the direction of "helicopter" parenting like we see in America these days? I admire how Japan has had a culture that fosters childhood independence and self-sufficiency. It would be sad if that got lost.

to be fair that culture is not "so amazing" as it look because it make the "family bound pretty weak" and many "young adults japaneses issues or even teenagers issues are exactly because when they are/was kids they could not trusth enough they parents( they don't feel loved enought), due to they put themself "too far away" from them, it goes to the lenght of even create a "hate-parent" situation where the kid grow hating his father or mother or both, due to they never "being there when they needed", this also lead to the japanese valuing more "work tha family" and help the issue of "socieity and japan first" before family or himself, while independence is important you can gain it by "ignoring family bound and creating a situation where the firs thing the person do when grow is "leaving his parent and family behind" like they are totally strangers which also happen a lot in western, many peoples love to after grow throw the "old parents in retirment houses and forget them.

In my country we respect a lot family bound specially fahter and mother and only in minority of cases you have peoples which after grow they forget they family and leave they "old family behind" to focus only on himself or his "new family', creating more and more "selifsh peoples which care less and less about bounds.

Remember when you gonna need help "will be that old annoying geeses which you will ask for help first even when you completely ignored them for most of your life.

That is one of the reasons they are having "birth issues" no one is caring anymore toward making family cuz is too troublesome and annoying and is better be single focusing in work and playing pachinco and others things.

What is the current japanese family model?
a father working like 16 t 20h almost every day only being there one of 2 days per week where he pass most of the time trying to rest and recover from the "hard work", the mother too busy taking care of the house, then the children feeling more like a "burden" than someone loved and which need to early to learn how to live for himself, this can really damage peoples mind too easy.

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Is Japan moving in the direction of "helicopter" parenting like we see in America these days? I admire how Japan has had a culture that fosters childhood independence and self-sufficiency. It would be sad if that got lost.

What I am going to say is subjective. I watch ANN to improve my imperfect japanese and I am surprised by the amount of murders there is in the news. Not that japan is crime proof, but I did not expect them to see them so frequently. So maybe the media over there is shifting the perception of the people or maybe society is changing. Two decades ago my japanese teacher told me it had become common in some schools for some kids to bring (not kitchen) knives to school, so maybe the post-bubble urban japan is a less friendly place, even though it is safer than most industrialized countries.

[Blueknight78]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

What I am going to say is subjective. I watch ANN to improve my imperfect japanese and I am surprised by the amount of murders there is in the news. Not that japan is crime proof, but I did not expect them to see them so frequently. So maybe the media over there is shifting the perception of the people or maybe society is changing. Two decades ago my japanese teacher told me it had become common in some schools for some kids to bring (not kitchen) knives to school, so maybe the post-bubble urban japan is a less friendly place, even though it is safer than most industrialized countries.

well while japan crimes rate are really one of the lowest around the world, still they have a really high rate or sexual harassement and assaults rate for the country, the amount of "chikan"(womans being molested) is pretty high specially in trains during the rush hour to the point of them using "womans only cabins" to try to reduce it.

then is pretty understandable the fear of the childrens, another thing which is pretty common are young girls being scouted to work on some "shade" works on the streets.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Will the key to defeating Nanashi be

Spoiler:

discovering his name or giving him one?

So was Daddy-Eyeball's admonition at the end about not trusting adults supposed to be taken seriously? Seems an unlikely moral for a show with a bunch of kids in the audience.

Mizuki is a subversive - always was. He had to be - he had to figure out how to insert anti-war messages into the WW II propaganda the government forced him to write.