GeGeGe no Kitarō

Episode 10

You've probably heard of Toire no Hanako, but do you know Toire no Yosuke? Yeah, neither do the characters in the show. He's a real problem, though – one of the inevitable seven mysteries of Mana's middle school, Yosuke lives in the second floor boys' bathroom (presumably in the second stall) and has a major crush on Hanako because she once brought him much-needed toilet paper. (You'll notice that the theme song says nothing about ghosts and yokai not having to use the restroom.) Mistakenly thinking that this meant that she was in love with him, Yosuke made such a nuisance of himself that Hanako retreated to a yokai hot spring. And what does this have to do with the rest of the Kitaro cast? Because it's exactly what Rat Man does to poor Mana when she takes pity on the gross mold-covered yokai and gives him a sandwich.

The seven mysteries of Mana's school, therefore, are only the nominal topic of this week's episode, which is, the, uh, romantic one (?) of the season. Of course, it takes Mana and Neko Musume most of the episode to figure this out, because Mana thinks she's being haunted by a curse-giving, desk-washing, wrong-answer dispensing monster. (Yeah, it's Rat Man.) Since Kitaro's on vacation with his dad, Neko Musume comes to help her friend out, and when they find that the actual seven yokai behind the school mysteries are missing, things begin to fall into place. It's definitely intended to be one of the lighter episodes.

But is it really? Perhaps it's just because of current events, but given the way that this show has tackled difficult topics like overwork and bullying before it could very well be intentional. That both Mana and Hanako are completely creeped out by their stalkers to the point where Hanako actually physically removes herself from the situation and confides to Kitaro (they're at the same vacation spot and he's delightfully unperturbed by the mixed bathing that lands them in the same spring) that she's not sure she feels comfortable going back to the school supports this, as does the fact that the rest of the cast tells both Yosuke and Rat Man that they're not doing themselves any favors by being creepy stalkers. If this is the point, however, the ending, where Wally Wall develops a crush on Mana and becomes the eighth mystery of her school in order to gaze upon her, is not in especially good taste.

In all honesty, I don't think that this episode has any grand plans to be meaningful. That's perfectly fine, because not every episode of a series needs to be amazing, and this one still lands a few good jokes, mostly unstated ones about how almost everything Rat Man does to try to show his affection for Mana makes it look like she's being bullied – those flowers he was going to leave in a vase on her desk would have made it look as if she were dead. Not that bullying is something we ought to use for humor fodder, but it's so completely opposite from his intentions that it becomes at least amusing. All of the school mystery yokai dangling from the ceiling is also a pretty good image – “Nino” has an impressively pained expression on his face, and that mustache on the man-faced dog is something else.

So this isn't really a bad episode, all things considered (and that looping background from the scene of Rat Man running down the hall aside), it just isn't as good as its predecessors. Its lightheartedness may work in the series' favor in terms of next week, too – the Tanuki War storyline is one that has been recently published in English and it is a dark one. I'm looking forward to seeing it updated.

Rating: C+

GeGeGe no Kitarō is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.