It's still boring. There's not enough difference between this third Kitarou series and its two predecessors. The regular cast is different, but the stories are the same and they're still not doing much for me. This was where I stopped watching it all. I'd been expecting to watch everything in my GeGeGe-a-thon. Hundreds and hundreds of episodes. By now, though... naaah. They're not good enough to justify it. I'd drop into the series here and there, watching enough to get a taste.

Alas, the episodes didn't keep my attention. I tried to give it a fair shot, but the writing still isn't there. The episodes are full of ideas and are sometimes mildly gruesome, but the stories still aren't character-driven. The youkais' actions lack motivation. They're immortal, unkillable, immune to everything in our world and basically doing what they do because they're the protagonists of a cartoon. Rat-Man's a scumbag, yes... but only a bit, sometimes.

It's more male-dominated than either the 1985 or 2007 series, but it's a clear step up from its predecessor. It has its share of weaker episodes, but it's capable of being sinister, scary or funny. It made me doze less. Also, Nurikabe can stop a speeding truck. It's okay... but I couldn't be bothered. I'd been GeGeGe-ed out.

That was quite good. It's worth keeping.

The question is what's changed. Is it just me? Had I simply needed a bit of distance? Alternatively, might it just be changes in the anime industry itself? 1960s anime scripts don't know what they're doing, frankly. Over the decades, anime got more to grips with character-based drama (although they still don't always trust it, e.g. iyashikei, certain isekai sub-genres and the deterioration of PreCure). Every single GeGeGe no Kitarou series after the first two has improved upon its predecessor, although whatever follows the 2018 series might break that pattern because I'm not sure it could be improved upon.

Also, with Kitarou, they're always adapting the same stories. Each production team can see their predecessors' versions. They can learn from past mistakes and try to make the best version yet... which I think they've almost always managed to do.

You can watch the regular cast evolving. In the beginning, it was just Kitarou, Rat-Man and Eyeball Dad. This increases over time, until by 2007 Kitarou has quite a crowd of friends with a decent gender balance.

Neko-Musume gets more relatable. I like her 2007 incarnation a lot, with her crush on Kitarou and her ability to carry episodes. She's cool. I'm a fan. You can take her crush seriously, since she holds down regular jobs in the human world, claims to be an adult in a job interview and even looks well-developed in a swimsuit. She's the first version of Neko-Musume, who's not a waste of space, to be honest. She was part of the gang, but rarely significant. In 1985 ep.3, Kitarou tells her to stay at home, even though they're investigating cats and she's a cat-girl. Unfortunately, though, her 2007 incarnation still looks like a child, so giving her a crush is reminiscent of a toddler saying "I'll marry Daddy when I grow up". Giving her an adult-sized body in the 2018 series shocked the purists, but transformed our perception of the character.

Uniquely, the 1985 series has a thoroughly nice human girl called Yumeko. Tomoko watched this series regularly when she was a child and she's a Yumeko fan. It's a massive change. Yumeko makes the show more relatable. She's an audience identification character and the best thing there. That series is at its best when telling Yumeko stories, while the episodes without her will be more dull. Unfortunately, though, she's not that important and it's unsurprising that she never returned to the franchise. She's girly and timid. She has no combat ability and will hide behind Kitarou when scary things happen. I'm amused by her relationship with Rat-Man, though, because he fancies her even though his chances are zero because he's malodorous, money-grubbing and mildly evil. Obviously, she wouldn't touch him with a bargepole. She's graceful about it, though, and she's okay with him being in Kitarou's gang.

Also, Yumeko watches ladies' wrestling.

The different adaptations' stories are similar, because they're from the same source material. Nurarihyon is a major presence, but always liable to be a cartoon baddie. I was never scared of him in 1985. In 2018, hell yes. The train to hell is sinister in any era, though, and I also tend to like the "youkai apartments" story (e.g. 1985 ep.8, although it's a shame that the tenants all get booted in the end.)

The 2007 series has more weight. It's capable of mild tragedy, although it can also be funny. Backbeard is a Lovecraftian abomination. The 1985 show has taken a big step forward with Yumeko, but it's still lacking something. That's true even in its better episodes like ep.70, in which Yumeko defends Kagami-jiji and saves everyone. You'd be disappointed if you remade that and failed to make it stronger. Rat-Man urinating on the baddie, for instance, isn't as outrageous as it should have been. Mind you, 1985 ep.100 has topless mermaids with nipples. Children's TV could do that back then. Also, that series ends with a seven-part Hell Arc, with Kitarou and the gang trekking through Buddhist Hell. Literally. It has an ongoing plot, Kitarou's late mother and a lightsabre battle between Kitarou and Nurarihyon... although, to be honest, it's still not that great.

If you're considering this franchise, work backwards. Start with 2018. If you don't like that, give up. If it appeals, 2007 is also worth a look. That's 200+ episodes altogether... but if you still want more, maybe consider trying 1996. Anything earlier is significantly weaker, but there's good stuff in any GeGeGe series. They're iconic, even if they have a steep quality-to-decade gradient.