GeGeGe no Kitarou is based on Shigeru Mizuki's manga, but it's not a faithful adaptation of how it began. It became more TV-friendly. There was a darker precursor to the Kitarou we all know, which was a 1959-60 rental manga called Hakaba Kitarou ("Kitarou of the Graveyard"). That prototype of Kitarou was dark, selfish, greedy and morally ambiguous, with no empathy for humans. His stories were grislier and often had dark endings for anyone who crossed Kitarou or his walking eyeball father.
This TV series is a faithful adaptation of that. It even has a deliberately drab colour palette, as if it was drawn on brown packing paper. Its Kitarou is a sinister, ugly brat who scrounges around for money and doesn't like humans (although he chases girls). He laughs at creepy things. He leads people into Hell and returns without them. He steals from the dead. He becomes a debt collector, then tries to sell people "afterlife insurance". This is interesting... but, yeah, I see why they didn't do all that on TV in 1968. I'd have done the same if I'd been a TV producer then.
It's visually interesting. It's not monochrome, but it's very sepia and the animation style is mildly reminiscent of Yamishibai (without going to those extremes). It's also rooted hard in its historical period, with many main characters (including Kitarou and Rat Man) being short of money and sometimes close to starvation. Mizuki Shigeru understood what that was like. One of his fellow mangaka really did die of starvation. Here's a quote from Mizuki himself, in his History of Japan:
"I feel the most sorry for the ones who starved to death. I'll never get over that feeling. People today say 'I'm starving' when they are hungry, but they don't understand what that really means."
The series evolves before your eyes. Initially, Rat Man is flat-out evil. He has a body count. He procures victims for Dracula, then for laughs infects a human with a vampire shoot that will absorb his body and devour his humanity. "Seeking out the grotesque and the uncanny is my pastime and it allows me fulfilment in life!"
Later, though, he becomes Kitarou's friend. They hang out together. Has his characterisation softened, or does Kitarou simply not care? Fundamentally, though, Rat Man's the same as his usual self and sometimes funny. His body odour can be weaponised, especially when he farts.
Neko-Musume shocked me in ways I'd never expected. Her story's the strongest thing in this series.
This series's familiar elements are cool (Johnny in the Fog!), but the unfamiliar stuff is just as interesting. There are three human viewpoint characters called Mizuki, some of whom draw manga and one of whom even has the first name of Shigeru. (They all have two arms, though, unlike the real one.)
This is horror, basically. Not full-blown George A. Romero, but full of weird creepy stuff and with no guarantee of survival for anyone. (Seriously. No one is safe and they'll be quickly forgotten.) However, it's more interesting compared with GeGeGe no Kitarou than as a story in itself, with its early episodes being stronger and more memorable than the later ones. It doesn't have an ending. Wonderfully, though, the producers cast the original 1968-72 voice actors for Kitarou, Rat Man and Eyeball Dad... and they're great, having lost nothing over the decades and comparing well with their modern equivalents in the 2007-09 GeGeGe series that was also running then. You'd never guess that time had passed. Mind you, Isamu Tanonaka plays Eyeball Dad in both versions and indeed owned the role from the beginning in 1968 until his death in 2010.
Is this worth a look? If you've watched other GeGeGe no Kitarou, then yes. Definitely. Apart from anything else, I'm convinced that it influenced the (superb) 2018 series. A colder, more distant Kitarou, an older Neko-Musume who can be seen as a proper love interest, darker and more dramatic stories...
