It is right up my alley with the incorporation of the supernatural, the real world, and how the two interact. I like hearing more about Japan's ghosts and spirits, and this show really introduced me to a lot of them. Somehow, my liking of it became noticeable enough to someone that I got a Gegege no Kitaro shitajiki (something to put underneath paper so the pencil marks wouldn't go through). Which I definitely still use.
Some of the main youkai that show up with the main character Kitaro include a girl named Nekomusume (who resembles the bakeneko), Sunakake Babaa (who is from Nara Prefecture folklore and throws sand in people's faces), Konaki Jijii (who is from Tokushima Prefecture folklore, attracts travelers in the form of a crying infant, and then crushing them), and Ittan Momen (who is from Kagoshima Prefecture mythology and wraps itself around a person's face to try and smother them).
What's really cool to me is that the author, Mizuki Shigeru, now has a road named after him in his hometown of Sakaiminato. There are a ton of statues of the characters from this series and a museum dedicated to Mizuki Shigeru and his works with Gegege no Kitaro. Ever since I learned it existed, I've wanted to go. I can't say this series has impacted my life in any "meaningful" way, but there's something about it that keeps it in my interests.
Some fun facts about Mizuki Shigeru:
- Mizuki is a pen name. He actually got it from when he managed an inn called "Mizuki Manor" while he drew pictures for kamishibai.
- He is considered a master of the youkai genre.
- He's known for his WWII memoirs. It's known that his experiences affected him deeply, with the most physical reminder of his time during the war is the loss of his left arm from an Allied air raid.
- In Gegege no Nyobo, an asadora about Shigeru's wife, I recall them saying he was left handed and had to learn to draw with his right.
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