Yokai King

Jay Stephens | April 13th, 2005

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Shigeru Mizuki is one of Japan’s most revered manga-ka. Now in his eighties, with a Mizuki Museum and an army of statues in his home town of Saikaiminato, it’s weird to think of how he started out as a ‘paper theater’ performer and contributer to the underground manga anthology, Garo. With a decidedly different style then the predominant Tezuka school, Mizuki went against the grain with his fantastic GeGeGe No Kitaro manga… stories about a one-eyed boy, born in the graveyard, and able to converse with spirits. These popular comics reacquainted readers with the fabled ‘Yokai’ –traditional Japanese spirits and monsters– and Mizuki became the undisputed master of this macabre new style. Anime and computer games have followed in the years since, both for Kitaro and his other popular creation, Akuma-Kun
(which was also a live-action series in the ’60’s). Shigeru Mizuki is tragically underrated in the West for such a great artist. Take some time to get to know him.

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  • Seattle was lucky enough to have a puppet troupe come through & perform a GeGeGe No Kitaro story. It was beautiful & amazing. I highly recommend it if you have the opportunity.
    MM.
  • Jay -

    There are three GeGeGe-no-Kitaro volumes available in the Kodansha Bilingual Comics series. You can still find them on-line and at some Japanese bookstores. Sarah and I became fans of the characters over a decade ago when a local leased-time station in the NYC area ran subtitled episodes of the orginal anime series.
  • DB
    This guy has been one of my all time favorite artists for years! His line work is just outstanding, and he does it all with ONE ARM!! Lost the other one in WWII!
  • Jay
    Evan! Don't you have something better you could be doing? Yeah... I have those three books, plus some Japanese stuff I can't read, and some little GeGeGe No Kitaro toys. I want more, man! You always were way ahead of me on the manga/anime (and Japanese collectable) front... I got into Kitaro about two years ago. Hey, do you have any copies of the subtitled cartoons? God, how 'Eltingville' is this...
  • Sarah and I have a bout two dozen or so GeGeGe eps of various quality, some taped from those airings, some given to us by kind readers. Drop me a line in "the real world" and I'll start hunting them up to get copies made. They're scattered to the four winds of our long-neglected VHS collection, so it'll take a few decades. .
  • I tried to find a decent book of his art, to no avail. If anyone knows how to get one (or videos), I'd appreciate an email! Thanks! mattereaterlad@earthlink.net
  • I'm a few months late but:

    http://www.livejournal.com/community/mizuki_shi...

    Episode torrents and some fan-translated comics!
  • Hello there

    I have some digitized episodes of Kitaro available for download via torrent at
    http://www.drunkentengu.com/Torrents/

    I have also been translating some of the comics that Kodansha hasn't already done; you can find links to them at http://www.livejournal.com/~mizuki_shigeru
    Future releases will be linked from there as well.

    As for art books, I've found some of his guidebooks to traditional spooks in the Japanese Ghost and Demons section at the San Francisco Kinokuniya, and the art in them is gorgeous.
    I reccomend both of these:
    http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/w...
    http://bookweb.kinokuniya.co.jp/guest/cgi-bin/w...
  • Tengu also has a great Mizuki website at http://mizuki.obakemono.com/

    Which is part of his equally great youkai website, http://www.obakemono.com

    I highly reccomend both of these sites. I myself have ordered the first bilingual manga volume from a link on the former.
  • thank you
  • Basim
    i think manga better thann

    عوالم
    **************
    http://www.3walim.com
    **************
  • My God, 80s!! His drawings r still awesome. I specially like the all eyes creature n the 2nd drawing.

    It would seem that Japan has the best managa artists in the world. Love Japanese anime too :)

    Thnx. 4 the post.
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