The Birth of Kitaro

Kitaro: Drawn and Quarterly Edition #1

by Shigeru Mizuki, Zack Davisson (Translation)

Meet one of Japan's most popular characters of all time-Kitaro, the One-Eyed Monster Boy

The Birth of Kitaro collects seven of Shigeru Mizuki's early, and beloved, Kitaro stories, making them available for the first time in English, in an all-new, kid-friendly format. These stories are from the golden era of the late 1960s, when Gegege no Kitaro truly hit its stride as an all-ages supernatural series. Mizuki's Kitaro stories are both timelessly relevant and undeniably influential, inspiring a decades-long boom in stories about yokai, Japanese ghosts, and monsters.

"Kitaro's Birthday" reveals the origin story of the yokai boy Kitaro and his tiny eyeball father, Medama Oyaji. "Neko Musume versus Nezumi Otoko" is the first of Mizuki's stories to feature the popular recurring character Neko Musume, a little girl who transforms into a cat when she gets angry or hungry. Other stories in The Birth of Kitaro draw heavily from Japanese folklore, with Kitaro taking on legendary Japanese yokai like the Nopperabo and Makura Gaeshi, and fighting the monstrous recurring villain Gyuki.

With more than 150 pages of spooky and often funny comics about the titular yokai boy, The Birth of Kitaro is the perfect introduction to the award-winning author Mizuki's most popular series, seminal comics that have won the hearts of Japanese children and adults for more than half a century.

Genres: Manga, Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels, Japan, Fantasy, Fiction

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Shigeru Mizuki (水木しげる) was a Japanese manga cartoonist, most known for his horror manga GeGeGe no Kitaro. He was a specialist in stories of yōkai and was considered a master of the genre. Mizuki was a member of The Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, and had travelled to over 60 countries in the world to engage in fieldwork of the yōkai and spirits of different cultures. He has been published in Japan, South Korea, France, Spain, Taiwan, the United States and Italy. He is also known for his World War II memoirs and his work as a biographer.

Reviews

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shigeru Mizuki was both a renowned manga-ka and also a worldwide authority on yokai, or the supernatural. Most cultures still have a strong tradition of monsters, ghosts and so on, and Japan has a rich heritage in this area. Kitaro is one of the most beloved manga figures in history, and there is a library of books and anime keeping him alive. So there are other Kitaro collections, of course, but this collection, by Drawn and Quarterly has as its purpose to introduce the character and yokai in general to a young American audience. In this book Kitaro meets a different yokai in every chapter. The tone is light and fun and sometimes silly. More culturally interesting than scary. For maybe a middle grades audience.

[Stewart Tame · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shigeru Mizuki was one of Japan's national treasures. If his contemporary, Osamu Tezuka, wasn't already crowned God of Manga (do gods get crowned?), Mizuki would probably be a strong contender for the title. This book features his long-running series, Gegege no Kitaro.

Kitaro is not human, but yokai. "Yokai" is sort of a Japanese catchall term that encompasses ghosts, demons, monsters, aliens ... basically any supernatural creatures. Kitaro spends his days dealing with troublesome yokai, usually at the request of humans. There's a lovely spooky vibe running through these stories, and Mizuki's love of folklore really gets a chance to shine. All of these stories are complete by themselves--there's no really strong continuity to worry about.

Actually, this series of reprints isn't going to bring the entire series to English-speaking audiences, just selected highlights. It's partially to test the waters and see if there's interest in a complete reprinting. This is an incredibly long-running series in Japan. In fact, as the introduction reveals, manga wasn't even the first medium in which Kitaro appeared.

These stories were originally intended for children, but don't let that put you off. There's a manic, ghoulish inventiveness to these stories that is just wonderful. The closest English equivalent I can think of is Dick Briefer's old Frankenstein series (closest French equivalent would be Joann Sfarr's Little Vampire books.) Recommended!

[Stay Fetters · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Children shouldn’t play with the dead!"

I’ve been getting into horror and just weird manga lately. Seeing the cover to this made me think that this was right up that alley. While some of it was, most of it was kind of plain.

The mini stories were okay, some better than others. The first story was my favorite and that was the creep factor that I was looking for. The rest of it didn’t live up to that one. It was still an okay read and I’m glad I gave it a try.

[Kenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The legendary ghost whacker Kitaro is born here. One of Mizuki sensei most beloved character and the yokai world he lives in.

[Peter Derk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably should have read this one before the other one because it's the entire origin story. But you know what? Maybe it's better to just get thrown in sometimes. Pick it up as you go. It's not THAT complicated. Besides, Kitaro is a boy of legend, so it's okay if his origin is a little mysterious.

The only downside to this is it had some games at the end, like a spot the difference and shit, and I stayed up way too late doing a word search. I don't know why, somehow the text that said, "Complete this word search to be a junior yokai expert" challenged me. I was like, "I wanna be a junior yokai expert. This seems pretty easy. I'm not going to let a word search stand in my way, damn it!"

We did a lot of word searches in school when I was a kid. Lots of kids seemed to like them, but I hated that shit. I was never very good at working fast, and finding the words didn't really seem like learning, but it wasn't really fun, either. It was somewhere in between, which is like...well, if we're going to learn, let's just learn and get it over with, and if we're going to have fun, let's throw something off the gym roof and see what happens, but let's not sit here and pretend like looking over a field of letters to find words is super duper fun. How about a maze, teach? THAT'S fun. Or how about you let me make my own word search with horrible, terrible words hidden in it that I can pretend happened by accident. "Well, ASS is just an A and two S's, so it can just happen backwards and diagonally, right?"

[Derek Royal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several years ago I read D&Q's earlier compilation of Kitaro stories. Now, the publisher is coming out with a more chronological series of Kitaro stories in these smaller-sized manga collections. (I'll have to go back through the 2013 text to see if there are any overlaps in the stories presented. I know that that earlier work collected stories published between 1967-1969.) These various stories are fun to read, sort of wacky at times, and remind me of a more whimsical Casper the Friendly Ghost.

[Aynsley! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a fun manga! It was surprisingly funny at times and I really enjoyed learning about all the different yokai in each story. The art was lovely and the character designs charming. Will definitely be looking for more Kitaro at the library!

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nicely put together collection of earlyish Kitaro stories. This introduction to Yokai manga is full of absolutely bizarre storytelling weirdness, with art that swings wildly from sublime landscapes to cartoon silliness. Maybe not recommended, but definitely interesting.

[Jacob]

Very simple and repetitive story format, but the yōkai are super cool. I would like to find a longer format Kitaro story if there is one, maybe there is more in the anime or in a later series of the comic.

[Selena Pigoni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably more like 2.5 stars.

This one was... interesting. It's about a boy named Kitaro, last of the ghost tribe, who goes about solving Yokai problems for people. He's a yokai himself, so he's got a pretty good idea how to solve all kinds of issues.

It's a bit like a goofier, quirkier, more kid-friendly version of Mushishi. Maybe a little too kid friendly. The Birth of Kitaro relies on telling rather than showing, and this being a visual medium, you end up with a couple of pages summing everything up at the start and panels every so often that are nothing but a sentence or two of text explaining either what you just saw, or what you're about to see. I'm all for aiming things at your audience's age level, but there's also something to be said for not treating your audience like an idiot. It would be a bit like if My Little Pony stopped and started talking down to the audience saying, "This is so-and-so. She's got a problem. This is the problem. To solve the problem, Twilight's going to do XYZ."

Needless to say, I found this frustrating.

Between explanations, though, the content was entertaining enough. The artwork's a cartoony style that goes right along with the child-friendly ghost and yokai stories. The stories are more silly than scary (think Pup Named Scooby Doo levels of silly), and borrow heavily from Japanese folklore. You don't need to know the folklore to enjoy this, though, as all the monsters are explained both through the story itself and those explanation panels.

If you're the type of person who is okay with all of the telling, not showing, you'd probably like this more than I did. The random breaks from whatever was going on to explain what just happened. I'm okay with a certain amount of telling, but this got to be too much for me and just drove me batty.

[Leila Anani · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Kitaro is a yokai boy born in a graveyard and semi raised by humans - his father watches over him in the form of a sentient eyeball. Kitaro champions humans and is a sort of paranormal investigator, helping humans troubled by Yokai.

I love Kitaro its so nuts - from his eyeball father, super powers that include killer dart hair and a chameleon tongue and a parade of traditional yokai both good and bad this is a delight from start to finish. Love the artwork as well.

This volume gives Kitaro's origins as well as a few adventures - we also get lots of bonus material - a Yokai encyclopaedia of all the yokai in this volume and various puzzles and trivia.

Cross Dororo with Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard book and you've got an approximation of Kitaro which is a total must for fans of manga and Japanese folklore. Also recommend the 2007 movie which does a fun job of getting this on screen.

[Deb (Readerbuzz) Nance · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kitaro is a little yokai boy, the last living member of the Ghost Tribe. Kitaro is a superhero and a monster and the stuff of legend in Japan. He has a single eye, and he can use his hair to fix problems in the world.

Kitaro is a graphic novel, manga. I read it all the way through, shaking my head, finally sharing a few pages with my husband, telling him, "This doesn't make sense." It was only when I got to the last page that I realized I'd read the entire book backwards. So then I read it again. It does make better sense that way. Though it was still a story about a yokai boy who fights with his hair.

[Julianne Rathbone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kitaro is fun! The first story might imply a narrative, but it’s really more comparable something like Scooby Doo. There’s the cast of familiar characters, and there’s a new monster to fight each story! It’s fun, and Mizuki’s art is a great example of ‘masking.’ Definitely fun for kids, people interested in different yokai, or people who want to read Mizuki’s work without doing the heavy lifting needed to read Showa.

[Lexie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I enjoyed this less for the story and more for the historical value. I enjoy classic manga quite a bit and while I've heard of Shigeru Mizuki before, I had never read him as it's less of my kind of story.

Still I can see the appeal - the style is very different from today's manga and while there is some harsh parts, overall this should catch elementary school kids quite easily.

[StrictlySequential · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderfully goofy!

[Skjam! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blood bank worker Mizuki (no relation) is sent to investigate a report of tainted blood provided by his business, which has turned a hospital patient into the living dead. Narrowing down the possibilities, Mizuki is startled to learn that the blood donor put down his, Mizuki’s, address! It turns out there are squatters in the abandoned temple out back of his house.

These squatters are yokai, a married couple who are the last of the Ghost Tribe. Once, the Ghost Tribe was numerous, and lived all over the country. But as humans encroached on their territory, the Ghost Tribe was forced first into the wilderness, then underground. Over the years, their numbers have dwindled, until these two and their unborn child are all that remain. The wife sold her blood to buy medicine, as both of the yokai are ill. Out of pity, Mizuki agrees to keep their secret until the baby is born.

Months later, Mizuki visits the temple to find both of the yokai dead, and buries them. But their child, Kitaro, lives, and Mizuki adopts him, even though he is repulsed by the sight of the little monster.

GeGeGe no Kitaro is Shigeru Mizuki’s best known work, a horror manga for children. According to the introduction, he took inspiration from Hakaba Kitaro (Graveyard Kitaro), a kamishibai (paper theater) performance series that had been popular before World War Two. Most of the records of the series were destroyed during the war, but Mizuki took what was known and refashioned it for 1960s children. It was an enormous hit, and there have been numerous anime adaptations.

This volume collects “best of” stories from the Kitaro series, rather than have them in order of publication. Thus, Kitaro’s character design is very different in the first chapter, before he’s learned to groom himself. Eventually, Kitaro is kicked out of Mr. Mizuki’s house to fend for himself with the aid of Medama Oyaji (Eyeball Dad), the animated eyeball of his deceased father.

The remainder of the stories in this volume guest star Nezumi Otoko (Rat Man), a filthy, greedy fellow who constantly tries to find ways to profit from foolish humans and other yokai. Often, he’s personally responsible for the peril that Kitaro must deal with, but other times Nezumi Otoko just finds a way to chisel some extra yen from the situation.

Another recurring character that makes an appearance is Neko Musume (Cat Daughter), a part-feline girl who is Nezumi Otoko’s natural enemy. Kitaro uses her to convince the rat to give back all the money he’d swindled from a group of humans to grant them a form of immortality. In this early story, Neko Musume is much less pretty than later adaptations make her.

In the early chapters, Kitaro isn’t too fond of humans due to being bullied for his hideous appearance and strange behavior; as he gains a heroic reputation the humans become friendlier and Kitaro reciprocates. However, he knows that he can never be fully welcome in human society and wanders away at the end of most stories.

There’s a variety of yokai in this series, the most difficult to defeat is the gyuki (bullheaded crab), because anyone who kills the gyuki, becomes the gyuki! Kids tend to be important in the stories, either as potential victims or the ones who call Kitaro in.

At the end of the volume are pocket descriptions of the yokai in this volume, and activities for kids like a maze and word search puzzle.

Keeping in mind that what the Japanese consider suitable for children varies from what many American parents will accept (there’s some rear male nudity, and people die), this would be a great gift for a horror-loving elementary school kid.

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

The character of Kitaro -- a "yokai" boy born to a dead mother in a grave -- dates back to Japanese storytellers in the early 1930s.Shigeru Miziku began his manga version of the strange boy and his supernatural adventures in 1966, and continued his tales for about fifty years, turning Kitaro into one of the most famous manga characters in Japan. This volume collects his first seven stories, which mostly appeared in Shonen Weekly in 1967-68 (for some reason they are not in chronological order, which seems odd).

The term "yokai" apparently doesn't translate well, but is kind of an umbrella for all manner of supernatural monsters, spirits, beings, and phenomena. The first story details the birth of Kitaro and his early years with a human parent, and the other six all follow him as he wanders around, each story introducing a new yokai. The artwork is really interesting, a mix of cartoony grotesque for many of the characters, and then highly detailed realism for architecture and nature. It makes for an interesting, if sometimes confusing, contrast. 

The stories themselves are often quite humorous, with banter, bathroom humor, and visual jokes. Overall, while I quite enjoyed the introduction, I think I've gotten the flavor and don't feel compelled to seek out more. Readers who have an interest in Japanese folklore should definitely check this out, regardless of whether or not you are a manga reader.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Birth of Kitaro" is an excellent introduction to the very popular and long-lived Japanese comics. We learn how Kitaro came to be, who and what he is, and watch him embark upon his adventures fighting against supernatural creatures of every kind. Mizuki delves deeply into Japanese (and beyond) folklore to populate his world with yokai: ghosts, monsters, spirits, demons, goblins, shape-shifters, and gods. Think the TV show "Supernatural" without the annoying 'heroes' and the bad attitude. Kitaro himself is sweet but strange, a cute little boy who just happens to be a misshapen monster. By the time Kitaro is born, the only thing left of his yokai father is an eyeball, a walking talking eyeball that keeps watch over him from a distance, occasionally stepping forward when his son needs protection or guidance. Kitaro's best friend is a half-yokai, Nezumi Otoko, who is a classic trickster, always running some scam or scheme to fool others and get what he wants (usually money). When Kitaro isn't trying to stop Otoko from causing trouble, they work together to keep other monsters from harming humans. "The Birth of Kitaro" is very enjoyable, particularly if the reader likes folklore and the supernatural. This is a manga that is appropriate for all ages and may even have one or two things to teach readers about accepting people for who they are and not what they look like.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shigeru Mizuki's Gegege no Kitarou has some strange little significance to me. I don't know how I learned of the series, but it grabbed my interest about a decade ago. There was no version of the Kitaro story in America at this time (at least none that I knew of), but I was deeply intrigued by this small one-eyed boy and his adventures saving humans from monsters throughout Japan. Unfortunately, I could barely find anything of the manga or any of its anime adaptations (really, I probably just didn't search very thoroughly), but I did have a ROM downloaded for a Gegege no Kitarou game on Gameboy Advance, a side-scroller that made use of many of Kitaro's special attacks, most notably his hair needles. As the years passed, I lost direct interest in the franchise, but still Kitaro remained in the back of my mind somewhere, his weaponized "emo" fringe sticking out as a major curiosity. In 2013, Drawn and Quarterly released a compilation volume, simply titled "Kitaro" (I imagined the "Gegege no" part was dropped for ease of dealing with American audiences; very rarely do Anglicized titles of anime and manga keep the possessive "no," and it would be especially hard to translate "gegege," though really it wouldn't be too bad to name the series "Cackling Kitaro"). For whatever reason, I didn't purchase that book. I imagine I just didn't feel like spending any great deal of money on manga (though I did pay $30 for a used copy of BLAME! volume 1 the previous year), but whatever the reason five years passed without me purchasing any English-language Kitaro, and Drawn and Quarterly have since began publishing further translations of Mizuki's classic manga. It is thus with some shame that I've come to this manga after the 2018 anime adaptation began airing, having replaced Dragon Ball Super in its timeslot. I didn't watch Super at all, but I did decide it would be nice to watch Kitaro. As I've begun purchasing VIZ's translations of Toyotaro's DBS manga, so too should I purchase Drawn and Quarterly's Gegege no Kitaro releases (okay, Dragon Ball had nothing to do with me buying the Kitaro manga, but it does fit my anecdote, so I'll retroactively decide on that reason).

Not really sure if this is meant to be an exact reproduction of original Japanese tankobon collections of the serialized Gegege no Kitarou manga, or just another compilation like Drawn and Quarterly's previous "Kitaro" book. There is a world of difference between the first story, the titular "The Birth of Kitaro," and the remaining stories. It seems "The Birth of Kitaro" takes after the mature, realistic styling of "gekiga" - as opposed to the cartoonish "manga" of the '60s, this had more in line with Western "underground comix." In contrast, the rest of this volume goes into a goofier art-style similar to its other "manga" contemporaries (Tetsuwan Atom, Doraemon, &c.). I guess the main difference is "Birth" features yokai as "other" elements to stand against the "normal" world of the Mizuki character, assumed to be a regular man who accidentally gets mixed up with the supernatural. It thus makes sense that Kitaro's parents are so grotesque, and even when the father enters his more familiar form as Medama-oyaji, the eyeball still has visible blood vessels to add some nastiness to the otherwise cute appearance (never mind the fact that his body is all fucked up when he first forms, though this does clear up by the end of the chapter). Kitaro is also notably uglier than he would later be when Mizuki streamlines his style for Weekly Shonen Magazine.

Humans get sillier-looking onward into the volume, not unlike the cast of Osomatsu-kun. While the "gekiga" style of the "Birth" humans might be dropped, the yokai are still mostly "ugly," which is to say they stand out in such a way to distinguish their supernatural appearances from the simpler art of the mundane humans. Obviously the child Kitaro has a cute appearance to keep him relatable to child readers, and Nezumi Otoko looks harmless and funny to keep him from coming across as a vile enemy of Kitaro's and instead sticking him as a mostly harmless foil character. All the "monsters of the week" are fittingly frightening in appearance. Even Neko Musume's appearance works to scare the harmless-looking villain of that chapter, Nezumi Otoko. It's actually very strange to go from 2018's Gegege anime to Mizuki's original manga, to see Neko Musume as an elementary schooler (in appearance, at least; I don't know how old she's supposed to be) with a bowl-cut not unlike that of the Grave of the Fireflies girl. Maybe this was a popular haircut for little Japanese girls decades ago? Regardless, simple research reveals it wasn't until the 2007 anime that they tried making Neko Musume more "moe" and it reaches its zenith in 2018 wherein the character is actually "hot" and haughty as befitting the "tsundere" archetype that's been popular all this millennium.

Mizuki's art is fantastic, not just in the simplicity of the major characters and the regular humans, but also for the highly-detailed backgrounds and the grittier appearances of the monsters-of-the-week. A particular standout would be the "Kami" enlisted to imprison the Gyuki in the "Gyuki" story. The Gyuki itself retains the major features of its historic-mythic counterpart: bull head and crab/spider body (I didn't look closely, but I actually think there were only six legs). After passing its curse on to Kitaro, the villagers (with Medama-oyaji and Nezumi Otoko) call for help from their town's guardian spirit, who appears before the villagers with great majesty, featuring bolder lines, more detail in the face (there's an interesting quasi-3D effect with its mouth, as though it has a mix between a bird's beak and a human's mouth), and far more detail in its clothing (metallic-looking wings, the feather mantle of divine beings in Japanese lore, and what looks to be three hitodama located at fixed points on the mantle). Only the Makura Gaeshi comes close in the sheer "other"-ness of its design. Bonus points go to the flames on the ignited version of the Hideri Gami.

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m still very new to manga and honestly about 95% of what I’ve read has been this year. What’s fascinating about this first volume of GeGeGe no Kitarō (beautifully published by Drawn and Quarterly with just the right amount of scholarly context and witty translation) is that it feels incredibly, incredibly modern. Part of my issue with a lot of manga is the slapdash art, which sometimes feels like the bare minimum to someone not experienced with the genre.

But this is insanely detailed, with some genuinely beautiful crosshatching and intricate imagery. It’s just beautiful imagery that’s incredibly comfortable with some goofy horror comic and slapstick stuff transposed upon it. It’s sometimes a bit baffling in terms of narrative, but you soon pick up the conventions (especially the perennial sad sack antihero, the pitiful Nezumi Otoko) and Kitsaro’s eyeball dad - the forerunner of the Residents in so many ways - is a wonderful addition to the plot. The magic really is in how it mixes high and low art; pathos and slapstick; horror and absurdity; tradition and modernity. I can’t wait to read more

[The Book Dragon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is an expansion sequel of Kitaro.

Where do you start a story? At the beginning? No, before the beginning! We follow a blood bank employee searching for the origins of the mysteriously donated yokai blood. This man eventually tracks down the donor and finds the last two yokai of the the ghost tribe, a mummy-like man and his pregnant wife.

Later, the yokai parents are dead (?), Kitaro is taken in by the human, but his dad survived as a walking eyeball (?) and brought Kitaro back into the yokai world. Then the story begins its episodic monster-of-the-week style chapters where Kitaro fixes problems between the yokai and humans. Some yokai will be familiar to those who read manga often (like Nopperabo or Hitodama) but others are new monsters for some audiences (I'd never heard of a Nozuchi or a Buru-buru). Thankfully, there's a section at the back for those who want more info.

This is just the start of Kitaro's journey and I hope I get to follow him into each wacky adventure.

This series has 7 volumes.

[Abspann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superunterhaltsame, sehr charmante Episoden um Kitaro, den kleinen Yokai-Jungen, der als eine Art Mediator zwischen den Menschen und den Yokai, also den mystischen Wesen Japans, fungiert. Diese schlagen gerne mal über die Stränge (nehmen z.B. anderen Leuten ihr Gesicht weg oder entführen ein Kind), was Kitaro dann wieder geraderückt.

Die Geschichten sind kurz und simpel, haben aber fast immer einen originellen Dreh und einen guten Humor. Trotz all der Monster und Geister sind wir hier eher im Genre der Comedy als beim Horror - aber mit viel Liebe und Respekt für die japanische Folklore (die Shigeru Mizuki genau studiert hat).

Dass der Manga vor über 50 Jahren erschien, merkt man gelegentlich an der Erzählweise, aber insgesamt fühlt es sich sehr frisch und gar nicht altbacken an. Ich muss jetzt nicht die ganze Serie lesen, aber wenn ich mal wieder über eine Ausgabe in der Bibliothek stolpere, nehme ich sie gerne mit.

[Anique T · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m always going to give these the Kitaro manga series a 5 stars, it’s too nostalgic for me not to.
My mom grew up reading this series, I remember being introduced to Kitaro when I first traveled to Japan as a child (I had gone as a baby but obviously have no memory of it). I always loved learning about monsters and urban legends, so getting to learn about Japanese monsters was so exciting!
I marked these at horror, but in the end these stories are almost more slice of life than anything else. There just happens to be monsters involved. Almost feels as nostalgic as watching scooby doo reruns as a child.
My local manga store were carrying quite a bit of the series, it made me so happy and almost emotional because I didn’t realize these had been translated to English. I tried my best to read the comics in Japanese.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is going to be a general review for the series, with perhaps a few specific comments thrown in. In general, I love the series and I love the character of Kitaro. I love being introduced to new yokai in each volume, I love relationship Kitaro and his dad have (except in Kitaro the Vampire Slayer), and I love how consistently inconsistent Nezumi Otoko is and always wonder why they keep him around the way they do. It might be because they count on him switching sides and then count on his incompetence to help them defeat the bad guys.
I'd read the larger volume that was put out a couple years before this series and I don't think I recall the origin story being in there (I read it awhile ago). Anyway, the story of why his dad's an eyeball felt new... :)

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Mizuki's "Showa" series and thought I would pick up a book about a character he is particularly known for. Consisting of a few short stories, I found this book to be an enjoyable read about the origins of the last undead child, Kitaro, that helps deal with supernatural beings. I liked that the tales of those beings ("yokai") are based on actual Japanese folklore, so it was very interesting to see how Mizuki interpreted the look and abilities of these creatures and spirits. For some moments here and there the path of a story became a little tough to follow (visually, plot, or both), but if one just plows ahead each story concludes neatly enough.

[Remxo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though more than half a century old, the adventures of Yokai boy Kitaro feel timeless. And Mizuki's line work is amazing.

This collection opens with an introduction that offers some context into Kitaro's origin as a character from oral stories, as well as a little bit of background on the popularity of Yokai stories in Japan, which goes as far back as the Edo period. Mizuki himself grew up on listening to Yokai stories. He researched Yokai his entire life and amassed a personal collection Yokai art. Most, if not all stories in this volume are based on Yokai from ancient lore, which I think ads a layer of depth. The character designs of the monsters is magnificent.

Kitaro's origin story starts with his parents, the last living members of a race of monster people. It's a tragic tale about their sad demise, even though his father lives on as an eyeball on legs who accompanies Kitano on his adventures. The remaining stories are lighthearted comedic adventures in which Kitaro serves as a sort of intermediate between humans and the spirit world in which Kitaro sorts out all kinds of Yokai-related mysteries.

The art is phenomenal. Mizuki blends cartoon-y characters with realistic looking intricately detailed backgrounds. His crosshatching skills his incredible hand-drawn textures are unlike anything I've seen in manga, or comics for that matter. But unfortunately this edition is printed on cheap grayish paper that looks and feels like thicker newsprint. This manga definitely deserves an oversized edition printed on a paper stock that emphasizes the art.

[Stephanie Tournas · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a quirky superhero! Kitaro, a yokai, or demon, was born of undead parents. His super power is his hair, and the ghost of his twice dead dad occasionally accompanies him on his quests in the form of an eyeball. Black and white manga-like comics, fresh and very inventive, harness creatures from Japanese mythology, as well as other myth traditions around the world, to present funny and creepy bad guys 'n gals. This is a fun and entertaining comic, sure to appeal to wide audiences.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

An English collection of Mizuki Shigeru’s Kitaro tales, from the story of his birth, from 1966, to 1968. It was fascinating to read about Kitaro’s spooky origins and to finally understand what that Daddy Eyeball business is all about; and it was interesting to see a pattern establish itself in the stories. This is the first Kitaro volume by the American publisher Drawn & Quarterly, and they’ve now released a number of subsequent volumes.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully drawn in a style both modern and steeped in historical tradition, and about a monster kid who fights monsters. What could be more fantastic? I dunno, I gotta plow through the next six volumes of Mizuki's KITARO stories before I find out. I look forward to this very much. The artwork is super powerful, reminds me, in a strange way of Hanazawa's 'I Am A Hero' which is also pretty epic.

[Jeff Lewonczyk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first introduction to the little one-eyed yokai boy who helps humans navigate supernatural catastrophes (often with the help of his father, who, as it turns out, has decomposed to a single eyeball). A hugely popular kids' manga in Japan, these generally funny, sometimes oblique, sometimes genuinely spooky, sometimes just plain weird stories are right in my wheelhouse.