![]() After World War II, Mizuki started adapting these Kamishibai stories to manga, adding his own touches and characters along the way. Kitaro was a character created by Masami Itō for his stories Hakaba Kitaro during the 1930s and was a sort of amalgamation of various Japanese legends and folk tales. Before the rise of television and manga, Kamishibai was a popular form of entertainment for children in Japan, especially during the Great Depression. These stories served as the foundation for everything from tokusatsu heroes such as Kamen Rider, to the erotic-grotesque horror of Suehiro Maruo’s Tsubaki Shoujo. The creation of Kitaro is tied to the all but lost art of Kamishibai, stories told by street performers who displayed large illustrations while providing voices and narration. The series has endeared itself to the point where there have been animated adaptations decades after the end of the original manga, statues of Kitaro dotting Japan, and a brand of sake available at your local Japanese grocer. Mizuki’s most famous creation is the manga series Gegege no Kitaro, a manga series which initially ran in the 1960s. Confronted by the cruelty of man, Mizuki looked to the world of the supernatural as an alternative. ![]() These experiences (including being ‘ordered to die’ by his commanding officers) did not break Mizuki, and if anything, fueled his resolve to create a world removed from the blight of war. Subjected to the horrors of war and disease during World War II, Mizuki used his experiences as the basis for his historical comics later in life such as Onward Towards Our Noble Death and Showa: A History of Japan. Mizuki had a keen interest in the arts from an early age, but during an Allied bombing raid he lost his left arm, which happened to be the one he used for drawing, necessitating him to almost completely re-learn his craft. In 1945 Mizuki was drafted into the Japanese military and was stationed in New Guinea. But the outside world for a way of breaking into Mizuki’s life as it did for so many others. Mizuki’s Nonnonba (published in Japan in 1992, and translated into english in 2012) recounts his childhood far removed from the city life and how tales of yokai (assorted Japanese spirits, demons, and creatures) were passed down to him. This would lay the foundation for his most famous work, Gegege no Kitaro (more on that later). Stories of Betobeto-san, who would leisurely pursue travelers on lonely roads, Nurikabe the invisible wall, and the long tongued Akaname whose claws would click-clack against floorboards. ![]() Growing up in the coastal countryside of Sakaiminato, many of Mizuki’s stories draw from legends and folklore passed down through generations. Shigeru Mizuki (1922 - 2015) was one of the great storytellers of manga, who even made Osamu Tezuka bristle with jealousy. ![]() Shigeru Mizuki made a career in comics by being the steward of such stories. Perhaps you have a similar story from your own family that you can brush off as an exaggeration, but makes you ponder “what if?” in the dead of the night. A man who turned into a beast and “tumbled through the streets” (her words), until he returned to his family home by knocking on his front door in a certain way to ensure the people inside he was no longer a creature. One of the legends my great-grandmother took with her from Italy to America was that of a werewolf who lived in her village. ![]()
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