Manga Review: Kitaro the Vampire Slayer by Shigeru Mizuki
It’s time for another volume of stories about the yokai boy named Kitaro! As you might guess, there are vampires this time.
“The Vampire Eryt” is a long tale involving a mop-topped bloodsucker with a guitar, visually inspired by the Beatles. Even though his playing can force people to dance, Eryt has not taken the path of the rock god. Instead, he holes up in an isolated house surrounded by skulls and mostly has servant bats steal small amounts of blood to have a steady supply.
Eryt has returned to Japan after twenty years away chasing beauties in France, and now has a list of Japanese celebrities he wants to suck dry. At the top of the list is the Defense Minister, as Eryt has never before drunk the blood of a government minister.
Somehow, the Japanese government has gotten notice of this threat to the minister, but are helpless in the face of monsters. Therefore, they turn to the one known monster fighter available, Kitaro. This is an early story, so Kitaro is much less openly heroic than he would be by the time the TV series rolled around. At this point, Kitaro’s homeless and poverty-stricken, smokes cigarettes, and has a rather low opinion of humans. He agrees to help anyway.
Kitaro also isn’t getting along with Nezumi-Otoko, who is also on the skids, and they haven’t hung out in ages. So when Eryt advertises for a well-paid secretary, the rat-man is more than willing to take the job. (Nezumi-Otoko kept the trait of working with the villain of the week, even in stories where it makes much less sense.)
The initial battle between Kitaro and Eryt goes badly, with Kitaro being reduced to a skull and puddle of goo for most of the story. Medama-Oyaji has to carry much of the chapter, but the true turning point is when Eryt falls out with Nezumi-Otoko and learns what the rat-man’s true power is: farts.
“The Phantom Steam Engine”: In this one, the menace is a vampiric creature named Pii, who looks kind of like a fish standing on its head. It can convert humans and yokai to vampires by bite, or tricking them into wearing its hat. Pii is accompanied by Marilyn, a vampire who looks like Marilyn Monroe (and is drawn in a completely different art style to most of the characters). It’s not clear if she’s the real Marilyn vampirized, or if a vampire used her blood to shapeshift.
Pii’s afraid of bells, but is cunning and puts its hat on Nezumi-Otoko to have a willing servant. Soon, they’ve taken over a small village. Kitaro struggles magnificently, but soon it looks like everyone will become vampires–until the steam engine finally arrives!
“Ubume” has Nezumi-Otoko revive the title monster, a giant bird, to use as an aerial steed. Naturally, the first thing it does is enslave him. Ubume’s main schtick is kidnapping human infants to raise as its own; as a hobby it also enjoys inducing incontinence in older children by cursing their futons. The minor moral of the story is not getting stuck up about having good grades.
“Ushiro Gami” features a yokai of abandoned houses. But there’s no abandoned houses in this neighborhood. So the Ushiro Gami teams up with a monster cactus that absorbs humans into itself. Once everyone is absorbed, the house is abandoned, and Ushiro Gami can move right in! Kitaro puts a stop to this. (Surprisingly, Nezumi-Otoko is not involved at all.)
The introductory section covers Mizuki’s rising popularity in 1965, leading up to his first anime adaptation. And of course, there’s a helpful listing of the yokai seen in this volume at the back.
Eryt’s considered one of the classic stories of the manga and the other ones are interesting too. Eryt may be a bit strong for children coming to it directly from the latest anime. Recommended for Kitaro fans!
Here’s the opening of Hakaba no Kitaro, an adaptation that was a bit closer to the earlier manga stories.
