Gegege no Kitaro 1: Town where the ghosts live (妖怪の棲む街)

This is surprisingly quite good. Gegege no kitaro is based on a manga, whose first edition goes back to 1959!




The episode itself starts with several primary schoolkids talking about one of their missing friend, which is rumored to be taken away by a ghost (youkai).

Apparently, these kids did something nasty to a statue the other day, and now one of them are worried a ghost might have taken the missing kid. Not long after the conversation, one of the kids who went to the toilet is gone too, which makes the bespectacled kid convinced a ghost is behind this.



Meanwhile, Kitaro is busy bathing with his father, who is actually an eyeball! They are interrupted by the Catgirl (Neko Musume), who reports there is a ghost in the human city.

The bespectacled boy, who is currently on his way home from school, is being attacked by the ghost from the sewer. Kitaro managed to help the kid, who is freaked out to see Catgirl and the Eyeball father.


To make the long story short, Kitaro uses the boy as a bait to lure the ghost out. After a short and interesting teamwork battle, it looks like Kitaro is going to win this battle easily. They have covered all water, so that the ghost can't escape. However, a heavy rain falls and saved the ghost. The ghost, now bigger than ever, is making a comeback. Thankfully, Kitaro, with the help of the scatter-sand grandma's dragon powder managed to finally subdue the ghost and return it to a sleeping state.


Impression:
Already being subjected to many anime adaptations and movies already, this latest series is graphically quite good. Having never seen any of the older series, and never even heard of the series until recently, I can feel the charm of this first episode, which offers an explanation on why this is a classic.

Simple, yet charming and interesting, would be my description of Gegege no Kitaro. It looks like the story is episodic as well, which means anyone can watch the episode without needing to worry about not understanding the plot.