In a way, I don’t like how (Blood banker) Mizuki was slightly dumbed down into the audience’s sympathetic character. I think some of this is show don’t tell but it often leaves some silly impressions, which is understandable given how Hakaba is marketed as a horror icon sometimes. It’s kind of a given that the audience would relate to Mizuki since the first episode began from his perspective, but that doesn’t mean he’s this innocent guy with unfortunate luck like he hammers to Trump Omoi and others (and by extension the audience). Yeah, I don’t buy it.
It’s just seeping with this ego, ego, ego. Like, “Nooo, nothing that’s going wrong in my life could possibly be MY fault. It’s all that monster son of mine,” Yeah, that doesn’t exactly sound anything short of gas lighting. I get that Kitaro is half demon, but demons are frequent symbolism for marginalized societies within this narrative.
I mean, care to recall that he strangled an infant baby and threw him away, abandoning him in a goddamn storm to cry his little heart out? Yeah, Kitaro wasn’t human, but that sort of violence was something else. That’s giving him the benefit of the doubt without addressing the fact he was plotting to kill Kitaro. When you see li’l baby Kitaro crawl out of the grave, it’s uncanny I get it, but…he’s a baby. What’s so horrifying about that? All he was trying to do was greet Mizuki in his own advanced baby way, funnily (and tragically) enough.
Not to mention how after he was abandoned and his father revived, he stopped crying for himself and wiped his weeping old man’s tears. You tell me Hakaba was pure evil when after he crawled his way back to Mizuki (ironically enough… being chased by helpless baby. The horror) he CONTINUED to be affectionate towards the same man that caused his eye trauma.
Granted…I doubt he really knew the difference and would just crawl up and lick anyone he could find. Still, it’s very telling when a sweet tempered baby boy becomes a cold, sadistic punk within six or so years. If Mizuki and his wife (in the anime it’s his mother) didn’t demonize and avoid Kitaro (besides giving him what he wants because of perceived threats/superstition) he probably wouldn’t have stopped being affectionate and kind. This idea is reflected and explored in the Gegege line of anime, respectively. Giving a child what he thinks he wants doesn’t substitute love. Mizuki never worried about Kitaro genuinely, he worried about what Kitaro would do. Otherwise he didn’t give a damn.
Mizuki (again, the blood banker, not the mangaka version of the self-insert) only pitied, trapped, and projected his guilt on Kitaro while deep down he didn’t want him. Kitaro is a bird brain but it doesn’t take a genius to notice how backward almost everyone is about him, justifiable or not. Even Neko was, but that’s for another post. It’s just prejudice, day in and day out. Not to mention that Medama has many faults in this incarnation; discourages showing emotion, bossy, doless unless there’s something risking Kitaro’s safety, insults his son’s appearance, refuses others to talk out problems with Kitaro so that he may blow off steam by himself (WITHOUT adult supervision I might add) where he could get into trouble or hurt, and so on.
Kitaro isn’t edgy about it or anything, he just embraces people’s expectations because negative attention is better than no attention when you’ve been neglected your whole short life. I’m not saying Kitaro is innocent in the slightest; he became very malicious and mischievous, but what makes him likable is that despite his evil-doings, he doesn’t do it with the intent to ALWAYS cause harm.
Remember the overall moral; Hell is what you make of it. It’s up to the person whether they express joy or suffering during their life or afterlife. Ultimately, in his own twisted way, Kitaro is simply welcoming the people that entertain him into his world because he was rejected by his peers and lonely.
While Kitaro sent his father to Hell in various versions for little reason, in Hakaba, I want to point out how confused Kitaro was when Mizuki took his ticket. Mizuki stumbled into Hell all by himself. Then he VEHEMENTLY blamed Kitaro, but in all honesty, this goof up should have been Medama’s responsibility because he knew much more about what a human would do when tempted with curiosity. Kitaro didn’t expect that Mizuki would take his ticket to Hell at all. He was shocked, even. I mean, he even coldly attempted to intimidate him and warn him not to take it but to “Give it back,” during their prior argument.
Hakaba is…well, he’s not that bright, so when things don’t go his way he’s extremely surprised and confused. This wasn’t a premeditated event, and he did not manipulate Mizuki into rushing off with it in the least. As seen in this scene and the next:
How he decided to deal with that shock was evidently the turning point to his actions from then on, because he certainly did use his supernatural powers to drive his adoptive grandmother insane (although I already think she showed signs of being a nutcase without Hakaba’s Dream Omen under effect, makes you wonder if he really did anything supernatural at all).
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume that Medama consulted and taught Kitaro to use his supernatural powers, especially because he seemed to take initiative in interacting and showing himself to the grandmother character. It might have even been his idea in the first place to mess with her head, because she would definitely want to avenge Mizuki.
I don’t think Kitaro is wise enough to predict human behavior alone, so in the cases of this grandmother/wife character, I suspect that Medama was a big influence. In the beginning, Kitaro idolizes his father, takes him up as his main subject when it comes to sketches and doodles, and so on.
Medama is hardly the doting father with good intentions that we’re used to, and I plan to analyze him sometime too because he’s just as interesting and mysterious as Kitaro himself. In closing, Kitaro is a child who has been through Hell and wants to share the joys of what he deems to be what life really is. He’s still a yeti’s asshole though.
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