[ID: image of a young boy with a disheveled hair, one bulging eye and one eye partially shut. his hands are claw like and he's wearing tattered clothing. he's in a cemetary in front of an officer with a sword. the image is in black and white END ID]
Today's Public Domain Character: Hakaba Kitaro
Kitaro originates from 1930s kamishibai, which were so called paper theaters where traveling storytellers would mix oral storytelling with illustrations.
Kitaro was born in a cemetary after his parents died and is an adaptation of earlier yokai folklore Kosodate Yūrei or the candy-buying ghost about a woman who appears and buys candy, turns out to be dead and when the shopkeeper digs up her grave she has a live baby in her arms.
This folklore is similar and most certainly inspired by the Chinese story of "the woman who buys rice cakes" which first appeared in print in 1198 in Yijian Zhi, a compilation of Chinese stories put together by Hong Mai of the Southern Song dynasty.
These days Kitaro is known primarily because of the manga and anime GeGeGe no Kitarō and also its crossover with Yokai Watch where he appears as a character in some games and other media.
I've tried to find a thing that pinpoints that Kitaro is public domain. From what I can gather kamishibai stories were not registered for copyright at the time due to that just not being really a priority given the time, culture of the time and the medium and therefore does not fall under the retroactive copyright of the Uruguay Round Agreement Act of 1996 (which is the act that put the movie Metropolis back into copyright until 2023)
The manga and anime appearance of Kitaro is still under copyright as is any appearance of him that isnt the kamishibai one.
