GeGeGe no Kitaro

[Drunk Monk]

I'm not sure how this franchise has escaped my attention for so long. It's total Yokai. It was a manga, then a long-running anime, then they made 2 live action movies, and videogames too.

I watched the first live action - titled Kitaro (2007) for short. It was awesome. It was for kids so cutesy but the Yokai were spot on. Fox demons, umbrella demons, long-necked women, ratman, an eyeball for father, and cat girl! So fun. The Yokai night court reminded me of the Fiona Fullerton Alice in Wonderland court scene but with some CGI on top of the masks and puppets. And there's a bollywood dance scene ending. It's like a Yokai rave. Man, I want to go to a Yokai rave. 
No sword fights but demon magic. Not DOOM recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Kitaro and the Millennium Curse (2008) reunites the live action cast from the first film and continues with the Yokai action. I decided what I love about the Yokai world is that it's like the Star Wars Cantina on steriods. Or better put, the Cantina is like a postcard of the Yokai world in space.

The 2nd film has more magical fights. The gang has to reassemble a quintet of magic instruments to banish a mermaid ghost that just broke free from a millennium of Yokai jail. There's an evil Yaksha with a sword-blade violin bow. The Ratman unleashes brutal fart attacks. There's a deer Yokai that flings feces like shotgun blasts while yelling 'Feces!' There's a old witch duel between a sand witch (I know, pun city, right? Nope, that doesn't even work in Japanese) and a snake witch where one witch reaches down the shirt of the other witch and grabs her sagging tit. There's a wall Yokai, which is basically a wall with hands and feet that literally plasters over opponents. 

Kitaro is a demon baby with one eye so he lets his purple bang cover half his face. His dad is like a mini nekkid Resident, an eyeball on a body, who sometimes stays in Kitaro's eye socket. Kitaro has magic sandals that fly like missiles, a b&w fuzzy vest that can protect him, be thrown in attacks and shoots lightning, and he can shoot his hair like needles until he goes bald. 

There's no sword fights but there is some sword brandishing. But there's a violin-sword bow vs. magic vest wrapped magic cane which is a very satisfactory replacement. DOOM recommended. 

Here's a taste:


I'm trying to find the anime but Crunchyroll has it locked up tight.

[Greg]

Dear DM, this page is for reviews of actual movies not descriptions of your fever dreams when you are blasted out of your mind.

[cranefly]

DM, have you heard of Monster Seafood Wars (2020)?  It's playing at the Fantasia Festival 2020.  I can't find a trailer or I'd post it under trailers.  But it's another crazy yokai film.

It did get a brief review by yourmoviesucks on youtube, mostly positive.  Anyway, you might keep an eye peeled for it.

If you're interested (starting at 1:08):

[Drunk Monk]

Dear DM, this page is for reviews of actual movies not descriptions of your fever dreams when you are blasted out of your mind.

I wish. If only I could dream up stuff like the Yokai world, I could be the next J.K. Rowling. DM hasn't been blasted out of his mind since NYE.

Here's what my dreams really look like now: http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...4#pid42244

---

DM, have you heard of Monster Seafood Wars (2020)?  It's playing at the Fantasia Festival 2020.  I can't find a trailer or I'd post it under trailers.  But it's another crazy yokai film.

Technically speaking, this is a Kaiju film. Yokai is the granddaddy of Kaiju. Kaiju is giant monsters like Godzilla and Ghidorah. Yokai does have some giant monsters (Millennium Curse goes there) but it's more about fantastic creatures from traditional folk tales. Most of these are more on the human scale. Kaiji is like King Kong and Attack of the 50ft Woman. Yokai is more like elves, fairies and gnomes, but they are umbrella and lantern demons, or women with really long necks.

---

DM, have you heard of Monster Seafood Wars (2020)?  It's playing at the Fantasia Festival 2020.  I can't find a trailer or I'd post it under trailers.  But it's another crazy yokai film.

Technically speaking, this is a Kaiju film. Yokai is the granddaddy of Kaiju. Kaiju is giant monsters like Godzilla and Ghidorah. Yokai does have some giant monsters (Millennium Curse goes there) but it's more about fantastic creatures from traditional folk tales. Most of these are more on the human scale. Kaiji is like King Kong and Attack of the 50ft Woman. Yokai is more like elves, fairies and gnomes, but they are umbrella and lantern demons, or women with really long necks.

[Greg]

The double quote? Tell me again about NYE....

[cranefly]

Ahhh, kaiju vs. yokai.  Yeah, I got it wrong.  Thanks for the education.

And thanks for the duplicate response.  At first I thought it was in error, until I turned my monitor on its side and read each with a separate eye, and it jumped out at me in 3D.  Nicely done.

[Greg]

CF, you are an enabler.

[Drunk Monk]

The double quote? Tell me again about NYE....

sorry. not sure why that happened. my trackpad can be touchy sometimes. 

NYE = New Year's Eve. Didn't really do much. Went downtown with a friend to see the scene. He was trippin. Dm was just stoned.

[Greg]

The fact of the double quote was more an implication that you might have misremembered the last time you were brain blasted. I didn't need NYE explained to me.

[Drunk Monk]

Nah, it's my ghetto web access off my tiny laptop. 

It's been interesting being clean for so long. I'm not sure I've gone this long before. I'd usually take breaks before China trips for a few months but it's been 10 months now. All I've had were nitecaps and no more than two shots max - usually just one - and maybe every other night or so.

[Greg]

Let's not talk about Ghetto Web access. The Queen is about to get her third different service to access the inter webs. Yes, we will access the web in three different ways at the Lair.

[Drunk Monk]

We have similar problems. My hood is old - one of the first in the Cruz - so the wiring is obsolete. I can walk to Cruzio - a local provider - but they can't hit our house with their current system. We don't have many choices here.

[Drunk Monk]

I found an anime film on YouTube by searching the Japanese characters. This had Japanese subs and a function to auto translate to all sorts of languages but that never works well. The auto English was nearly incomprehensible. 

And the plot was hard to follow too. It kept replaying this scene of this girl - Hana - leaving the Yokai world and trying to return to her mom but her mom forgot her and she’s been replaced by some changeling. It’s a long sequence - like 5-10 mins - and this was interlaced with cat girl running faster than trains searching for something and taking random jobs selling stuff. 

I was thinking this was some mash up cut, made to look like an almost two hour flick but then things started to fal into place. There’s this mirror dimension where a cgi Demon ala Terminator 2 traps the girl and Kitarō and his dad (the nekkid resident eyeball). The girl was like a horcrux for a major demon of lovecraftian Kaiju proportions who erupts all over japan. The yokai and human world mix - mass hysteria. 

I wish I could’ve followed it better. It was awesome though. 

This must've been recent because there’s a 50th anniversary celebration in the middle where Kitarō and cat girl meet all their incarnations from previous series including their first B&W drawing from ‘68 (the 50th was the 7th series in 2018). 

It was cool to see the anime after the live action version. The live action seemed to capture the spirit of the anime and the characters surprisingly well.

No sword fights but Kitarō can take a magic hair and make into a solid like sword. Not DOOM recommended. No way y’all could follow this.

[Drunk Monk]

I just remembered that Millennium Curse poached the Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth. 

At least, I think that's where I saw it. I hope I didn't dream it. 

Because the Pale Man is creepy.