Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe Movie Review: Scotland Loves Anime 2024
While on AniTAY, I’ve been gradually reviewing my way through 2024’s selection of generally excellent Scotland Loves Anime movies from the Glasgow leg of the festival now in its fifteeenth year, a couple of my reviews are instead bound for publication on Anime News Network. The first of which, a review of the recent prequel to supernatural manga/anime GeGeGe no Kitaro, is now live.
While I was vaguely familiar with mangaka Shigeru Mizuki’s Kitaro manga and its most recent 2018 anime adaptation, the movie was my first real experience of the franchise. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it as much as I’d hoped to — though it piqued my interest in its progenitors. Thankfully, good old Waterstones on Sauchiehall Street had a few manga volumes for sale, and Crunchyroll streams the TV series. I properly educated myself on the base material before writing the review! You can check it out at the link below.
Birth of Kitaro: The Mystery of GeGeGe
Director: Go Koga
Screenplay: Hiroyuki Yoshino
Character design: Toko Yatabe
Based on: GeGeGe no Kitaro (manga) by Shigeru Mizuki
Music: Kenji Kawai
Studio: Toei Animation Co., Ltd
JP distributor: Toei Company, Ltd.
JP theatrical release: 17th November, 2023
UK theatrical premiere: 1st November, 2024
Runtime: 104 minutes
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
BBFC rating: 15
Kevin Cormack is a Scottish medical doctor, husband, father, and lifelong anime obsessive. He writes as Doctorkev at https://medium.com/anitay-official and appears regularly on The Official AniTAY podcast. You can also find him on Twitter @Herrdoktorkev. His accent is real.
