In Germany, the underlying mangas of Shigeru Mizuki have only been released between 2021 and 2023, but in Japan, every child has known the pop culture myth, which has existed for more than six decades: “Government No Kitaro” tells of the humorous adventures of the one-eyed Yōkai boy Kitaro, son of a displaced mummy and a person who tries between the world To convey Yōkais and the world to people. The manga has become a large multimedia franchise over the years and “The Birth of Kitaro-The Secret of Geg” by Go Koga (“Digimon Universe: App Monsters”) is now the cinema prequel to the already seventh (!) Series adaptation, which was broadcast for the first time in Japan between 2018 and 2020.
However, anyone who expects a similar tone here as with the previous adaptations or even the underlying manga will not be a badly amazed: “Gegüte No Kitaro” has always been with a leg in horror and, thanks to the gently morbid atmosphere and the design based on American creepy, was also not uninteresting for young people and adults, but was always primarily an eye on children as a target audience. “The Birth of Kitaro-The Secret of Agge” surprisingly changes the route and presents itself as a predominantly dark, surprisingly bloodthirsty mix of Mystery crime thriller and Dark Fantasy action, which is enthusiastic about it, but is a little bumpy to overloading.
The whole world of “Gegege No Kitaro” is populated with strange beings, even the cigarette smoke turns out to be a Yokai!
In 1956, the war veteran Mizuki travels to a remote village to the influential Ryuga family as an employee of the Imperial Blood Bank. His head of the family, head of a large pharmaceutical company, has recently passed away – and Mizuki is now to secure information about a secret serum. When he arrived at his goal, he will be witness to family -internal arguments: the will failed differently than many family members expected.
However, it does not remain with verbal impact, instead there is a first, cruel murder. At the same time, it is made up of his way to the village because he is looking for his disappeared wife. There he soon became friends with Mizuki and will come together with him the dark secrets of the Ryugas …
Blatant sound change
The manga series, which started in 1959, was published between 1965 and 1970 in one of the most successful manga magazines of Japan. The extremely broad readership of up to 1.5 million copies loved Mizuki's creation-and success not only led to the enormous popularization of the so-called Yōkais, i.e. the essence and ghosts of Japanese popular belief, which also play a major role in other works, but also for seven anime series, twelve anime film films, two real adaptations and 15 video games.
“The Birth of Kitaro-The Secret of Agrees” is now based on a history of the manga series that was first published in 1966, but only very loose and, as already mentioned, completely loosely. The changed gait also seems strange because an attached prologue, which plays in today's time, is trying to create a connection to the very well -consuming series from 2018. After a change to 1956, if you get started, you will quickly move into a powerful, very atmospheric village world that is populated by all kinds of strange figures.
Compared to the previous anime adaptations, the new movie is surprisingly bloodthood.
But the initial mystery thriller reveals script with increasing duration: there are far too many figures and entanglements, which causes the action to occur on the spot. But what ultimately saves the film is the fact that after about half the bloodiest action-like tilts the whole-especially the fight against a horde of ninj-like fighter at the top of a multi-storey tower impresses with a stylish, kinetic staging.
In the last 20 minutes, the reins are completely dropped and “The Birth of Kitaro – The Secret of the Response” becomes an enormously varied, hellish madness (among other things, a demonic cherry blossom tree plays a larger role). This looks like a crazy apology for the script that had previously been so Maue.
Conclusion: With “The Birth of Kitaro-The Secret of Read”, the Japanese cult finally reaches the German cinema screens-and thanks to the great, visual staging, anime-interested people should not miss the film, especially on the big screen. It is questionable whether the film, which struggles especially in the first half with script weaknesses, which goes back to the beginning of the franchise, is only questionable.