10/17/2023

sooo i've decided to start up this little journal to document my descent into madness as the movie comes closer and closer to coming out. i was inspired mainly because the fucking based merch design team dropped THESE today.

not only is this blatantly appealing to fujos, but it confirms that mizuki has a hugeass burn scar?? which is so devastatingly sexy that i don't know what to do with myself. i really do think he's a war vet that got suuuuuper fucked up. my friend suggested that he might've gotten caught up in an explosion, which i totally agree with. i want him to have ptsd so fucking bad. i'm just imagining it now: mizuki who has nightmares and flinches whenever something's too sudden or loud. i think it'd be so cute if that was the reason he's so frightened by ghosts and stuff. i also need the hurt + comfort of a stranger (soon to be lover) coaxing him to be vulnerable. i think papa would be sad to hear that humans are so cruel to not only ghosts, but each other, too. i need him to hold mizuki while he's having tremors and also gently running his fingers along his scars. i wonder if mizuki thinks he looks ugly because of them. mizuki who's resigned himself to being a bachelor (not only because he's gay, but he's undesirable even to women) but luckily there's a huge yokai who wants to fuck him frontwards, backwards, sideways--

i think it'd be cute, too, if kitaro was curious about them. little baby kitaro touching them, and mizuki doesn't mind at all. mizuki would probably tell kitaro the truth once he was older, and i think the fact that someone so kind and loving like mizuki could get hurt that way would really throw him into "must protect mother and other humans" mode. going into kitamizu/getamizu mode, i think kitaro/getakichi wouldn't tolerate even the thought of mizuki getting hurt again. i think if there was even a chance of mizuki getting into any danger, geta would lock him up and never let him out of the house. love wins(?).

10/20/2023

ok well. i was not expecting to add to this so soon. but papa's name got revealed in a fucking mcdonald's happy meal collab so??? what the fuck. i have to edit my fic and my shrine now which i didn't anticipate to be doing SO early. this movie drops crumbs that i cannot ignore!! god this movie is going to fucking kill me. it's crazy that any info i hear about this movie is parsed from japanese fujoshis on twitter because there is literally almost 0 western audience and therefore 0 western advertisement. i live in a hell of my own making. SIGH it wouldn't be the first time i've been in a fandom of literally 5 people i should be used to this.

so anyway it's gegero (ゲゲ郎) which is absolutely adorable? gegero-kun... it's so fucking silly but it fits him really well. kitaro lives on in his name by calling himself "gegege no kitaro"... wow i love them so much. to make this yaoi-coded i really hope mizuki comments on how weird of a name he has. in contrast "mizuki" is such like... a plain name? i wonder if we'll get mizuki's first name soon... in my head i've already hced it as "jun". jun mizuki! i think it has a cute ring to it. i also think it's interesting that getakichi's name starts with the same sound... are you indirectly trying to be your dad kitaro?? so mizuki will love you romantically?? it won't work but i admire your efforts.

gegemizu is a cute ship name too so i can't be mad. i've been calling this man "papa" for over a month already so it's going to be weird to refer to him by his actual name from now on. i am certain i will slip up please forgive me!!

10/24/2023

so a few things have happened within the past few days... first off, i finished a fanfic! it's really self-indulgent and sometimes i'm a little embarrassed to have posted it but i have to realize there is nothing freer than being cringe. most western fans and i are completely incompatible so if they think it's weird then good. i don't care. that's the idea. they aren't ready for the rape fic i'm going to post (hopefully soon).

i also watched more of kitaro 2018. for mizuki mentions, obviously. and like. good fucking god. kitaro loves mizuki so much it's actually fucking insane. spoilers for season 6, if it matters, but uh. mizuki is totally dead. i was trying to live in denial up to now, but i'm almost certain that he's dead, and that kitaro is in a permanent state of mourning him. the way kitaro, like... is incapable of mentioning mizuki by name and just vaguely references to him is so blatantly his way of coping. kitaro, then, canonically age regresses and is only broken free of his eternal torment by being gifted memories of his time with mana... and mizuki. are you fucking insane. i'm fucking insane. i truly am delusional enough to believe that kitaro's love for mizuki transcends human understanding. he loved mizuki in every way possible and lost him. can you imagine the only thing connecting you to humanity dying? how do you even go on from that? i feel so bad for him. don't worry kitaro... i'll throw you a bone and gift you male mother hole... in the form of a reincarnated mizuki who is in middle school. get to grooming!! god i. it'd be so bad because kitaro knows that what he's doing is wrong, but he can't let this chance slip away. he'll protect him this time. what could possibly go wrong.

kitamizu/getamizu is way easier to parse because i know what kitaro is like. i promise once i get a grasp on gegero's actual personality, he'll get more love. i just need to know what kind of seme he is. he's way too much of a wildcard and i'm scared of being way too off. my hopes is that he's very strange and offputting. maybe lazy? or is he genki? i literally don't fucking know!!! honestly all flavors are so good it's impossible for me to be unsatisfied. they could just breathe in the same room and i wouldn't know how to act. let's pray for me when this movie does actually come out...

10/30/2023

so to tide me over until the movie starts, me and my friend (who i finally met in person yay!) watched the mommy issues arc-- uh i mean... jigoku hen from the 80s series, and like... good lord. there's a lot to unpack here. so basically kitaro and friends get sent to hell or whatever who fucking cares. the real meat is that kitaro is constantly thinking about his mother who get sent to hell for boning his dad. there's a part where kitaro tries to remember her but her face is pitch black and like. i think that's sooo crazy if you apply that concept to mizuki (i'm going to be applying everything from here to mizuki btw LOL) if he actually is dead and kitaro forgot what he looked like. in the 2018 series, it probably would have been around 50 years since kitaro either left mizuki or mizuki died, so i really am of the belief that kitaro's memories faded away over time until there's not much of mizuki actually left to remember.

i need to get this out of the way. kitaro's mother looks incredibly similar to mizuki like i'm not even being super dramatic here. EVIDENCE BELOW!!

toco-san (the character designer)'s favorite series is the 80s one so i can't be that crazy to assume that there are some design elements that transferred over. mizuki is sooo mother-coded it's crazy. the eyebags... the soft face... his love for kitaro... they're basically the same character but modernized! male mothers are so real in 2023.

another thing that's so crazy is that kitaro meets his mother again in "womb road" (胎内道) which is like. i don't even know what to say about that. it's giving me the power to channel my shota mizuki reincarnation au SO hard though. there's a lot of birth imagery surrounding kitaro that i really like. not only with his unnatural delivery, but also from the love of his parents. gegero gave up his body to be there for his son, and in a lot of ways, so did mizuki. mizuki's future is completely dictated by kitaro. his life is forever altered because he chose to take care of an ugly yokai baby. it really has the vibes of sudden teen pregnancy. the confusion, the lack of autonomy and guidance... mizuki is a child bride and a child mother to me. yes he's probably 30+ but i know what the fuck i'm talking about!! it's about the essence!! the core!! the symbolism!! mizuki is navigating a life that he has no control or understanding of! and yet he strives to do better because of love...

11/12/2023

the movie officially comes out in four days. within the past two weeks, a lot has happened. it's almost overwhelming. thank you my dear friend for translating all these things for me. i truly don't think i'm prepared to see them walking and talking... but in any case... update wise...

1. in a magazine article, it was revealed they don't get along at first. GOD! who doesn't love a good dislike to friends to lovers to PARENTS. there's no heterosexual explanation for that. not a single one. one of my other long-lasting otps is barnaby/kotetsu, i really, really like couples that bicker like a married couple. it brings me so much joy.

2. another one of shigeru mizuki's works got adapted and released on netflix recently, and... what the fuck... mizuki is in it? what? what? and he's a cute old man? this is literally the last thing i ever expected when akuma-kun came out. clip below! [thank you to my friend lee for screensharing for me!]

i literally can't believe this is real. mizuki really sees this pitiful white-haired autistic emo boy and thinks of his own son... wait, sorry. "best friend's" son. what a fucking crazy thing to say to a stranger. it's really cute... i can't believe he owns a spanish pancake shop. it's literally the last thing i would think of. but somehow it's really fitting. i wonder if pancakes are his favorite food! i can imagine him cooking some for his family. (coughs up blood). the implications of him existing in the akuma-kun (and therefore kitaro also existing) are strange, but i like to think that the life he lives here is a little more domestic. i wonder how old kitaro is. is mizu-chan suffering from empty nest syndrome? ahh....

3. mizuki is canonically a war veteran which makes one of my spectulation headcanons true!! yatta!! i'm so excited for his trauma to be exploited. is that why you're so scared of ghosts? do the bodies of your friends haunt you? i can't wait to see!

4. not only is gegero, according to the article, pure-hearted and more human-like than the other human characters in the movie... i shit you not. word for word the article says "gegero teaches mizuki the meaning of love". do you want me to fucking die just wondering. these words rotate in my head like they're scripture. the meaning of love. yokai to human love. yokai ON human love. i wonder what kind of person mizuki is... i'm getting the idea that he's kind of bitter. life has screwed him over so many times and he's just trying to get by at his job. that foiled with gegero who abandoned everything to go find his wife is like. wow. the yaoi of it all. mizuki's ptsd is about to be cured with the ugliest baby in the world and i cannot wait for it.

11/16/2023

dawn of the final day... as i type this, people are about to see the movie for the first time in theaters! it's crazy. it makes me so happy seeing everyone so excited for it. people are meeting up with other fans, and some are dressing up. it's so cute. i wish i could join them, but i know i'll have my time to see it, eventually! i really keep joking with myself about how i've been obsessed with a movie that hasn't come out yet, but i have to say that it's made me really happy so far. i haven't had this much rampant fun in a fandom in a long time. i hope it continues! i already love these characters so much... kitaro as a franchise has also been so enjoyable on its own. i'm very happy that i learned about this. i want to watch kitaro grow forever! i don't mean to get too sappy, so i'll go into other things that have been revealed so far.

they released one last trailer and it completely blew me away. it looks so stunning. yaoi aside, there's an obvious amount of love put into this project. the early reviews have said nothing but good things, too! though literally all of them have been like. "i cried." i fear for my poor fragile heart for what happens in this movie...

i don't blame them for waiting so long to release this. i think i would have exploded seeing this at any point before. it's only until now that i've really considered kuudere gegero. like father like son... bloody mizuki is making me so hard that i'm nauseous. i'm so glad they keep putting these guys in situations. i promise i will make it worse. i don't speak japanese, so i don't know a lot of what they say, but "promise me you’ll come back alive" / "“i’ll live see the world my child will be born with my own eyes” is fucking CRAZY romantic by the way.

there's also new merch which looks so silly. they made plushies of mizuki, gegero, kitaro, and medama oyaji, and they all glow in the dark! and... mizuki's ear glows, for some reason. i'm trying not to think about it too hard.