note:

CV: Tōru Ōkawa (Hakaba), Katsunosuke Hori (Manga Video), Hidenobu Kiuchi (Birth of Kitarō)

Overview of the Entire Series

A character in the Kitarō series, who is Kitarō's foster parent. Appears in prequels like "Hakaba Kitarō" and in "GeGeGe no Kitarō" when the "Birth of Kitarō" episode is rebooted. Each work depicts an independent timeline, so there are differences in detailed settings. Often referred to as Mizuki Youth to distinguish from the original author. The original creator Shigeru Mizuki appears as a separate character in the works, emphasizing that Youth Mizuki ≠ Shigeru Mizuki.

In all appearances, the character lives with his mother on the outskirts of Tokyo around the 1950s and works at a blood bank. This basic setting is consistent throughout.

Details in Each Series

Mizuki in the Original Work

"Hakaba Kitarō"

The foundational episode for the "Birth of Kitarō" depicted in various series.

Although he has a careless side, like being frequently late to work, he is generous, being lenient with himself and others. However, this leniency leads him to an unimaginable fate.

One day, Mizuki is summoned by the company president and informed that 'ghost blood' has contaminated their product. He is tasked to investigate this. People who received this blood transfusion behave normally and are conscious, but medically, they are 'dead' with no heartbeat or body temperature. Mizuki discovers that the donor's address matches his own and suspects a mysterious couple who recently moved into a neighboring old temple.

Visiting the temple at night, Mizuki learns their circumstances. They claim to be from the Ghost Tribe and explain that the blood was the wife's, donated to fund treatment for her sick husband. Mizuki is told about the tragedy of the Ghost Tribe by the husband and implored by the wife to wait until their child is born. Feeling sympathy yet fear, Mizuki agrees to keep their secret from the company until the child is born in eight months.

At the end of the agreed period, he finds the couple dead. Feeling pity, he buries the wife but leaves the husband's remains. Three days later, he hears a baby's cry from the grave and discovers an eerie infant (Kitarō) crawling out. Terrified, Mizuki initially abandons Kitarō but returns after Kitarō, guided by his father turned into Medama-Oyaji, crawls to Mizuki's home. Developing a bond with Kitarō, Mizuki decides to raise him.

Mizuki struggles to care for increasingly odd Kitarō and eventually tells him to leave if he cannot live like a normal child. During this time, Mizuki discovers a 'one-way ticket to hell' hidden by Kitarō and ends up dragged alive to hell while following Medama-Oyaji to the graveyard.

(In the Garo version "Kitarō Night Tales," Mizuki's descent to hell differs; after evicting the Kitarō family, he is sent to hell by Medama-Oyaji while pursuing them with the police.)

Later, after bringing the blood bank president to hell, Mizuki is reunited with the Kitarō family and returned to the living world, thanks to his kindness in raising Kitarō. However, he becomes a living corpse with no body temperature or pulse and emits a deathly odor.

After returning from hell, he lives with the Kitarō family on the second floor of the shamisen shop 'Nekoya' for safety reasons. From this point, Mizuki becomes a complete supporting character.

His active role essentially ends here, with his last appearance struggling with rent doubling due to inflation in a story involving the Water God.

The Sato Production version "Funny Guy" begins with Mizuki recalling Kitarō's birth, and Kitarō's adventures are narrated by him. However, he disappears from the work after this, and his whereabouts remain unknown even after the magazine serialization becomes "GeGeGe no Kitarō."

Spin-off: Mizuki Youth in the Takeuchi Version

In the Takeuchi Version of Hakaba Kitarō, Mizuki Youth's post-hell life takes a different turn due to the trouble between Shigeru Mizuki and Usagi Shobō.

Upon discovering he's suspected of murdering the blood bank president in the living world, he changes his name to 'Narumi Shichirō' and becomes a private detective. Teaming up with the Kitarō family, he tackles various strange cases. His personality becomes more aggressive, with stern thick eyebrows and fierce eyes, even his speech becomes more intense. I'm on a rampage!

...He may seem cool, but his presence fades out in the middle of the story. Truly a pitiful character.

Mizuki in the TV Anime

Anime Version of "Hakaba Kitarō"

True to the original work, he is generous, lenient with himself and others, and somewhat of a small-town character.

In the first half, he's a main character with increased screen time. However, he's often tormented by Kitarō, treated like a cash cow, and ultimately abandoned in a cruel role. Also, as the Sato Production version is the base, Kitarō's one-eyed condition is due to Mizuki's actions.

• Right after birth, Kitarō, who crawled out of the grave (an impossible act for a human baby), frightened Mizuki so much that in his terror, he flung (or pushed) Kitarō away, causing him to hit his eye on a tombstone. In the rental book and Garo rewritten versions, he is born missing the left eye.

There are some changes in the settings.

• Due to broadcasting codes, the cause of the patients' condition couldn't be linked to blood selling, so it was changed to the Ghost Tribe's wife using her powers out of pity for a patient in severe pain. Consequently, Mizuki's workplace is vaguely described as a 'subsidiary of a hospital.'
• In the original work, Mizuki is portrayed as a sloppy man who repeatedly arrives late at work. This leads to frequent scolding from the president, who remembers his face and secretly assigns him to investigate the 'ghost blood.' However, this aspect is cut in the anime.
• In Episode 6 "Mizugami-sama," he's attacked by the Mizugami-sama's high waves and asks Kitarō for help, only to be abandoned with a simple "Bye!" and fades out of the story.
  • There's no explicit depiction of him being dissolved, but there's a brief scene where his suit seems to melt. In the BD version, it's clear that he's dissolved to the bone. Other related books mention it as an 'end not in the original work.'

TV Anime "GeGeGe no Kitarō" (6th Season)

In the first episode of the 6th Season, Medama-Oyaji mentions, "A young man named Mizuki once raised Kitarō," and he appears in just one cut. This is the first time in the "GeGeGe" anime series that Mizuki's existence (and Kitarō's birth) is specifically depicted.

In Episode 33, Kitarō says, "It's like a promise... that's why," suggesting a bond between Mizuki Youth and Kitarō different from the original work.

In Episode 42, during the Yokai Grand Trial, where Kitarō is convicted due to Dodomeki's scheme, Medama-Oyaji tries to delay the execution by reminiscing, and Mizuki Youth appears in the story.

• "We lived with Mizuki on the second floor of the store" = refers to their time as lodgers at Nekoya (Reference).
• "When a great flood hit us" = the attack by Mizugami-sama.

The story is cut short by Great Tengu, the judge, and Mizuki's subsequent fate remains unclear.

In the final episode, the cut of "Youth Mizuki holding baby Kitarō" from the first episode reappears. It emphasizes that the bond with Mizuki Youth is the reason Kitarō, a yokai himself, protects humans and fights against his fellow yokai, leading to the resolution that saves Kitarō from a state described by Enma Daiō as "worse than death."

While the time they spent together is not explicitly detailed in the series, it surely must have brought peace to Mizuki Youth's soul.

Spin-off: 6th Season Novel Version

In the spin-off novelization of the TV Anime 6th Season, "Nezumi-Otoko Hardboiled" (included in Kodansha's "GeGeGe no Kitarō ~Aka no Oto~" Character Book), Mizuki is mentioned posthumously. Kitarō and Neko Musume visit his grave at Seishō-ji Temple in Nishi-Chofu on his death anniversary, which is November 30th (GeGeGe-ki, the death anniversary of the original creator Shigeru Mizuki).

There is no mention of when he died, and how he ended up after the Mizugami incident remains unknown. Nezumi-Otoko refers to Mizuki as a "remarkable human who saved baby Kitarō's life" and "still bound by a strong bond with Medama-Oyaji and Kitarō even in death."

He also appears as an older man in a separate work sharing a similar world view. For more details, see the "Guest Appearance" section of "Mizuki (Kitarō Birth GeGeGe no Nazo)".

Mizuki in Theater Anime

"Kitarō Birth GeGeGe no Nazo"

In this work, released in 2023 as Episode 0 of the above-mentioned 6th Season TV Anime, Mizuki appears as a main character. For more details, including major spoilers, see "Mizuki (Kitarō Birth GeGeGe no Nazo)".

Related Tags

Hakaba Kitarō

Neko... The granddaughter of the owner of 'Nekoya,' where Mizuki and Kitarō father and son lodged. A mature and beautiful girl, Kitarō's first love, and the prototype for the character Neko Musume.

Trivia

• Generally, "Character Mizuki ≠ Original Creator Shigeru Mizuki," but in Shogakukan's "Kitarō Encyclopedia," the episode of Kitarō's birth hints at a connection with Shigeru Mizuki. Also, the death anniversary and burial place mentioned in the spin-off novel "Nezumi-Otoko Hardboiled" are the same as those of Shigeru Mizuki himself.
• In the original "Hakaba Kitarō," Mizuki's surname was initially "Akiyama." See here