Institute / Research Cases / QS-RC-106
Shigeru Mizuki
GeGeGe no Kitaro, Akuma-kun, Kappa no Sanpei, Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths, NonNonBa. The clatter of wooden geta and the striped waistcoat, Medama-oyaji the eyeball father, Nezumi-otoko the rat man, and volume after volume of illustrated yokai encyclopaedias. Shigeru Mizuki (Shigeru Mura) gathered the yokai told across every region of Japan into a single world, and made them part of the nation's culture. Raised in the port town of Sakaiminato, he lost his left arm on the battlefield at Rabaul and went on drawing with his right hand alone — from picture-card shows to rental manga, and on to the boys' weeklies. On 3 January 1968 the GeGeGe no Kitaro anime began, and a yokai boom swept the country. He was forty-five, in the middle of a decade in which the two forces that protected him joined together and blazed up once, fiercely, just before they faded away. And 1968 and 1969, the two years the series ran, were years in which the stars governing wealth and a partner entered a blank period of fortune. In later life a road of yokai opened in his home town, and in his eighties his own life became a morning television drama. Why could a one-armed artist bring the world of yokai together? What was this vessel promised at birth? We read the vessel he was born with against the phases of destiny and time.
At a Glance
The case
- Subject
- Shigeru Mizuki (水木しげる / Shigeru Mura) — Manga artist
- Period analysed
- 1922–2015
- Three pillars
- Day 乙亥 / Month 癸卯 / Year 壬戌
- Void branches
- 申酉 (Monkey–Rooster)
- Destiny area
- 1.05 The area of the triangle formed by the three pillars on the sixty-cycle circle (maximum 1.30)
- Format
- PDF, 14 pages — written in Japanese
- Price
- ¥50,000 including tax
Research Brief
What the case shows
- His destiny holds a vessel with only gathering energies — nothing in it disperses.
- He lost his arm on the battlefield in a year of his void, inside a ten-year phase that shook the seat of his own self.
- The star that guards a single theme became the power to keep drawing with one arm.
- On the day Kitaro reached the nation's living rooms, his guardian element stood doubled on the side of time, and the energies of wood closed into one.
- His standing rose the later his life went, and national honours followed one upon another.
Questions
The questions the report answers
- Why did the yokai of every region of Japan come together into one world in the hands of one artist?
- What overlapped on 3 January 1968, the day the Kitaro anime began?
- What does the year he lost his left arm mean within his destiny?
- Why did his standing rise the later his life went?
Public Record
The record, year by year
Selected events from the public record. Analysis and judgement are given in the report itself.
| 1944 | 甲申 (天) | Loses his left arm in an air raid at Rabaul |
| 1946 | 丙戌 | Returns home from the war |
| 1958 | 戊戌 | Debuts in rental manga with Rocket Man |
| 1961 | 庚子 | Jan — Marries |
| 1965 | 乙巳 | Kodansha Children's Manga Award for Terebi-kun |
| 1967 | 丁未 | The series is retitled GeGeGe no Kitaro |
| 1968 | 丁未 | 3 Jan — GeGeGe no Kitaro anime begins |
| 1991 | 辛未 | Medal with Purple Ribbon |
| 2003 | 癸未 | Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette |
| 2010 | 庚寅 | Person of Cultural Merit; the drama GeGeGe no Nyobo airs |
| 2015 | 乙未 | 30 Nov — Dies |
Year pillars change at Risshun, in early February. (天) = void year or void decade.
Contents
14 pages
- Destiny profile and chart
- Yin and yang charts
- Axis and type of destiny
- Ten-year phases
- Composite numerical table
- Gathering energies
- First moves and the battlefield
- The star of a single art
- The decade of 丁未
- Late bloom
- The four layers of 3 January 1968
- Timeline chart
- Public record
- Conclusion
Purchase
Order this Research Case
¥50,000incl. tax · PDF · Japanese
Email the case number QS-RC-106. We reply with an invoice; the PDF follows once payment is confirmed.
Analysis supervised by FAITH (Makoto Tokunaga) — MSc Economics, University of Warwick · CICP · Shugakuin Saii