At 92 years old this year, Mizuki may very well be the oldest person ever to still draw comics. And with him being as old as he is, it's impossible to detail the important parts of his life, but here's a (very) basic primer: He was the hopeless black sheep of his family, was drafted into World War II, continually survived when he should have died in battle, lost his arm while sick in the war, came back to Japan when he was marked as dead, & went on to reteach Japan the yokai stories that the government tried suppressing before the war. Really, if you want more info on his life then simply read some of his manga; Drawn & Quarterly has brought over a good amount of them already. What I want to focus on his most iconic work: a young boy named Kitaro. In Japan there are few manga as iconic as GeGeGe no Kitaro, the tales of a young yokai boy who tries to help humanity coexist with his kind. It's so celebrated that, ever since the 60s, Toei Animation has made a new Kitaro anime every decade, and I'm positive that a new one will be made by the end of this decade. But Mizuki didn't start with GeGeGe, actually. Instead, Kitaro's tales were originally a little darker & not as kid friendly, and in early 2008 Toei celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the original GeGeGe anime, while the newest version of that was still airing, by making a slightly more accurate adaptation of the original manga. Bringing in some influence from Mononoke, noitaminA's 10th series was a call back to the early days of Mizuki's beloved boy, the days of Hakaba Kitaro (Graveyard Kitaro).
A man named Mizuki is brought in by the hospital he works with to see a medically impossible sight: A dead man who is still moving around in his bed, just as if he never died. Mizuki is told to investigate how this happened & his only lead ends up being the abandoned house next to where he lives. Sneaking into the house he's welcomed by a disfigured woman & a giant mummy, who greet Mizuki. They explain that they're the last living members of the Ghost Tribe, who existed before humanity but were forced to live underground once humans became the dominant species. The woman is pregnant & she and her husband came to the surface for help; she saw a man in pain & gave him some of her power, resulting in the hospital issue. The next day the dead man turns to dust, and when Mizuki checks on the couple they're both dead as well. Mizuki buries the wife, but out from the grave comes a newborn child. Mizuki is understandably freaked out, but eventually takes in the baby named Kitaro & raises him into a young boy. Meanwhile, though, Kitaro is taught about his origins on the side by Medama Oyaji, an eyeball (& sole remaining part of his father). Kitaro is now a yokai who lives with humans, continually getting involved in one weird situation after another.
