Shigeru Mizuki (?? ???, Mizuki Shigeru, real name: Shigeru Mura, born March 8, 1922) is a Japanese mangaka, most known for his Japanese horror manga GeGeGe no Kitaro (which was originally titled "Hakaba Kitaro"), Kappa no Sanpei and Akuma-kun. Originally from Sakaiminato in Tottori prefecture, he resides in Tokyo. His pen-name, Mizuki, comes from the time when he managed an inn called 'Mizuki Manor' while he drew pictures for kamishibai. A specialist in stories of y?kai (a sub-genre in Japanese horror), he is considered a master of the genre. He is also known for his World War II memoirs and his work as a biographer.
His works are mainly about yokai (Japanese monsters and spirits), but he has also done stories about World War 2.
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Quote
1
Electricity is dangerous. Not many people say this, but it's absolutely the electricity that made yokai vanish. Monsters prospered in the pre-electricity days, when people used andon (a standing lantern with a wooden frame and paper shade) and oil lamps. Electricity was too bright for yokai to survive.
2
I have been the same ever since I was 4 or 5.
3
Outside of the world we know, there exist a hundred thousand other very strange worlds.
4
About losing his arm: The moment I was hit, the pain was so fierce that I shrieked - but then the next moment, I forgot everything. People say that when you are bombed, time becomes frozen, and the place turns into a vacuum. Your memory is temporarily lost, and you go into a different world when the bombing takes place right by you.
5
When I was little, I didn't do things except things I was interested in. Things that adults would be impressed at seeing, I never did. I would ignore directions from adults, unlike my elder and younger brothers, who listened to them. I missed the first class every day, because I couldn't get up early in the morning. So I scored zero in math tests, because math classes were held the first thing in the morning and I skipped virtually all those classes. So I was called an idiot all the time. Still, I wouldn't listen to what adults said; instead, I carried on doing what I liked - drawing.
6
People tend to scorn people who sleep a lot, and we have the expression, damin wo musaboru [literally, "sleep lazily," but actually meaning, "idling your time away"], but that's not good. Sleep is important - for your health, your brain, everything. I slept so much that I kept missing the morning classes in school, but sleeping well and living long is not bad at all.
7
Japan should've cool-headedly observed the United States. We didn't have a deep understanding of what the U.S. meant, its national strength, and instead kept our perception vague. We had this weird illusion that we could win the war with just our yamatodamashi [Japanese spirit], paying only a little attention to the material aspects of the war. We were punished for that. The high-ranking officials relied too much on the trivial stuff like spirituality. National strength and material power are much bigger things than that - but we only learned that after losing the war.
8
In Tottori, where I was first posted, my job was to play the trumpet. I couldn't play it, so I was forced to run around the grounds all the time. It was so tough. I asked my trumpet unit boss how I could be released from the assignment, and he told me to ask the head of the personnel unit. So I went to the personnel unit, and the officer there asked me: "Which would you prefer, South or North?" When I said South, I was sent to Rabaul [then a major Japanese wartime garrison]. If I had played the trumpet without complaining, I could have stayed on in Japan. Because I was a whiner, I was sent overseas.
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Fact
1
In 1942, Mizuki was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army and sent to serve in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. His wartime experiences affected him greatly, as he contracted malaria, watched friends die from battle wounds and disease, and dealt with other horrors of war (not least was constant abuse from superior officers). Finally, in an Allied air raid, he was caught in an explosion and lost his left arm, and had to undergo surgery in the jungle without anesthesia. Incidents like this affected him and made him a lifelong anti-war pacifist.
2
When Mizuki grew up, he went to art school and tried to become a professional painter, but in 1942, he was drafted into the Imperial Japanese Army.
3
Mizuki pioneered the genre of supernatural manga (ie ghost stories).
4
In the '70s, Mizuki created a "yokai encyclopedia" which is still considered one of the primary resources on the subject.
5
Mizuki's near-death experiences in World War 2, especially his barely surviving losing his arm, left him with a deep belief that someone was watching over him.
6
His wife Nunoe Mura liked him so much she wrote a novel about their life together, Gegege no Nyobo ("Gegege's Wife"), which was adapted into a film and a drama series.
7
While in a Japanese field hospital on Rabaul, he was befriended by the local Tolai tribespeople, who offered him land, a home, and citizenship via marriage to one of their women. Mizuki considered remaining behind, but was shamed by a military doctor into returning home to Japan first to face his parents, which he did reluctantly. He returned to Rabaul in 2003 and rekindled his friendship with the natives, who had named a road after him in his honor.
8
He got his taste for yokai from his childhood, where an old lady called Nonnonba taught the young Mizuki the local superstitions of monsters and spirits.
9
Sakaiminato, Mizuki's hometown, has a street dedicated to the ghosts and monsters that appear in his stories. 153 bronze statues of the story's characters line both sides of the road. There is also a museum featuring several of his creations and works.
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Mizuki Shigeru no Gegege no kaidan
2013
TV Movie manga
Gegege no Kitarô: Sennen noroi uta
2008
characters
Hakaba kitarô
2008
TV Series manga - 11 episodes
Gegege no Kitarô: Yôkai daiundôkai
2007
Video Game comic
Gegege no Kitarô
2007
comic
Gegege no Kitarô: Kiki ippatsu! Yôkai rettô
2003
Video Game comic
Gegege no Kitarô daikaiju
1996
creator
Akuma-kun
1989-1990
TV Series manga - 42 episodes
Gegege no Kitarô: Yôkai daimakyô
1986
Video Game comic
Gegege no Kitarô
1985
TV Series
Gegege no Kitarô
1971
TV Series creator - 2 episodes
Gegege no Kitarô
1968
TV Series comic book series
Actor
Title
Year
Status
Character
Yôkai daisensô
2005
Demon King
Miscellaneous
Title
Year
Status
Character
Yôkai daisensô
2005
production consultant
Self
Title
Year
Status
Character
Bokura no jidai
2010
TV Series
Himself
Archive Footage
Title
Year
Status
Character
The 66th Annual NHK kôhaku uta gassen
2015
TV Special
Himself
Jiron Kôron
2015
TV Series
Himself
Kyôiku terebi no gyakushû: Yomigaeru kyoshô no kotoba
2009
TV Movie
Himself
Known for movies
Akuma-kun (1989-1990) as Writer
Gegege no Kitarô (2007) as Writer
Gegege no Kitarô: Sennen noroi uta (2008) as Writer
$1.5 Million
