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1968 anime
- In the Daruma episode, the titular Yokai's mini-Darumas are able to strip a cat down to its bones.
- Hakusanbo's death in his episode, he is stung by a moth, whose eggs quickly hatch and eats his inside in a matter of seconds.
1971 anime
- Those cursed by Taitanbo slowly melt away, leaving nothing behind but footsteps, as what happens to the two fools in the episode.
1985 anime
- One of the ending sequences has the music wind down quietly towards the end, only for a bunch of Yokai to jump out with a loud yell like a goddamn Screamer Prank. It's like they were trying to traumatize children.
1996 anime
2007 anime
Hakaba Kitaro
- Kitaro's incredibly creepy giggle, which sounds more like a cackling witch than anything else.
- Hell, his creepy, brooding demeanor in general. It's no wonder why the other children run in terror at the very sight of him.
2018 anime
- In the first episode of the 2018 reboot, we see an arrogant vlogger named Charatomi breaking traffic laws by randomly running across the Shibuya scramble, demanding the bystanders to subscribe to his channel. Then a dark aura surrounds Charatomi as he brags to the bystanders. He then stumbles in weakness, as those around him watch him turn into a tree. Painfully. The bystanders didn't bother helping - They too took out their phones to cover the startling event, just for attention. People on websites laugh at the sight. More and more people turned into trees then, to the point where there was an entire forest in the middle of Shibuya. They get better at the end of the episode, though.
- In the third episode the Yokai Castle is reimagined as being reborn in Tokyo, in a plot by Tantanbō, Kamaitach and Futakuchi-Onna to wage war against humanity. As they were mystically bound to the Yokai Castle, they need 13 human beings to use as pillars to gain everlasting powers: when they manage to capture them, including Token Human Mana Inuyama, they claim that the 13 humans will live forever entombed in the pillars ''always suffering but never aging or dying''. Only the timely intervention of Kitarō spares them from such a fate.
- The first episode of the 1985 series has a similar premise with the Yokai Castle being reborn in the middle of a construction site. However, at the beginning of the episode, the construction machinery starts going haywire, destroying the building and at times almost killing some of the workers.
- In the fifth episode, The Disaster of the Electric Yokai, there is a scene where a news reporter who reported on Rat Man's new business scheme is stalked through a dark alley on her way home from work. She pulls out her taser, only for it to be pulled away and create an electric form of Kaminari-sama, causing her to scream. She then rushes to her home and curls up on the floor, screaming for help, until Kaminari-sama appears from the outlet and kills her. We even see her body as she dies with electric currents running through her face. This was caused by the mob boss, who ordered Kaminari-sama to kill her, just because she reported on his tax fraud and suspicious power.
- Episode 7 of the 2018 anime in its entirety, managing to outcreep the original manga. While in the original story Kitarō uses his ghoulish powers to craft an elaborate illusion to get a couple of disbelievers who hit him in a heated argument "bumps on your head as big as mine" and a huge scare, in the reboot Kitarō openly antagonizes a disbeliever and Mean Boss just to get him on the Ghost Train, revealing that he and Neko Musume were tasked to do so by the long string of employees who died because of being overworked or because he straight-up bullied them to the point where they committed suicide. After they, as a poltergeist, push him in front of an oncoming train at the beginning of the episode, he refused to acknowledge his death, and failed to reach Hell as he should have. Once he realizes his fate, he slowly turns into his true ghostly form, gets ganged up on by the vengeful spirits of his employees, and suitably, is Dragged Off to Hell with them on the Ghost Train, screaming in horror all the while.
- The worst part of the episode? Kitarō this time, instead of jokingly bragging about his spiritual powers, calmly stares at the soul of the Mean Boss crying out for pity, asking him how many times he took pity for his now-dead employees and witnesses his descent to eternal damnation without batting an eye. When the Mean Boss tries to appeal to his humanity, Kitarō merely says that being a yōkai, he's clearly not human, nor is he bound to human emotions or values.
- Also, Kitarō's employer this time is revealed to be a high school girl who witnessed the Mean Boss' death while happily chatting with her friends about new ways to bully another highschooler. Kitarō calmly explain to her that since the Mean Boss was the victim of personal grudges, she'll likely suffer no issues from the poltergeist. Relieved, the girl deletes the picture of the man's demise and is able to go on with her life... that is unless she too had bullied someone else to death as well. In that case, she would surely fall victim to another grudge induced death and end up on the Ghost Train to Hell, a fate more frightening than any yōkai. The look of sheer horror on her face is matched only by Kitarō's face, usually a fairly attractive young boy in this version, distorted in the creepy, gonkish sneer he usually wore in the manga.
- Episode 8 of the 2018 series features Mana being stalked by another Yōkai. From the title, we would think it was Kagami-Jijii who stalked and attacked her and two other boys for not cleaning the house they were visiting on a school trip. However, it turns to not be the case. While it is true that Kagami-Jijii was following Mana, it turns out that was Gasha-Dokuro, a giant skeleton Yokai, who attacked those boys and landed them in the hospital. Gasha-Dokuro was coming after them for disturbing its tombstone while roughhousing.
- Yosuke from episode 10 is a horrifying example of a Stalker with a Crush. He’s obsessed with Hanako-san, to the point where he kidnaps the other school legends because he was convinced they’d try to come between them. When Neko-Musume confronts him about his behavior, he tries to kill her.
- Episode 11 features a creepy appearance by the Shadowy Figure, who releases a horde of Tanuki who tries to conquer Japan. The Tanuki spread panic by creating a second moon which is actually the egg of a monstrous Yokai Beast. They then trick the government into trying to shoot down the egg, cracking it, and unleashing the Yokai Beast, who proceeds to destroy Tokyo. Nothing the military throws at it even slows it down, and Kitaro is petrified and helpless to stop it.
- Episode 12 starts off with people being arrested by Tanuki-possessed police because they are being suspected of being anti-Tanuki. After going through it all and Kitaro and Mana defeating the nightmarish Yokai Beast, the Shadowy Figure seems to curse Mana. Then at the very end of the episode, the figure watches Mana walk to class while reciting a terrifying poem as flashbacks of a woman seemingly being murdered appear.A hollow vessel, a hollow vessel. Fill it with bone or fill it with blood. Better yet, fill it with rotting meat.
- Episode 13 has less paranormal horror, but more real-life terror. Rat Man's latest scheme involves feeding human souls to Wanyudo and turning them into diamonds. This is creepy enough already, but then Rat Man ends up getting up kidnapped by the diamond-obsessed mafia gang. Then when they discover about Wanyudo, they concoct a plan to bring refugees and children in a container on a boat to be fed to the Yokai. Even Ratman disapproves of this. To make it even worse, a man tries to escape as the container opens, but is literally shot by one of the mafia members.
- Episode 15 has the return of Zunbera. In it, she meets an ugly girl named Kirara who wants to undergo the procedure of Spiritoplasty, where you swap your face for a new one. Almost instantly, she becomes popular. So popular, a bully becomes jealous and is tempted by Rat Man to undergo the procedure herself. Later, Mana finds out what happens when the procedure wears off: Kirara and the bully's new faces disappear and their new and old faces are placed in Zunbera's box of faces... faces peeled off from the dead. That's the true horror of Spritoplasty, wearing the face of a dead person. What's worse, the person can keep wearing the dead's faces as many times as they want, as Zunbera does not want money for the procedure and she has the ability to preserve the dead's faces. However, undergoing the procedure for too long will eventually turn the person into a yokai. Fortunately, the procedure is reversible. All you have to do is put your old face back on. The bully is quick to do so, but Kirara initially refuses even after the bully tells her she'll risk turning into a yokai. She then reveals that she underwent the procedure not for some actor that she's admired, but for herself. The same actor she's admired convinces her to put her old face back on (after being initially frightened by her faceless appearance). However, the next time we see her, Kirara is back to having a pretty face and even becomes a famous actor as well. Whether she went through regular plastic surgery or didn't learn a thing and kept doing Spiritoplasty is up for debate.
- Backbeard. A giant eye Yokai in the sky from Western Europe, his goal is to rule the world of both Yokai and humans, using a magic ring to do so. And if that's not enough, he has an army of witches, vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein monsters, and zombies to aid him in his goal. Just to demonstrate how powerless the Eastern Yokai are, his army burns a portion of Gegege Forest and kills a whole group of Indonesian Youkai.
- The whole "secret agenda" of Adèl. While she shows allegiance to Backbeard, she secretly wishes to be able to give up her life for him, thus leaving her own sister, the designated sacrificial maiden Agnès able to live her life. In a world ravaged by a powerful yōkai wishing her dead, responsible for the death of her whole family, surrounded forever by entities under his control. Agnès should be glad Adèl failed to protect her.
- The full extent of Backbeard's plan: use the ring and Agnès' life energy to turn all humans into yokai so he can rule the world. And no, humans turned into yokai don't end up becoming kappas or kitsune or tanuki or anything like that. They turn into spectral shades with no free will and individuality. Mana was able to escape this fate because of Agnès' magic. Her family and human friends? No.
- Episode 43 give us this show take on Odoro-Odoro, and it is both nightmare fuel and tearjerker! Within the sixth anime, Shōgo Onozaki was doing research and believe he created an immortal cell, at the first the news was good but other researchers who attempted to replicate it failed, and was hounded by the media for his 'fake' research, overcome with rage he decided to experiment on himself, it Gone Horribly Right, it true he can rapidly heal now, but now he forcibly change into the yokai Odoro-Odoro (a mindless beast) that kill and drain people blood, with the changes becoming more rapid, worst still because of the aforementioned cell he just can't die in his human state. Realizing he can be killed in his yokai state, He then wrote a letter to Kitaro, asking him to kill him. And if you think that's bad, while originally fleeing once his daughter tried to stop Kitarō and though later giving in to drink her blood, had a look of remorse, begging to be stopped. Luckily, Kitaro was able to put Shōgo out of his misery.
- In episode 46, Mana accidentally uses the fire seal Nanashi placed on her to destroy the Hina doll yokai. What other powers do the seals do and what will happen when she gets the fifth seal, Water?
- Here's your answer. In episodes 47 and 48, Mana gets the water seal after Neko-Musume attacks her mother who was possessed by Nanashi. How? She seemingly kills Neko-Musume and Nanashi tricks her into thinking her mother is dead.
- In episode 49, we are revealed to Nanashi's origin. Mana's ancestor and a yokai fell in love and eventually, the girl became pregnant. But when both families found out, they killed the lovers without hesitation. Their blood mixed together and created Nanashi, born from sadness and anger.
