Characters in GeGeGe no Kitarō.
- The Kitaro Family Click to Expand
- Yokai
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Humans
Mizuki
Voiced by: Tōru Ōkawa (Hakaba Kitaro), Hidenobu Kikuchi (Kitaro Birth)
A man who finds and raises Kitaro.
- Adaptational Job Change: He works for a blood company in the original tale, only investigating Kitaro's parents when they're giving away their blood. In Kitaro Birth, he works for an agency investigating the Fantastic Drug M.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: While he eventually comes around (a little) in The Birth of Kitaro, the movie adaptation of the same story makes him friendly towards Kitaro and his family from the start, and with Daddy Eyeball in particular before his rot set in.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: His original appearance had him encounter the couple that would become Kitaro's parents close to the end of their lives, and he meets Kitaro himself at their grave. In the Kitaro Birth movie, Mizuki knows the parents in their pre-necrotic state, and due to Kitaro being born earlier than he was in the manga, he's on friendly terms with the boy.
- Author Avatar: Generally perceived to be a stand in for Shigeru Mizuki himself. Aside from the name connections, he presents himself as an ordinary man who got swept up in youkai by accident, and eventually helps raise and protect the baby Kitaro.
Mana Inuyama
Voiced by: Yukiyo Fujii
The Token Human in the 2018 incarnation of the Kitaro family, a human girl who rediscovered the legend of Kitaro and contacted him when yokai resurfaced in modern times, ultimately becoming a friend and ally.
- Accidental Murder: In Episode 47 of the 2018 series, Mana accidentally uses her new powers to kill Neko Musume after Nanashi tricked the latter into attacking Mana's mother.
- Ambiguously Gay: The way she constantly fawns over Neko Musume is suspiciously similar to a girl with a crush. In the Love Potion episode, Mana joins the guys in chasing after Neko Musume.
- Audience Surrogate: She serves as this at the start of the 2018 anime. The audience gets to meet Kitaro through her point of view.
- Beware the Nice Ones: After Nanashi faked her mother's death, her view on Yokais become distorted, and she threatens Kitaro with her spiritual powers after he arrived to rescue her.
- Big Sister Worship: She practically fangirls over "Neko-nee-san", saying she's strong, attractive and stylish. Mana even wore a costume based on Neko-Musume for Halloween.
- Break the Cutie: It starts when everyone around her suddenly view Yokai as monsters, then she witnesses Neko Musume attack her mother, unaware that Nanashi was responsible for it. She accidentally then kills Neko Musume and to tighten the knot, Nanashi made a vocal illusion to make it sound like her mother died, making her into a sobbing mess.
- Coincidence Magnet: Mana has a gift for being in the wrong place at the right time or having unexpected connections to a case; lampshaded by Medama-Oyaji.
- Designated Victim: She gets repeatedly targeted and captured by youkai. Kitaro and his friends almost always have to come in her aid. It rarely gets annoying though considering Mana is often able to help with her own escape in some way.
- Element No. 5: The seals Nanashi places on her are based on the five elements of Wu Xing: Fire, Wood, Earth, Metal and Water. It seems she gains powers based off of them. For example, she accidentally destroys a doll yokai and Neko Musume using a fire power.
- Fighting from the Inside: When she's briefly turned into a tanuki, her wish to save Kitaro lets her stay in control.
- Identical Granddaughter: She looks exactly like Nanashi's human mother, who apparently was a very distant ancestor of hers.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: In the final episode of the 2018 series, Mana sacrifices all her memories of her youkai friends in order to resurrect Kitaro. She does remember Kitaro when they meet again several years later though and even plans to have a reunion with all her youkai friends at the youkai bathhouse.
- Mayfly–December Friendship: With the Kitaro family. As a regular human, Mana is surely to get outlived by them.
- Meaningful Name: Mana is written with the characters for "true name." Nanashi is finally freed from the mortal plane when she (a distant relative of his mother) gives him a name.
- New Rules as the Plot Demands: To make her useful in the Miage-Nyudo fight, the creators made it so that only humans could say "Miage-Nyudo, I've seen past you!" to deal with him. Meanwhile, in the 1996 adaptation, Kitaro was able to do this by himself. They also left out the bit about the Miage-Nyudo having to respond to his name first.
- Nice Girl: A very kind and sweet girl, even willing to give Nezumi Otoko some bread with he was starving.
- The Not-Love Interest: She's the second girl closest to Kitaro in the 2018 anime and many of the episodes involve Kitaro rescuing her from evil youkai. Unlike Neko Musume, Mana doesn't show any interest in Kitaro that can be considered romantic and they truly view each other as nothing but good friends. In fact, it looks more like Mana has a crush on Neko Musume.
- Oblivious to Love: She never realized Nezumi Otoko and later Nurikabe were stalking her. Later, it never even passes through her mind that the human girl the tengu Kojiro likes is her.
- Painful Transformation: An excruciatingly one when she was cursed into turning into a tanuki, with struggling through it to break the tanooki stone.
- Plucky Girl: Even though she's a normal human, Mana is very brave and won't hesitate to face anything to help humans in danger.
- Poor Communication Kills: Jumps to conclusions when she witnesses Neko Musume attacking her mother, thus loosing it and accidentally killing Neko Musume as a result.
- Strong Family Resemblance: She looks almost exactly like a younger version of her mother.
- Talking the Monster to Death: She ultimately defeats Nanashi by comforting him like the abandoned child that he is and giving him a name, as he always wanted.
- Token Human: The only, powerless, human being in a group of yokai.
- True Sight: She seems able to see yokai and transcendental beings, or gained this ability tagging along with the Kitaro family. This becomes less important as more humans regain their belief and are able to see yokai, but Mana remains more sensitive than most mortals to supernatural phenomena.
- Weirdness Magnet: Even without Kitaro, she tends to attract attention from youkai. The Shadowy Figure himself shows a clear interest on her.
- You Killed My Mother: She temporarily loses herself in hatred after Nanashi tricks her into believing Neko Musume killed her mother.
Yuta
Voiced by: Shiho Kokido
Mana's neighbor. His grandmother has told him about yokai.
- Children Are Innocent: The reason he could access the GeGeGe Forest and the yokai there treated him with kindness.
- Pint-Sized Kid
- Puppy-Dog Eyes: He uses these twice in episode 4: on Mana to find the way to Gegege Forest, and on Kitaro to show him around the forest.
- Recurring Element: Yuta takes the spot of the bespectacled boy that gets involved in the 1st episode of each series.
Soma
Classmate of Mana and older brother of Hiroto.
- Big Brother Instinct: Jumps in to protect his brother when Kamaitachi threatens to gouge out the boy's eyes.
- Out of Focus: He, along with his brother and Yuta don't appear much.
Hiroto
Soma's younger brother and friend of Yuta.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Occasionally gets on his brother nerves, but is more prone to annoy Mana.
- Out of Focus: He, along with his brother and Yuta don't appear much.
Miyabi Momoyama
A friend of Mana.
- Day in the Limelight: Episode 52, where she goes to the Kinoko's Forest in another world, enjoying her time there until she grows older where she understands how her mother feels.
Aya Ishibishi
A friend of Mana, works at her family's cafe.
- Day in the Limelight: Episode 89, focuses on her and her family being haunted by the Binbogami and eventually learning of her parents' past after the Zashiki-Warashi brings them fortune.
Himeka
Another of Mana's friends, she first appeared in episode 46, being among the victims of the Mayuge.
- Flat Character: She has the least amount of development of Mana's friends, having no focus episode around her.
Rei Isurugi
Voiced by: Hiroshi Kamiya
A human with a hatred for yokai, in particular, the Four Treasonous Generals. He is also a descendant of the Kidōshū clan, capable of stealing a yokai's power after absorbing their soul and the reason why the Four Treasonous Generals attacked his village and killed his family.
- All Your Powers Combined: He currently has these yokai powers, and can combine powers at will:
- Kijin: His arms become that of a kijin, gaining the strength of one and is capable of crushing a person's skull with ease.
- Hitotsumebō: He gains a third eye resembling that of Hitotsumebō's on his forehead which gives him enhanced sight, even being able to see through walls.
- Mujina: Shapeshifting.
- Nue: Transforms his hand to have the non-sentient head of Nue where he can make it use its powerful roar. Also has a hidden snake tongue. He loses this power after giving Kitaro the soul of Nue.
- Bake-Bi: he gains the power manipulate fire.
- La Seine: Unknown, presumably vampire powers.
- Ibukimaru: Gains the swordsmanship of Ibukimaru.
- Fantastic Racism: He hates all yokai thanks to his Freudian Excuse.
- Freudian Excuse: He hates all yokai after the Four Treasonous Generals killed his family and destroyed his village.
- Lovecraftian Superpower: He gains the ability to transform his arm into a copy of the Nue, complete with a hidden snake tongue.
- Power at a Price: Absorbing yokai souls and using their powers damages Rei's body; a couple of times this causes him to pause in battle due to pain, and theoretically could kill him.
- Power Makes Your Hair Grow: When using Ibukimaru's powers his hair grows significantly longer.
- Power Parasite: Being a member of the Kidōshū, Rei is able to absorb a yōkai's soul and use their powers. He activates their power by swiping his right arm, causing a golden kanji of the yōkai's name to appear as he gains traits of said yōkai and is able to deactivate it at will. He absorbs a yōkai's soul by placing his right hand in front of it and saying "On!", as it enters a golden kanji of the yōkai's name appears on his arm.
- Tragic Bigot: He believes all yokai are evil monsters because the Four Treasonous Generals destroyed his hometown.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: He hunts down yokai indiscriminately, even the harmless ones, because he wants to exterminate all monsters.
- Your Soul Is Mine!: Stealing a yokai's soul gives him their powers.
