The Great Sea Monster Analysis

Gegege no kitaro “the Great Sea Monster” is mainly about the relationship between human and yokai. Mizuki Shigeru focused on the relationship and characteristics of human Yamada and the yokai Kitaro in this movie. A lot of details implied that human are greedy and selfish, but Yokai are generous and unsophisticated. However, since the idea of Yokai is not very popular in North America. It is reasonable to assume that this video might not be popular if it were shown in North America because the idea of Yokai is easily replaced with the idea of ghost or other supernatural phenomenon but they are actually different. Therefore, it might be really hard to understand the video without some extent of cultural background.
The yokai realm in the video …show more content…
When human had trouble with the sea monster, they could actually leave human alone because they could not die. However, Kitaro decided to help human without any repay. Eventhough he was deceived by human for few times, he still chose to protect Yamada and his sister at the end. Kitaro was not only generous to greedy bad human, he was also generous to the contradict ideas. In the video, Yamada kept claiming that science is everything. When Kitaro saw that Yamada refused his sister’s omamori, Kitaro did not say anything. Kitaro just took the omamori and tried to give Yamada again, but still Yamada refused and shouted at Kitaro. Yamada was really resisted on his opinion that science is everything. However, science cannot explain the appearance of yokai. Therefore, Yamada was actually denying the existence of yokai and their psychic. Kitaro did not comment on that. Actually, he seems did not care about what Yamada’s idea is. Maybe sometimes yokai just did not really care what human believe in and how people valued the; they just tried to be a nice …show more content…
In western culture, yokai is a supernatural phenomenon. Usually supernatural connected with horror and violence. Therefore, yokai in western understanding is actually wrong. What considered as yokai in western culture is actually onryo or monster. However, this video is based on yokai. Yokai in Japanese culture is not necessary a bad character. They can be generous and virtuous. The yokai in this movie is the protagonist and human is actually the bad person which is very rare in North American movies, especially for children’s movies. Children and parents might feel confused by the identity of yokai.
“The great sea monster” is mainly contrasting the yokai realm and human realm. Yokai are generous and unsophisticated, but human are greedy and selfish. The contradiction between the characteristics with human and yokai might cause cultural shock to western audiences since in most of western children movies, humans are always on the justicial