I appreciate that you took other fans' feedback into account. This review is a welcome improvement over the last one! With that being said I do believe that you're a bit confused about what I and probably other ppl meant to say when qualifying the characters as morally gray or flawed. I personally meant it as a way to say they're all just human basically. There's no fundamentally heroic or virtuous figures, just regular people (including yokai who are also somewhat humanized, as is often the case with Mizuki's works) from different backgrounds, some with more vices than others, struggling in an increasingly modernizing post-war japanese society. Kitaro doesn't need to be shown doing more good deeds (although he does do so in chapters of the original rental manga that weren't adapted) to be considered a neutral figure. For the most part his actions aren't so much evil as they are self-serving. He's just a clueless 6 year old trying to get some grub and money, and taking any opportunity to achieve that. The final episode is arguably the starting point where he becomes as scheming as Nezumi-Otoko. I know you probably don't want to, but I really advice that you give the series a rewatch at some point, especially now that you're aware of it being in a different continuity (Assuming you haven'tdone that already and are mostly taking ppl's word for some of your points). A lot of the things I'm telling you here are far from being subtextual, they're in fact pretty explicit when you pay attention. As for the dark comedy, it doesn't necessarily need to make you laugh out loud. I know it didn't for me. But the point of it is to balance out the darker elements to make for a lighter and less outright depressing or pessimistic watch, as Mizuki's works also tend to do, including gegege. Hakaba is pretty 1 to 1 with the original rental manga as an adaptation, with a few key changes here in there. I'm not expecting you to like it by the end of it, obviously, but I do hope you'll come out of it with a better understanding of how it operates with its cast, without needing someone else to tell you so. I'm sorry about the long rant, I hope none of it came out as harsh or rude. My apologies in advance if it did. Good continuation and take care!
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I appreciate that you took other fans' feedback into account. This review is a welcome improvement over the last one! With that being said I do believe that you're a bit confused about what I and probably other ppl meant to say when qualifying the characters as morally gray or flawed. I personally meant it as a way to say they're all just human basically. There's no fundamentally heroic or virtuous figures, just regular people (including yokai who are also somewhat humanized, as is often the case with Mizuki's works) from different backgrounds, some with more vices than others, struggling in an increasingly modernizing post-war japanese society. Kitaro doesn't need to be shown doing more good deeds (although he does do so in chapters of the original rental manga that weren't adapted) to be considered a neutral figure. For the most part his actions aren't so much evil as they are self-serving. He's just a clueless 6 year old trying to get some grub and money, and taking any opportunity to achieve that. The final episode is arguably the starting point where he becomes as scheming as Nezumi-Otoko. I know you probably don't want to, but I really advice that you give the series a rewatch at some point, especially now that you're aware of it being in a different continuity (Assuming you haven'tdone that already and are mostly taking ppl's word for some of your points). A lot of the things I'm telling you here are far from being subtextual, they're in fact pretty explicit when you pay attention. As for the dark comedy, it doesn't necessarily need to make you laugh out loud. I know it didn't for me. But the point of it is to balance out the darker elements to make for a lighter and less outright depressing or pessimistic watch, as Mizuki's works also tend to do, including gegege. Hakaba is pretty 1 to 1 with the original rental manga as an adaptation, with a few key changes here in there. I'm not expecting you to like it by the end of it, obviously, but I do hope you'll come out of it with a better understanding of how it operates with its cast, without needing someone else to tell you so.
I'm sorry about the long rant, I hope none of it came out as harsh or rude. My apologies in advance if it did. Good continuation and take care!