Obake no Q-taro, The Dog-fearing Ghost

I grew up watching a lot of anime series, and some of them are adapted from Fujiko Fujio's works. Doraemon, Ninja Hattori-kun, Pokonyan, Perman (also known as P-man in Indonesia) and Mojacko  are some anime series that shaped my childhood. One day when I stumbled across Instagram, a random Japanese guy uploaded a toy that seems familiar to me, but I can't recall. I asked him about the name of the character, and he said it's Qtaro from Obake no Q-taro, a manga and anime series created by Fujiko Fujio. I downloaded some episodes, after he told me about it. As far as I remember, the anime series is never aired in Indonesia, but I remember playing the game on Nintendo.

Basically the story is about the daily life of Qtaro, an obake who likes to fly around scaring people and stealing food, but he is afraid of dogs. He lives with Shota Ohara, an average grade school boy. Just like most of Fujiko Fujio's works, the formula is still the same. The main characters are the equivalent of Nobita and his classmates, there's a big bully, a rich kid, a smart kid, and a girl who likes to play with these boys. Actually, Obake no Q-taro was created before Doraemon, so my analogy is invalid here.

Obake no Q-taro manga cover

Obake no Q-taro VHS cover

As I said before, I knew the character from the game I played on Nintendo. As a kid I love it so much, I even drew my own ghost character inspired by him. Oh, if you never play the game, you should! It's a fun game, as Qtaro you have to fly around eating candies, fruits and cakes, but you should avoid the dogs. What? You don't have a Nintendo console? Fear not, you can play the game on 8bbit! I would suggest you to have some sweets while playing, have fun spooking!