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!

Count Duckula, The Vegetarian Vampire Duck

My fascinations with all things creepy started when I was around 8 or 9 year old, I grew up as a 90's kid. I collected many Goosebumps novellas, played Ghouls 'n Ghosts on Sega and my favorite cartoons were Extreme Ghostbusters, Toxic Crusaders and also Count Duckula! Yes, Count Duckula, that weird British cartoon series about a vegetarian vampire duck. Count Duckula is a vegetarian by accident, because his last reincarnation did not run according to plan. His Nanny (that clumsy anthropomorphic hen maid) accidentally substitutes blood with tomato ketchup during his last reincarnation ritual, well to cut a long story short, Count Duckula is reborn as a vegetables-loving vampire duck, duch!

Count Duckula's main characters, from left to right:

Dr. Von Goosewing, Count Duckula, Nanny and Igor

Count Duckula DVD cover

The characters are goofy, also the setting of the castle and the colors are gloomy. That's why as a kid fascinated with spooky things, this cartoon always have a special place in my heart. The logo looks like a crappy horror punk band's logo, and the theme songs (both the opening and the ending) have those spooky yet funky classic Motown vibes. The opening sequence starts with a narrator speaking (with hammond organ playing in the back), which reminds me of Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast intro.  I really love the ending sequence, with mainly orange and green colors and collage-styled black-and-white photos, which add more B-movie feels to it. Well I guess everyday is Halloween at Count Duckula's spooky castle!

I'm not going to spoil you with the whole stories, not that I remember all of them anyway. You can stream the whole episodes on Count Duckula's Youtube Channel, I'll leave you with some screenshots from episode 2. Now unsharpen your fangs and let's bite some vegetables!