The Birth of Kitarō (Shonen Magazine story)

The Birth of Kitarō (鬼太郎の誕生 Kitarō no Tanjō) is a GeGeGe no Kitarō story published as a chapter of the Shonen Magazine run.
==Characters==
*Kitarō
*Medama-Oyaji
*Iwako
*Mizuki
*Mizuki's Mother
*Hageyama
==Plot==
Late one night, a man named Mizuki is awoken from the greetings of a new neighbor who moved into the old temple. When Mizuki goes to the door, the visitors are gone and all he finds is a gift box on the ground. Presuming it to be from the neighbor, he opens it, only to find an eyeball. Creeped out and disgusted, he goes to bury it despite the storm. The next morning, Mizuki asks his his mother if she knows what kind of person their new neighbor is like. He tells her what happened last night, that their neighbor left an eyeball in a box. He warns her to be careful as he goes to work.
In Tokyo, Mizuki goes to his office at a blood bank. He is late to work again and is called to meet his boss. He tells him that ghost blood was introduced into their stocks. He wants Mizuki to make an internal investigation for it, which his employee reluctantly accepts. The salaryman goes to the hospital where the doctor shows him a patient who is clinically dead, but is somehow still alive. The doctor explains that they have done all kinds of tests they could and concluded that the transfused blood is the cause of this. Mizuki goes back to the blood bank to find the donor. He finds the file, but it lacks a name. He notices that the address and recognizes it as his own. He goes home and asks his mother if she visited their neighbors. She answers that she did, but no one was there. Mizuki thinks they might really be ghosts. He tells her what happened today and decides to wait for tonight to figure out what is going on.
Later that night, the man sees a hitodama out the window and follows it, eventually going inside a dilapidated temple. When he enters it he is greeted by a ghoulish looking woman who offers him to sit and have some frog eyes to eat. He tries to run, but a man heavily wrapped in bandages stops him and brings him back to the table. The man apologizes for startling him and introduces himself as the woman's husband. The man apologizes for being rough, and introduces himself as the woman's husband. The couple asks Mizuki to listen to what they have to say. They share with him the history of their kind, saying that long before humans existed, their ancestors lived in peace until mankind started to appear and multiply across the world. Humans drove their ancestors to hide in the forests. After a couple thousand years, mankind expanded more, forcing the ancestors to hide underground in caves and surviving off of crickets and worms. Unfortunately, food became scarce and many of them died of starvation. They went out at night while humans were asleep to scavenge for food. Because of this, humans were frightened by them and called them ghosts. However, in this modern age, their kind has died off, with him and his wife as the only ones left.
The wife tells Mizuki that her husband has contracted an incurable disease. So they went out into the human world to try and treat him. Mizuki correctly deduces that they sold their blood. The couple confirms this, explaining that they needed money. Mizuki says that as an investigator he has to report this, but the husband stops him, saying that he has to keep them a secret. He and his wife know very well that if he reports them, then the humans will come and kill them, leading to their extinction. He begs him to help them. The salaryman tries to counter this, but the husband questions if his loyalty to his profession is worth their extinction. The wife tells the man that she is three months pregnant, begging that he tells no one, atleast until her child is born. Mizuki decides to not tell anyone of them for six to seven months. The couple thanks him as he leaves. 
Six months pass by and Mizuki visits the temple. When he enters, he finds the couple dead and goes back home. He later comes back, pitying them and decided to bury them. By the time he got there again, he could only make a grave for the woman as the man's body was too decayed for him to stomach and carry out. Three days pass, Mizuki visits the grave. He finds something in the grave and is horrified by a baby crawling out of it. The baby grabs his leg, but Mizuki grabs him by the neck. He fears the misfortune that could be brought if he lets a child of monsters live. However, he cannot brings himself to do it and runs away, leaving the child crying in the rain.
Meanwhile in the temple, an eyeball from the husband's decomposing corpse falls out. Regardless of whether it is because of his race's unique vitality or his strong desire to protect his kind to the end, the eyeball forms a body and goes off to search for his son. He finds the boy, calling him Kitarō, and leads him out of the rain. Mizuki wakes up and finds Kitarō behind his door. The baby crawls to his bed, making him realize that the boy is depending on him. He has a change of heart and decides to raise the baby. From outside the window, Medama-Oyaji cries as he is relieved that his son will be taken care of.
The next morning, Mizuki's mother asks her son where the child came from. He lies, saying that he found him abandoned in front of their house. As Mizuki goes off to work, Medama-Oyaji sneaks in. He is glad that his is sleeping peacefully and decides to rest in a bowl, tired from his adventure last night. The mother remembers that the bowls are from a noodle restaurant, unaware that Medama-Oyaji is in one of them. The delivery boy from the restaurant comes to get his bowls back, which Mizuki's mother gives him. The delivery boy notices the bowls shaking, eventually finding the eyeball father. He throws him to the ground and steps on him. Medama-Oyaji uses a match as a cane as he gets back to his son, swearing that he will continue to watch over his kid as he grows.
Six years go by, Kitarō is mocked and feared by the people around him because of his ghoulish face. He gained the moniker "Kitarō of the Graveyard" because of his creepiness. One night, Mizuki's mother asks her son if he has noticed Kitarō sneaking out at night, which he has. She suggests following him tonight to see where he goes. As the winds howl through the night, Kitarō is called out and he follows his father to the graveyard. Mizuki is not far behind and is creeped out by the Hitodama floating around. Kitarō and Medama-Oyaji goes behind this strange tree. When Mizuki checks, neither of them are there, only finding the boy's getas. It starts raining, making the salaryman go back. When he returns, his mother asks how it went. Mizuki answers that he could not find him. He wonders if they should get rid of him. However his mother scolds him for this, as being so callous might put them under a terrible curse.
The next morning, Kitarō is called by Mizuki. The man asks where he went last night, as he saw him disappear behind a tree at the graveyard. The boy explains that he went to play in the world of the dead. Mizuki and his mother tells the boy that they do not want him going there anymore. If he does, then he will have to leave them. That night, Medama-Oyaji tells his his son that they are going to leave this place. There will be others outside who will understand him, whether they be animals or other supernatural beings. With this, the boy and his eyeball father go on an aimless journey.
==Trivia==
*This story is a remake of rental manga story Ghost Family.
*As with some other remakes of the rental manga, like The Nekoya Siblings and Odoro-Odoro vs. Vampire, this version was never adapted for anime.
==Navigation==
pt-br:O Nascimento de Kitarō
Category:GeGeGe no Kitarō (Shonen Magazine) chapters