Well, bad stuff first: you made a small typo in the images, saying gegege on the left and hakaba to the right, it's viceversa ;)
Moving on, I now understand better why you were talking with me about gegege, unfortunately the 2018 animations are a BIG turnoff for me, look at that 2008 animation and style, so much better!
The audience problem must have been quite something else, because talking about the serious yokai stories in the setting they're supposed to be it's going to be scary and creepy as hell, no wonder the kids didn't read it (and the parents didn't give it to the kids).
But toning it down a bit was acceptable, just that I think the 2018 version toned it down too much, to the point I found it hard to be invested in it despite being a fan of yokai and japanese shinto religion.
Well, a nice, good review like always touching some interesting anime that aren't so known!
Yes I noticed and corrected the mistake. Thanks. The 2018 anime is beautifully animated though, and it's actually plenty of fun, but it is geared more towards the shonen Dragonball audience than Youkai enthusiasts.
By toning down, it was Shigeru Mizuki who did that himself. He had to for his new audience. After all, we're already on like the 6th anime iteration of the GeGeGe no Kitarou franchise excluding Hakaba Kitarou, so it was massively successful.
The new GeGeGe no Kitaro does keep the creepy aspects though so I wouldn't say it's all gone. It's just heavily mixed with the shonen elements like plenty of Dragonball-like action.
Also thanks for your comment, and yeah, articles like these help me express in better terms what I really meant when I have these anime discussions with you.
The only thing I don't like is the fact I can't give bigger votes. You really go out of your way to make good stuff about not "mainstream" anime, that's worth gold from my viewpoint.
Thanks. I had another article coming up but I couldn't take any message from it and thus couldn't reasonably conclude it. Hopefully, I'll come back later and finish it. Meanwhile, I'm working on another one I have planned.