Shigeru Mizuki’s most popular work was also one of his earliest, GeGeGe no Kitaro, which celebrated its 55th anniversary this year. The manga ran from 1960 to 1969 in Weekly Shonen Magazine, but the series is probably better known from its many anime adaptations over the years.

The story follows Kitaro, a yokai boy who was born in a cemetery. In traditional Japanese folklore, yokai are supernatural monsters and spirits. While many yokai take on the forms of animals, Kitaro instead looked like a relatively normal boy. His missing left eye was a standout feature in his design, but his hair usually covered the empty socket. Over the course of the story, Kitaro fights to maintain peace between yokai and humans, usually after a human unintentionally rouses a yokai.

Kitaro is joined by a number of unique-looking characters, such as the rodent-looking Nezumi-Otoko, the cat-like Neko-Musume, the cloth Ittan-Momen and the literal plastered wall, Nurikabe. The colorful cast brought the idea of yokai back into mainstream literature via the popularity of the manga.

The original manga was considered too scary for children, but eventually was reworked to be slightly less so. More notably, the various other media adaptations have been popular; six anime series were made from the original manga, all of which have been animated by Toei Animation. A new anime series has been made approximately every decade since the first one, which began in 1968. The most recent one ran in early 2008.