Little Ghost Q-Taro


Little Ghost Q-Taro, by Fujiko Fujio, is a Japanese manga about an obake, Q-Taro who lives with the Ōhara family. Q-Taro, also known as Q-chan or Oba-Q, is a mischief-maker who likes to fly around scaring people and stealing food, though he is deathly afraid of dogs.
The story is usually focused on the antics of Q-Taro and his friends. The manga was drawn in 1964–1966 by Fujiko Fujio and in 1971–1974 by Fujiko F. Fujio. An English manga volume was published in Japan as Q the Spook.
There are three anime series of Q-Taro. The first anime adaptation of Little Ghost Q-Taro was shown on the Tokyo Broadcasting System in black & white, and ran from 1965–1968. Machiko Soga was the voice of Q-Taro. The series was especially popular preceding Doraemon. It also ran outside Japan, in Hong Kong under the name Q-tailong. The second series ran from 1971–1972 on Nippon TV, this time in color. The third series ran from 1985–1987 on TV Asahi. This adaptation is the only one of the three Obake no Q-taro anime to have a home video release.

Characters

Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani cites the series as inspiration for the character design in the Pac-Man video game series.

History

;Start of the serialization of the manga
A publisher had a idea for a manga about a ghost called "Keba otoko-kun " after a kid who was inside the editorial department of "Weekly Shonen Sunday" suggested to make a manga about ghosts, and after hearing that Fujiko F fujio liked stories about ghosts, asked for a manga featuring a ghost.
Fujiko F and Fujiko A came up with the title "Odakyu" which later became "Obakyu" and then "Obake no Kyutaro" while showing the idea to the anime studio "Studio Zero". First, when the title "Obake no Kyutaro" was decided, Fujiko A was looking for a letter from the Roman alphabet to be put in the Kyu part. While flipping through the Roman alphabet, the letter Q caught his eye and Kyutaro became Q-taro, the letter Q was used because it was a letter of respect. The letter was also chosed because of Lu Xun's book "The True Story of Ah Q"
The setting of kids being pretending to be Ninjas was chosed for the first chapter after seeing kids pretending being Ninjas from Studio's Zero's office.
With the title decided, they started publishing Q-taro on 1964 in the "Weekly Shonen Sunday" magazine with the help of members belonging to the studio, starting from issue 6 in 1964, on January 22. Because there was no reaction from the readers at all, the serialization ended after 9 chapters. At the end of the series, readers flooded Studio Zero with letters requesting it to be back, and the series was back three months later. After the come back, Fujiko F was be in charge of all the story, and the other zero members would cooperate in the drawing section. This system continued until the end of 1966, then manga was only drawn by Fujiko Fujio.
Initially, Fujiko F drew Q Taro, Fujiko A drew Shota, Kenichi Kitami the backgrounds and Shotaro Ishinomori and Tsudojiro drew other characters. This is why the characters of the works by Ishinomori and Akatsuka often appeared in the Obake no Q-Taro manga.
;The 60's with the first anime and the arrival of a boom
The following year, in 1965, the serialization of the manga spread to other magazines from Shogakukan, and it was also made into a anime, causing a cultural phenomenon called "Oba-Q boom"
During the 60's in japan, audiences were tired of Science fiction heroes anime, which were the mainstream type of anime since "Astro Boy", and audience ratings for majority of those anime were falling. Meanwhile, the anime adaptation of "Obake no Q-taro" appeared. It aired in TBS's "Fujiya time" time slot. It had an audience rating of 30% or higher since the first episode. The record of the theme song of the anime "Obake no Q-taro" was a one million-seller, and won 8th Japan Record Awards's prize for Children's Nursery rhyme in 1966. Also, "Oba Q Ondo" sung by Machiko Soga was a huge hit with 2 million records and 4 million Flexi Discs sold in a campaign held by the sponsor Fujiya.
Regarding the commercialization of the anime, a negative opinion was made by TBS, which is the broadcasting station where the anime aired, it was that "who dosen't have Money cannot earn Money", and other companies had the same opinion. Since there were almost no companies that would commercialize it, it was decided that Shogakukan, which serialized the manga, would do it. However, after about 6 months from the start of broadcasting of the anime, the popularity exploded, and the head office building of Shogakukan built in 1967 became so popular that some called it Oba-Q Building.
The manga on "Weekly Shonen Sunday" ended at the end of 1966, and in March 1967, the manga was transferred to Sunday night. It became a popular program along with "Ultra Q" and "Ultraman" produced by Tsuburaya Productions, and at the time of the time zone change Although it still had a viewer rating of over 30%, one of Q-taro's sponsors, Fujiya said, "The sales of Oba-Q products have reached a peak, we can't expect further sales, so please make a new program". Because of the request, a new program was made and it was "Perman", as the manga from it was from Q-taro's authors. In one of Q-taro's final episodes, "Q-chan's and perman's big success", Perman No. 1 appears to advertise his show. The plot was that Q-Taro and Shota are kidnapped by a gang, and when Q Taro asks for help, Perman comes and saves them. There's a conversation between Q-Taro and Perman and Q-taro says that perman's show only starts next week.
;The 70's, Serialization of "Shin Oba-Q" and a new anime
After the end of the previous series, there were many requests from readers of the manga and people who watched the to see Q-taro again. In response to that, a new manga called "Shin Obake no Q-taro" was serialized in Shogakukan's learning magazine, and it introduced a new character which was O-jiro. At this time, the anime "Shin Obake no Q-taro" was brodcasted.
In 1977, Both Q-taro mangas started to be published in "Korokoro Comic" along with other fujiko Fujio mangas, an manga called "Dora Q. Perman" which included Q-taro was drawn by Hideo Shinoda, and the following year, it was animated into a special episode for "Doraemon".
;3rd anime in the 80s
Shin-ei which was in charge of the most recent fujiko animes, because of TMS refusing to rerun the 1971 anime, made a new anime based on Obake no Q-taro. At this time, a request for a new Q-taro manga for fujiko fujio was made, but he refused the offer, saying, “It's difficult to draw a type of gag manga like Oba Q”. Eventually, the previous "Shin Obake no Q-taro" manga was used.