Obake no Q-Tarō (Japanese: オバケのQ太郎, Hepburn: Obake no Kyū-Tarō) is a Japanese manga series by Fujiko Fujio about the titular obake, Q-Taro, who lives with the Ōhara family. Q-Tarō, 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-Tarō and his friends. The manga was drawn in 1964–1966, 1971–1974, 1976 by the duo Fujiko Fujio (Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko). An English manga volume was published in Japan as Q the Spook.[1]
There are three anime series adaptations of Obake no Q-Tarō. The first was shown on the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) in black and white, and ran from 1965 to 1967. The second series, produced in color, ran from 1971 to 1972 on Nippon TV. The third series ran from 1985 to 1987 on TV Asahi.
The series was broadcast in the United States in the 1970s as Little Ghost Q-Taro, making it one of only three works by Fujiko Fujio to reach North America.[2] In France, one of the episodes of the 1965 series was aired in November 1967 as part of ORTF Chaine 2's Japanese week, complete with French subtitles.[3]
A human friend of Q-tarō, Shōta Ōhara is an elementary school student. Q-Tarō calls him "Shō-chan" (正ちゃん) and Shota calls Q-Tarō "Q-chan" (Qちゃん). His grades are generally poor, and he was once second from the bottom of his class.
Shota's older brother and the eldest son of the Ohara family who is a middle school student. Unlike Shota, his academic ability during his middle school days are average. Whenever Shinichi is at home, he usually spends his time listening to music, specifically enjoying records from the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
Doronpa is an American obake. Q-Tarō tends to have a rivalry towards him due to the fact that U-ko idolizes Doronpa's intelligence and he likes to annoy Q-Tarō because he is Japanese.
Shota's rich classmate who kisses up to Godzilla. His name is also similar to the rich boy in Kaibutsu-kun He has an assortment of 0's and 100's at will.
Ramen eater character that Q-taro always eats his ramen if he comes to Koike's room. He also appears too as a ramen eater in Doraemon, he appears as a teacher in Ninja Hattori-kun, he appears as Michio's father in Ultra B, and he becomes both between ramen eater and teacher in Biriken.
Ohara's neighbor and Doronpa lives with him and resembles Doraemon.
Reception and impact
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The popularity of the 1965 anime adaptation caused a cultural phenomenon called "Oba-Q boom" (オバQブーム Oba-Kyū būmu), which made the series have an 30% audience rating, high popularity with children and spawn a variety of toys, songs and clothes, as well a host of imitators. The reason of Q-Tarō's popularity was that the series was grounded in everyday Japanese life, with Q-Tarō questioning the structure of Japanese society and the comedic situations that occurred because of Q-Tarō misinterpreting it.[4][5][6]
Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani cited the series as inspiration for the designs of the Ghosts in the Pac-Man video game series.[7] In the manga series To Love Ru, the ghost character Shizu Murasame has a fear of dogs as an homage to Little Ghost Q-Taro.[8]
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