A dead kid becomes the only thing standing between the living and the spirits that want to destroy them. Kitarou doesn't save the world with speeches or power levels. He saves it by actually listening to what the monsters want, then figuring out how to keep both sides alive. The show is relentless about this: evil spirits aren't a problem to obliterate, they're a problem to understand. What hits hardest is watching a ghost-child do the emotional labor that no living adult ever bothers with. Fifty years later, no other supernatural adventure show has ever gotten this right.

Kitarou is a ghost who spends his afterlife lending his abilities to humans who need help. Evil spirits exist to torment people, and Kitarou works to foil their plans. At his side is his father, who happens to be an eyeball. Steeped in the flavor of traditional Japanese folklore, the show mixes horror and comedy with supernatural adventure as the pair face one form of evil after another.