A ghost dad watches his useless son run a grocery store into the ground, then decides haunting him is easier than letting him fail. The comedy comes from watching a dead man parent through pure supernatural stubbornness. Ataro's not trying to be funny, he's just catastrophically ordinary, and that's exactly what makes this work.

Batsugoro runs Yaobatsu, a grocery store, until he dies in a fall while trying to fetch a balloon stuck in a tree for a small child. His son Ataro takes over the business, but Batsugoro is too worried about the boy to move on and lingers as a ghost. Ataro handles the store by himself at first, until his follower Dekoppachi starts pitching in. Odd figures such as Nyarome and Butamatsu fill out their world in a warm-hearted comedy series from 1969, adapted from Fujio Akatsuka's manga.