© ぬじま・小学館/ 「怪異と乙女と神隠し」製作委員会
Despite some problems, this might be my favorite episode of Mysterious Disappearances to date. For what feels like the first, it leans on darker elements and folklore connections, suggesting that it's working within a framework equivalent to folklore studies. The supernatural creature, mostly referred to by the name of a specific Taiwanese ghost, turns out to be more than just a transplanted urban legend. It is an amalgamation of many ghostly creatures from all over Asia (though mainly Taiwan and Japan), fused to form a new creature that combines aspects of all of them into one monster. The most terrible new thing. Just as the original ghost story evolved into regional variations within the country, those parts were combined with Japanese ghost stories to create a new story. So the ghost is female and wears red, like Taiwan's Hong Yi Xiao Nü Gui, but she is also susceptible to the same things that work on Japan's most famous girl in red, Hanako of the toilet. She follows the chain pattern of the Japanese Shichinin Misaki (and a variation of the story originating from Shibuya that has all seven ghosts being high school girls) so that each victim of Hong Yi Xiao Nü Gui takes her place. for previous victims. Still, she knocks on the door, like a specific variation of the college story. Thus, Curiosity captured Tomoko as everything and none of the stories: a water ghost, a lost girl, and a bathroom ghost all at once, a tragedy that keeps repeating itself.
The repetitive nature of the story Curiosity drives the ending of this case. Last week we learned that the ghost's current form is that of Shizuku's missing friend Tomoko, and that tells us that Tomoko is almost certainly no longer alive. When that last bit of hope is stripped from Shizuku, she tries to replace Oto as the ghost's intended victim, something Sumireko and Adashino almost certainly could have predicted had they kept their history a secret. hers. Shizuku's childhood was horrible: the abandoned child of a woman who gave her a handful of coins and threw her out after school every day wearing only shorts and a T-shirt. Shizuku initially finds herself welcomed by the kids at school, but is later snubbed. when their parents began to feel uncomfortable with her deprivation. Depending on the culture where you live, this may seem almost unbelievable; If these adults saw a child who was clearly abandoned (and it was obvious), why wouldn't they try to help her? Why did they invite her to a meal? Or at least don't call the authorities? In the end, only Tomoko was willing to step up to help little Shizuku, so now that something happens to her, Shizuku feels like she owes the same to the person who was willing to help.
I almost wish this episode hadn't saved Shizuku. I love a happy ending as much as (and maybe more than) the next person. However, Adashino, Oto and Sumireko trying to save Shizuku almost felt like the episode was struggling. Shizuku has felt powerless for so long, deprived of the ability to make her own choices, that taking this choice away almost goes against her character development. It's good that she decided to live for herself and her lost friend, but it also feels like it came out of nowhere. That doesn't detract from the bittersweet moment when she gets her hair cut by a ghost version of Tomoko, which is beautiful in itself, like when Shizuku starts to fall apart in the rain. But although her survival allows us to learn more about the workings of Kisaragi Station, it somehow feels like the author is afraid to venture into the darkness it promises.
Station answering and tickets certainly help alleviate that problem. Many people were skeptical before Adashino this week confirmed that Kisaragi Station resembles the station in Japanese urban legend, a mysterious train station that either doesn't exist or is located on the border between two worlds. (It is also used in Otherside Picnic, where American soldiers hide.) In this version, the station seems to function as a resting place between worlds, a place to buy tickets with curiosities and words. curse, and where visitors can rest for a while; hence the bedroom where Adashino and Oto slept. The brothers live there to help Adashino find enough “money” to return his sister to her world, but as the mysterious ticket seller mentioned this week, he may be a different story. Oto is or was human—and that wasn't true of her brother. It's possible that this episode is setting up a parallel relationship between Adashino and Shizuku, willing to sacrifice everything for the person they care about. If that's the case, perhaps Shizuku survived for a very specific reason: to give us hope, however, that the same will happen to Adashino.
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Mysterious Disappearance is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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