Higanbana 1st Night Ch. 2: The Spirit Camera

[Aspirety]

General discussion topic for Chapter 2: The Spirit Camera of Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni: The First Night. Please tag any references to later chapters or outside works with the [spoiler] tag, providing adequate context in parenthesis.
We take spoilers very seriously, and ignoring this rule could potentially result in a ban.

While this topic will serve as a general hub for discussion of the Chapter, if a conversation ends up flowing in a certain direction (eg. You start talking about the series as a whole rather than this particular Chapter), don’t be afraid to continue it in your own topic! Keep the “reply as linked topic” button beside each post in mind.

What would you rate this chapter?

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[Karifean]

Love how this chapter plays with your expectations after how Chapter 1 went. Suspense and character writing is great Ryukishi stuff.

[akafa123]

Higanbana admitted to having resting bitch face and I love it. Causing drama everywhere she goes, what an icon! Your youkais would never! Slay!

[Aspirety]

Wooow, I loved this chapter! Like Karifean pointed out, it very cleverly subverts your expectations. The chapter seemed to have quite a few places where I expected it to reach a conclusion, but we kept moving forward in unexpected directions. The chapter starts off feeling a lot more lighthearted than the first one; no more dealing with a rapist and his victim, we just have a humble boy with a keen interest in seeking out the truth. Through Takeshi we got a great lens to analyse the world of the Youkai through a more critical lens, and for a while it all felt pretty straight-forward.

And then we find out Takeshi isn’t so innocent. But it turns out, it was the Headmaster that robbed him of his memories. And then, we have this tragic turn for the story, where things are probably going to end very pitifully, the two attempting to murder each other out of their rage. And then, when I’m expecting the worst, something magical happens and they forgive each other. I’ll admit, I got very teary-eyed here. Even though we’ve barely known these characters for a few minutes, the strength of these two to put aside their hatred and forgive each other, even after a suicide happened, is such a catharsis after the deep despair of the last chapter. I felt so happy for them and proud of them, that they’d managed to break the cycle of hate. And to make things even better, we get some character development for Marie. Seems that since she became a Youkai, things have worked out pretty great for her. She’s found her courage and strength, and continues to fight for what’s right. As for Higanbana, she’s certainly fickle, but I don’t think she’s that horrible. I think she’s just a bit too obsessed with her own idea of justice: that all sinners must pay the price, and there’s no redemption outside of death. But hey, as long as Marie is around, we can rest a little easier. I really didn’t expect such an optimistic chapter so early in the game, these are develops I’d be expecting in The Second Night, not chapter two. Makes me wonder what other despair is waiting for us in the chapters to come.

This one gets a 5/5 for terrific writing and a wonderful emotional payoff.

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

Aspi@Assignment Hell (Aspirety)

[MagusVerborum]

@Aspirety damn, you’re already ahead of me. I’ll have to read twice as fast to catch up!

[U4ea]

Yes yes, @MagusVerborum! Please keep reading! I’m ahead of you too~ You have to catch up to me! (In all seriousness, it’s not a race, take your time, okay?)

So, is it just me, or is anyone else getting weird Goosebumps vibes when reading this? No, not actual goosebumps, but Goosebumps, the children’s horror books written by R.L. Stine. I read that stuff a lot as a kid. Anyway, this story reminded me of a somewhat similar story in Goosebumps called Say Cheese and Die. The premise of that story also involved a haunted camera, only the camera predicted people’s deaths rather than being able to see the dead.

Enough of being reminded of the 90’s. It’s Higanbana time~

I found Takeshi super endearing. I wanted to root for him because he was framed for something he didn’t do, and part of me wanted to see him expose the group of girls for their lying.

His obsession with finding and documenting the truth reminded me of a certain detective from Umineko.

Anyways, it’s screenshot time again!

Beatrice Marie exists. But, Takeshi forgot about her. Takeshi takes a picture of his class (including the dead Marie), and ends up finding Marie in the picture. Only after staring at the picture a while that he remembers who Marie was, and how she died. He then shows her picture to her mother, who also forgot that Marie exists. Marie’s mom then remembers that she has a third daughter and screams in anguish. Takeshi’s a bit spooked, so he runs away into a creepy alley where he runs into the creepy Headmaster.

Seriously, can we talk about how terrifying the Headmaster’s sprite is? Ryukishi’s expressions are really good and creepy in Higanbana. But there’s something I find especially unsettling about the amount of eyes on this guy’s design… I feel like he’s staring at me through the screen!

We find out that Takeshi is responsible for the suicide of a girl named Yoko. Turns out, she was the girl who framed him for knocking over the skeleton at the beginning of the story. He stalked her and took pictures of her in attempt to get “justice”, when really he was getting “revenge”. The two are very similar, yet very different concepts. Higanbana doesn’t seem to understand this, and wants Takeshi to pay for his sins regardless. Even if he’s technically not to blame for not remembering, as the Headmaster stole the memory of Yoko from Takeshi’s memory, just as he stole the memory of Marie from her mother.

Both Yoko and Takeshi confess their sins to one another and forgive each other, allowing Yoko’s spirit to finally find peace. Higanbana doesn’t like that much, but Marie defends Takeshi until the end. It’s a great ending to this great and incredibly emotional chapter.

[MagusVerborum]

Alright, I’m at the end of chapter 2. Gotta say, I found this chapter more interesting than chapter 1. We get a closer understanding of the Youkai and what makes them tick, and even get a peek at Higanbana’s true motivations towards the end.

This chapter can be framed (heh) concisely by the question the Headmaster asks of Takeshi during his ‘confrontation’ with Higanbana. ‘Truth or Peace?’ Takeshi claims that his goal is to search for the truth with his camera, I would even go so far as to claim that Takeshi believe that Takeshi=camera and camera=truth then Takeshi= truth as well. It’s certainly a shock to him that he didn’t have the truth and I feel this really highlights the all powerful nature of the Youkai, completely subverting his worldview in such a violent way.

Speaking of which, we get an up close look at the power of the Youkai. Higanbana bends metal pipes into spears, Headmaster summons a swamp of tar to consume victims and Marie can turn her arms real thick. And then we get to one of the most interesting parts of the novel, as someone who greatly enjoys meta-analysis of Ryukishi’s work. Higanbana begins to fall into Mesomeso-san’s story, and becomes overwhelmed (or at least seems to, more on that later). It makes me wonder how you might fall into the stories of the other 7 Youkai, how their power levels work and how the stories might interact with each other.

I’m also trying to figure out what Higanbana’s origin is, since her attack is dancing and bending metal pipes, maybe herstory stems from a student who fell in a sewerage plant and got pulverised? Just a thought, I’m going to have to search for more clues as to Higanbana’s nature.

…Which seems to be fairly benevolent. I had suspected for some time that Higanbana wasn’t as bad as the stories made her out to be, and yes her methods may be just a little aggressive I think Marie was hinting Higanbana really cares about the children of the school. For all the threats and the violence we saw she didn’t eat Takeshi even though she had plenty opportunity to do so. If we flip the chessboard around (oh god) it seems clear that the terrifying visage of Higanbana is more to lend power to her legend than for actually murdering and eating students. Appearances can be deceiving, perhaps?

Framing is obviously a big part of this chapter and I’ve already talked about how Ryukishi is a master of framing in Umineko, I’ll just say that I think we can learn a lot about Ryukishi’s relationship with his writing by observing the way Takeshi engages with his photography. Both artists seek to express themselves through their art.

"the photos in these albums are arranged chronologically. Because how your interestes moved with time. "

This has got to be self-reflection on Ryukishi’s part. Each new work has been reactive to his previous work, something which I appreciate very much in his writing.

I have one final theory I’d like to poke at before I give my final thoughts. It’s pretty clear that Higanbana can read Takeshi’s ‘thoughts’ through their interaction. This must apply even when the narrative doesn’t draw attention to it. I think it’s worth rereading this chapter, particularly the final confrontation, with this in mind. I think this also implies that Youkai can ‘read’ the narration of the novel. Whether this is part of the story or not is up for debate right now but I’m on to you Ryukishi!

Also I might have teared up a little bit when I realised what was going to show up in that final photo. Dem feels.

[MagusVerborum]

Something I just thought of: Higanbana and the other Youkai are “feeding” Headmaster. If the Youkai truly believed in the mantra of ‘hunt or be hunted’ they would just slit his throat and eat him. The more I think about these two chapters the less convinced I am that the Youkai are any level of evil. The reputation is what matters, and that keeps ‘predator’ humans in check. I wonder if Ryukishi will be discussing what we learn from stories, particularly ghost stories and fairy tales that are supposed to teach us good qualities for contributing to society. I’m excited to find out.

[Aspirety]

I dunno, I have the feeling that the Youkai have a symbiotic relationship with the headmaster. Without him to warp reality and make people forget, the humans would all flee and there’d be no more prey left for them. They need the headmaster.

EDIT: I was wondering, does anyone know what Takeshi’s camera would look like? Trying to find a reference image.

[kyuketsukimiyu]

A lone man comes across a truth, one that the world has forgotten, one that has conspiracy covering it up. But despite the dangers involved, he clings to this truth, and he fights, eventually bringing the truth to light for all to see. And because of that the day is saved! Ah, how noble!

Or so a lot of movie and book plots lead you to think. As people have mentioned above this story subverts your expectations. Humans have an interesting relationship with the truth. Choosing truth is generally a pretty safe way to be in the moral right. So as we are reading Takeshi’s unwavering pursuit of the truth is something I think most readers resonate with as being “right” Even as the story starts dropping hints to the contrary - the mother going crazy, and Takeshi projecting feelings onto Marie to soothe his conscious - my expectation at least was not that “the truth” was wrong but that Takeshi very much might not be able to handle the truth.

And Higanbana gives him his truth. She shows him what his dogged pursuit has done, by telling him that forcing Marie’s mother to remember would lead to her death, and then showing him the past where a similar obsession he had got out of hand and lead a girl to commit suicide. Higanbana makes him face this truth in the most literal sense by actually bring that girl - the girl who’s lie shaped his life and who he drove to suicide before him and pitting them against each other. We are in a situation here where we are forced to wonder if Takeshi will cave and fight her? Will he let her kill him as a sort of atonement? Neither answer sounds appetizing as the reader - we have been with Takeshi and like him, and the story has done well to present him as generally good if misguided. But this new girl is tragic and it is hard to not understand the need for justice in the wake of her suicide. This worked brilliantly to create a sense of frantic tension. What do you as the reader want to have happen? What will happen?

And then they choose to let go and forgive. To “end the cycle.” Peace found in letting go, and both Takeshi and the girl become better for it. She escapes her hell, and Takeshi is stronger, and well, still alive. Choosing peace over absolute truth leads us readers to a happy ending we had probably thought impossible moments earlier. Their peace is our peace, so even though the conclusion between the two was not a dramatic fight it seems like the best conclusion was still achieved.

Now, I certainly don’t think that story was trying to disparage the truth. Takeshi chooses to remember the girl whom he drove to suicide, and you feel like he has become stronger and probably more moral as a result. He will be a better person for having faced his sins and accepted them. But the story does want to make you think of the cost associated with the truth, and suggests that there is a line, decidedly, where clinging to the truth leads to an endless cycle of grudges and punishments that is simply not productive and adds to the suffering in the world.

So other readers and podcasters truth or peace? And did your answer change from when the headmaster first posed the question to now that you have finished it?

and also Should Marie have forgiven the Teacher in the first story instead exacting her revenge?

Marie says that she thinks she maybe should have done as much, and maybe for the sake of her own soul it would have been the better. But as a reader it feels very clear that the teacher would have never repented and would have gone on to more and possibly greater atrocities. Plus now we get to see Marie grow as a person - something that would probably have been denied to her had the events of the first story not played out as they had.

Some other things…
I loved the more traditional horror story presentation that made up 3/4ths of this story. Like @U4ea mentioned above it was a bit reminiscent of reading Goosebump books as a kid (I was all about It Came From Beneath The Sink) and Higanbana shows us much more about herself. I love characters like her - the character my username is based has some distinct similarities. I agree with what @Aspirety said above, the impression is not so much that Higanbana is truly is horrible, but more that her pursuit of justice is warped - likely by time, tragedy and circumstance. The demons do seem to draw power from their legends, and it is apparent that cruelty is built into the world of yokai. Her legend is old and Higanbana herself has achieved the third rank - she has been playing the game for years now.

From here I wanted to call out the awesomeness of the yokai battles. The way the mechanics of their legends was really interesting. Not that I should be surprised at how well these were handled after the time I have spent with Umineko, but when Marie used the power of her Mesomeso-san legend to trap Higanbana - who we had seen take on the first rank demon - it was exciting and I was basically on the edge of my seat cheering for her.

But what is the extent of Higanbana’s powers? In the first two stories Higanbana seems to be interested in offering bullied girls their revenge, so does bulling relate to her origin story? And how does that fit in with the tragedy of a “doll never played with?” I think the pipes may have been compared to needles at one point, and since the Higanbana flower is something thought to be on the shore between life and death, coupled with her haunting the nurses office I wonder if in life she was very sickly and ended up dying alone there.

Anyways I loved this chapter and am really enjoying Higanbana a lot so far. Looking forward to chapter 3!

[VyseGolbez]

Hmm, there’s not so much I have to say this time. My prediction in chapter 1 turned out to be wrong. One thing I am really curious about right now is what the headmaster’s legend is, since I would assume that there is something that the students at this school are telling to each other about the guy.

[MagusVerborum]

I have to assume the Youkai’s appearance and abilities are related to their mystery somehow. Headmaster seems to be tied with swamps in some way. I’m instantly reminded of Higurashi’s “throw someone in the swamp to placate the demon” and I wonder if the Headmaster was involved in some similar sinister ritual, either as victim or perpetrator.

[Seraphitic]

Ahhhh, this is the good stuff.

I really liked this chapter. Compared to the last chapter I thought it had a much more interesting protagonist. The world building was much better and just in general I felt more invested in the world of Higanbana by the end of this chapter.

First let’s start with the story. I liked the story for the most part. Almost everything was pretty intense and, again, Ryukishi was really good on the pacing of his story as compared to Higurashi and Umineko. One complaint I had was that the whole ‘both of them forgiving each other’ was pretty cliche and predictable, in my opinion. While I could see it coming from a mile away I felt like it was executed pretty well. Not trying to say that it wasn’t a good end to the story, just an incredibly predictable one.

Secondly, the themes in this story. I’m someone who values truth and always have been. I prefer to know the truth even if it’s painful because I feel like peace without truth is a house of cards just waiting to crumple. Even with how this chapter seems to push the idea that truth may not be the highest of ideals, I feel like that might not be an entirely faithful interpretation of the message of this story. After all, we see here that Takeshi is able to have both. So why should we choose one over the other? I think that what we see here is that if we prioritize peace over truth we set ourselves up for unpleasantness. It seems to me that the death of the mother didn’t have to happen if peace hadn’t been prioritized over truth. It was just waiting for someone to pull out that bottom card. I don’t think we should say that peace is more important but rather that we should make peace with the truth rather than ignore the truth.

Next Takeshi is a good protagonist. An imperfect one and deeply flawed but a great character to explore these topics. He is someone who seems to value truth over all and yet his current character is based on a lie. Quite an interesting paradox for him to overcome.

We are now at three youkai and all of them just make the world so much richer. I like how there’s now a bit of an ecosystem developing with the other youkai eating people and the Headmaster swallowing their existence. It’s nice to have a sensible, supernatural world. Higanbana is quickly becoming my best girl. She’s insane and I love it. It seems that Ryukishi has a thing for cycles as we see in some of her dialogue about how bullying is a cycle. I’m going to have to disagree a little with people here about whether or not Higanbana has a sense of ‘justice’. Some people seem to think that she just has a perverted sense of justice. From how I read it, she is simply amoral. From the look of things the only reason she eats bad people is because it makes their souls taste better. She revels in the cycle of bullying because it means endless meals for her. She doesn’t seem to care who lives or dies as long as she’s amused and fed.

This brings us to Marie, the moral compass of the story. She’s almost blindingly optimistic. I have to say, she definitely seems to have grown a bit since the last story, which I appreciate. She’s actually able to enforce her worldview and stand up for herself against Higanbana. She is a peacemaker and generally just a good person. I have to say, that scene where she used her power on the door to stop Higanbana’s rampage was pure gold. I’m expecting great things from this character in the future.

Finally let’s end with a prediction. Marie seems like she’s not going about eating people. While we might like that from a moral standpoint I’m betting Higanbana is going to do something like Tokyo Ghoul and make her start starving to death because she isn’t eating souls. It seems like a pretty likely story line at some point.

Well I hope everyone else enjoyed this chapter as much as I did.

[HolyHawk]

Peace or Truth, which one is more important?
In my opinion, it depends on the circumstances. There are some truths that will have an very negative impact on you if you ignore it. On the other hand, avoiding the truth will in a lot of situations allow you and others a happier future.

In this chapter, I think that Higanbana referral of the “hell” that Numata will return to is a metaphor for being on the side of being bullied. That to avoid it, she must hunt instead of being hunted. To bully, rather than be bullied.

Nonomiya was an interesting character that made me reflect upon my past. For the majority of the chapter, he was someone that represented ‘justice’ in the sense that a police should seek out the truth. But, a brief dilemma arose revealing how superficial he actually is when he considered the following question: whether he should force others (Moria’s mother) to remember Moria’s existence. He then made the self-justification that no one would truly want to be forgotten, but at the same time, does not take responsibility when he forced the revealation on others (he ran instead). I found that annoying, and hypocritical. How could he have good intentions or be morally correct if he decides to expose someone’s weakness and yet do not have a plan (or at least try) to take responsibility?

Nonomiya’s superficialness was further revealed when he says
I’m intentionally making a distinction between what’s all right to forget and what must not be forgotten"
Indeed, everyone do that to some extent. In fact, I have read an article by someone who viewed photographs in a very pessimistic and negative light, which has affected me for a substantial period. He/she argued that people intentionally pose for the taking of a photo; it is not the true state of how people act everyday; it is artifical; it’s what they want others to see their life, to have other envy them, to know that their life is more enjoyable/eventful than others.

The reversal of Nonomiya from a justice figure to a sinner was particularly interesting to see. One may argue that Nonomiya is not at fault because it was the Headmaster that erased his memory. But in fact, our memory fades overtime, and there are theories as to whether it disappears completely or is just harder to recall. On this basis, I suggest that it isn’t necessary for the Headmaster to erase his memory. In fact, it would fade overtime, and allowing that to happen would in my view be a sin in itself. Imagine it from Numata’s perspective: Nonomiya drove you to suicide and is now enjoying life by abusing the human fraility of memory decay overtime. Worst still, by the end of the chapter, Nonomiya says “he will never forget Numata”. But, what precisely does he mean? I think he has merely ‘made peace with himself’ by agreeing to himself that as penalty for continuing to live after all the bad things he have done to Numata, he remember her. Realistically speaking, unless he makes a conscious effort everyday to remember what he did, I cannot forgive him, because otherwise, he would simply allow the memory to fade.

The saving grace and the most memorable dialogue/lesson I learned is this from Numata:
That day running around the science room, all my friends were enjoying themselves and I truly had fun.
Studying, playing, making friends.
That is why we came to school.

If we just remember what each person’s original purpose is in coming to school, we will truly know that what each person has become is not what they wanted to be. That every one of us wanted and is still wishing to achieve those purposes, but on our way to achieving it, was influenced by others who failed to achieve it due to…
As evidence of Ryushiki actually meaning to get this message across, see the tea interaction between Higanbana and Moriya at the end of this chapter.

[Kennidy]

I just finished this chapter last night.

I’m really glad that we saw a fight scene between the youkai. As someone who enjoyed the magic battle scenes in Umineko, I really hope to read more of them.

A theme that was introduced in the middle was: truth vs. peace. At first, I sided with Nonomiya; I’d prefer letting the truth be known in hope that someday it creates that peace. Unfortunately, it is not always so easy, and this is a lesson that I’m still in the process of learning.

At first, I was disgusted with what Nonomiya had done, even though he had forgotten all about it. I know what it’s like to be on that side where I’ve done something to hurt someone and be mercilessly cyber-stalked to find anything to give me a bad name. It isn’t a fun situation to be in, to feel like all eyes are on you and that you’ll be ridiculed for any little thing. As such, it was really easy to find myself pitying Numata. Still, I’m glad the two of them acknowledged their faults in the end and chose to move on, rather than trying to get their revenge on other. That’s all I could ever hope for in my own experiences, too.

look at these cuties!

I really enjoy Higanbana as a character. I don’t think that she is very representative of justice, per se, especially not after pitting Marie against her teacher in the first chapter. However, I do like the “middleman” role she plays–forcing two parties who had caused each other harm to confront each other. The way she just eggs people on reminds me of certain witches.

Also, I really like Marie and Higanbana’s friendship. They compliment each other well.

[TsukiyoAlex]

What a chapter! So many things going through my mind!

It’s great to have a magical fighting scene once in a while, however I didn’t expect it to have that good ending, maybe this game is the type to start nicely and end gruesomely? That would be interesting.

In terms of Truth or Peace I think Truth is the best answer. It doesn’t necessarily brings pain and sorrow, lingering does. You must accept the truth and learn from your mistakes, and it was really nice to see how Nonomiya chose that to bitter end.

Higanbana is slowly showing off more of her character, I feel like she’s been through quite a lot of suffering herself and I can’t wait to see more of her past unveiled, I hope it’s shown how she became a youkai.

[PocketyHat]

Finished the second chapter!
And I have never been more glad to be so unimpressed at the first chapter as I am now. It seems like the previous story lowered my expectations so much that I was absolutely blown away by this one. Bravo Ryukishi, you tricked my overthinking brain to not to think as much!~

So much that, uhm… god… I don’t think there’s anything I didn’t particularly like about this chapter.
I could say the story was cliché with forgiveness and all, but I think after the previous chapter full of despair and all, I think we really needed a positive message right now before moving on.

But this makes it hard to start stating the things that I liked… hm…

Alright first things first, truth.
This was the view of truth that I seem to apply, that if there’s no proof, and if you’re alone, then your truth is not considered the “real” truth. So seeing this injustice happening, I quickly clicked with Takeshi’s suffering, and I kept empathizing with him throughout the entire chapter. So what Takeshi felt, I also felt on those exact situations. Because in truth, I passed through a similar roller-coaster that he went through, with all the truth obsession and expecting a mistake from a person and other details that are too personal (Tho’ for the record, nobody died, fortunately). So I just… understood how he felt at all times.
One important detail that I related to the most was this: Making a mistake on obsessing over something, thus hurting someone greatly, and not remembering about it at all. This detail affected me on a personal level and I honestly felt called out on it. And this was kind of hard to sit through to read for me, because I knew what most of this was like from experience (except from having youkai adventures, yikes.)
And on the part where Higanbana was trying to make Takeshi and Yoko kill each other, man, if I were in Takeshi’s situation I would have also allowed her to kill me. It just… felt the most logical and fair option to me.
Okay, basically, as much of a horrible stalker asshole Takeshi was, I can’t help but slip myself easily into his shoes and not blame him too much without calling myself a hypocrite.

Moving on, I’m just gonna throw some more general reactions that I had while reading this chapter before sharing some details that I thought about:

1. I was at first happy that Marie got mentioned again, and that escalated into “IT’S MY CHILD!!! AND SHE’S BADASS!!!” once she herself appeared in the scenes.
2. “There are 48 people in my class. She’s the 49th person.” Is this Umineko
3. Takeshi was obviously projecting his feelings on Marie AND Higanbana. Y’know, the stuff about not wanting to be forgotten, being lonely, yearning for a safe place, and all that good stuff.
4. As most others who read, I also loved the Marie and Higanbana fight and how they utilized their legends to fight, that was really cool and I wanna see how this is gonna be utilized later.
5. Also, Marie putting her foot down to Higanbana like dayuuum, you go girl.
6. The Headmaster’s introduction was creepy as hell and I loved it.
7. Apparently talking to a youkai is like talking to a pet animal, youkai=animal confirmed.
8. Who hurt you Higanbana?

Anyway, now onto some thoughts that I had while reading the chapter.

First, the choice presented of truth vs peace was interesting. Normally I would pick truth with no hesitation, but reading the chapter now… I thought about it a little more. Sure, logically, I want to know the truth, even if it hurts and causes me to break down. I believe that truth is more important so you can improve yourself easier and know where you should work on to be a better person towards others. Thing is however… I believe that, but my actions don’t really indicate that I want to know the truth, especially since I tend to run away from conflict to make sure nobody gets hurt by the truth, and I tend to be a pretty sensitive person, so I react badly with critiques and all, no matter how nicely it is put. I only allow myself get hurt by the truth to an extent. So… despite believing in truth being important above else, I act upon peace. Because nowadays I can’t stand hurting people, no matter how inevitable and necessary it may be. I run away from things that I don’t like, and I’m not proud of it.
So keeping in mind that truth vs peace is not always an active choice, (and that sometimes you can have both) let’s look at… both Takeshi and Yoko. By the way, before I continue, I’m loving this theme of two characters being similar in a lot of ways but being different in certain aspects. Gives a little duality perspective, you know? Anyway, these two hurt each other. One by lying, the other by stalking and starting the bullying. Of course that Takeshi’s wrong doing is honestly worse, but let’s think about this. Why did they do what they did?
Let’s start with Yoko, the simpler one. Sure, she said that maybe she wanted to see what Takeshi would do, but really, it was to keep herself from getting in trouble. From avoiding getting scolded. Maintaining peace, as you will. In fact, a lot of her character arc seems to be about running away from stuff to find peace. Running away from getting scolded, from the bullying, killing herself to run away from suffering, trying to have revenge to run away from the cold place called hell… And… in the end, once she finally faced Takeshi, she probably regretted running away. Which is probably why she forgave Takeshi and found peace at last. She didn’t need to run away anymore to find peace.
Meanwhile, we have Takeshi himself. The one who believes in the importance of truth. He did what he did because at first he wanted to make sure the truth was exposed and all that. But that grew into a feeling of revenge, obsession to make sure that Yoko feels the pain that he felt. You know, it’s really easy to notice how he can sometimes be hypocritical and superficial, but he wasn’t realizing that just all this time, he wanted to maintain his own peace in his mind by using the truth. Eventually, truth just kinda stopped mattering much, and all that was there was him trying to be at peace by having revenge. And… you know how that ended. I wonder what would have happened if his memories of her were never erased… ah well.
So… while truth might be very important for people, it’s important to note that despite an individual’s beliefs, they might want to act upon their own peace more than what they might think.

Moving on from this, with all the youkai battle stuff going on, I couldn’t help but to put my mystery mindset into work and figure out how some details can be explained without the spirits being around and all. This started from Marie’s mother’s reaction. Because… I think forgetting about her own daughter might have been some sort of a mental defense mechanism so that she wouldn’t go psycho on everyone and get thrown into a mental hospital. Because losing your own child must be heavily traumatic, so who knows what your brain might do to not go into a breakdown. Plus, the Headmaster conveniently made her forget again. Which feels like a cheap way of not allowing anyone to die, unless it was an actual defense mechanism. Everything else could just have been in Takeshi’s mind, introspecting, thinking of what ifs, and all that.

But with this train of thought, I thought about something interesting about Higanbana herself. Especially since we got more of her character in this chapter. I decided to look at her from a storytelling perspective, instead of looking at her as a character, as I usually do.
I was trying to figure out what exactly she represents in all of this.
Think about it, she was very adamant about the “bully or be bullied” mentality. And she seems very very neutral when it comes to morals to the point where she didn’t care who would kill who, fitting to a youkai of course as they need to feed somehow. There’s also the obvious contrast between her and Marie’s optimism and hopefulness. Hm… I would throw a wild guess at her being some sort of a representation of “natural order”, with all implications of there not being much of a society in the youkai world aside from the 7(8?) mysteries, and all the food and food chain analogies. But I’m not too sure about this, but it was an interesting thought.

Anyway, I loved this chapter, and I wish I could say more, but I already rambled on a lot, so better stop here for now.

[Aspirety]

Thanks for the awesome post @PocketyHat! You’ve certainly come back with a bang. Thank you in particular for sharing how to reflected on you personally. I can see you got a lot out of this particular chapter.

[Ushiromiya_Battler]

I really enjoyed this chapter.

Let’s start with Higanbana, because yesterday I said she left a positive impression on me, but in this chapter she demonstrated her cruelty and ultimately, she strikes me as a very fickle character. She reminds me so much of certain witches from Umineko. She can be your ally, but she can turn against you just like that and pit you against someone for her own amusement. Initially, I suspected this could all be an act in order to force the the two victims to confront each other, thinking that maybe forgiveness was her ultimate goal, but by the end of the chapter I was forced to realize that she just has this malicious side to her and that’s simply a part of her true nature. Nevertheless, I remain curious to see where she goes from here.

I was ecstatic to see Marie confronting Higanbana and embracing her abilities as Mesomeso-san. Closing the door, then saying her magic words while threatening Higanbana, it was just so amazing. If only Marie could have managed to find this kind of confidence in real life…

The chapter ultimately focuses on abuse, bullying and most of all, revenge, or to be more accurate, breaking the cycle of revenge. Ryukishi uses the character Yoko to deliver a certain message: “Talk to someone. Ask for help. Suicide is not the answer.” This is identical to the way he used Kanamori (and the way he mocked Marie) to tell us that we should ask someone for advice and support, not just silently take the abuse.

Furthermore, he demonstrates through Yoko and Takeshi that the cycle of revenge can be broken by talking things out and apologizing. I loved the entire exchange between Yoko and Takeshi because it was so human, and the final scene with Takeshi taking a picture and realizing that Yoko was finally at peace was heartwarming.

Headmaster? That dude is creepy as f*ck. Seriously, what is up with that sprite? If I saw a man like that while all by myself in a dark alley, I would seriously lose it. I don’t have much to say on him. Seems just as malicious as Higanbana, but will apparently not harm you if you show him respect.

Takeshi was okay. I didn’t think he was the most interesting character, but I thought it was an interesting choice to have Takeshi’s defining interest originate from such a negative incident. The reveal that Takeshi just casually forgetting his revenge was actually the result of Headmaster making everyone forget about Yoko (who Takeshi had previously bullied) was a fun twist and once again made me appreciate Ryukishi for being able to make his characters so three-dimensional, multi-layered and so human.

I’m not sure if I enjoyed this more than the first chapter. I feel like the first chapter left a much stronger impact on me, but this was certainly a great piece of writing. I’m looking forward to more.

[Jin_Uzuki]

I don’t think I have seen it posted, but the death scene (Other R07’s works spoiler) felt deeply familiar.

But anyway, good chapter. It was good to see Marie fighting back and becoming some sort of Youkai-Batman.(assuming I got the chapter right)