[
Mouryou no Hako] - 6
This is going to be pretty much all
spoilers for this episode and what's happened before in the series.
It's that time again, everyone. I've decided to get off my lazy butt and actually put this post together. I don't actually think that this story is best consume one episode a week. The key to understanding this series is seeing and understanding how all the webs are connected and that can be very hard to do when it's been a week since you've watched the last episode. The show really doesn't throw you a lifebelt either, it stubbornly refuses to let to remind you of character names or if we've already met a character earlier in the story. We don't flashback to earlier stuff at all. You just have to keep the entire cast of characters and everything that's happened to them in your head at all times. I must confess that I watch each episode more than once before writing these posts because otherwise I can't be sure I've actually got it.
The opening scene ties us back the original story that the show was actually about. Atsuko interviews a number of children who claim to have seen a box carrying ghost - their description seems to actually match up with Yorkio's details in regard to 'the man with white gloves'. Despite how important a figure he seems to be in this series we know precious little about him even half-way through the story.
Well, as far as this episode goes that's it for touching on the original storyline. We don't touch on either the disappearance of Kanako or the dismemberment murders again this episode. I imagine those of you watching this series are pretty shocked at this turn of events. Why in gods name is this story adding in a whole new storyline when it hasn't come anywhere near resolving or explaining anything that's come before? Surely if you just pile mystery upon mystery about plot upon plot you're going to end up with an Eureka Seven AO shaped disaster? Regardless of any concerns you might have this series presses ahead and we begin the infamous conversation episode.
This entire episode is devoted to a single, lengthy, complicated conversation that appears to be going nowhere and shedding light on nothing for huge stretches of time. In case you ever forgot that this series was based on a book than this episode is a sharp reminder. Unlike, say, the infamous 'circling' conversation scene in first episode of Fate/Zero the director does a lot of work to try and make this episode as visually interesting as possible whether it's via interesting camera work, camera angles, cuts or just showing us a cute cat. Don't pay too close attention to the cat, though, because if you do you'll be liable to miss what the heck is going on.
Now, on one hand this conversation has a very obvious and explicit purpose - to demonstrate just how clever Kyougokudou is. He's clearly got brains coming out of his arse he's so smart. He steers and guides Sekiguchi and Toriguch so clearly and decisively that they don't even realise they're being led.
As far as the shows themes and ideas are concerned one of the first things he does this episode is undermine the clairvoyance he demonstrated last episode - it was all, in fact, a trick. Underneath what appear to be extraordinary events and claims there is in fact a far more mundane reality. This is an important idea going forward.
Once we get past that initial round of discussion we arrive at the discussion of fortune espers, diviners, mediums, priests. Now, for many minutes it really isn't clear why Kyougokudou is going on a lengthy explanation of how these four different roles work - it appears to be a harmless if rather aimless response to an off-hand comment made by Toriguchi. This three minute lecture doesn't serve any apparent purpose until it's over:
Oh yes, you in the audience might be forgiven for forgetting that Toriguchi and Sekiguchi had come her to discuss the possibility that a medium is swindling people. Of course, they never get a chance to ask Kyougokudou for advice in this matter because he's already told them everything before they even asked for it - he's like a great chess player already moving several steps ahead.
Once we move onto that we get onto Toriguchi's discussion of the swindling medium. There are numerous people paying money to this medium, who appears to be leading a new religion of sorts. Obanko can cure you of the ills that affect you. From what the show has explicitly said there are no such things as spiritual powers and so this medium is just swindling people out of money. To further investigate this case Toriguchi uses a false story to try and get closer to the medium in question but, using some simple tricks, Toriguchi was unmasked before he could learn anything about the medium.
It's at this point in the episode that various things start to tie together. This swindling medium is the very same man that Yoirko's mother brought in to try and cleanse their home way back in episode three:
Not only that but it turns out this man is a box maker, which links in to one of the most common pieces of visual imagery in the entire series. On top of that it turns out that this box maker turned medium is named Hyouei. Hyouei's grandmother was a medium - presumably one of the women who we saw last episode during that lengthy segment which detailed the clairvoyance experiments. It hasn't been revealed, as of yet, which of the two women she was.
If you can mentally pull all those pieces together in your head then you're doing okay and you're ready for the episodes final reveal - that this unnamed medium grandmother had left a message in a vase. A message which simply said "Mouyrou". This simple word was apparently enough to make Hyouei become a medium himself and it also triggers an annoyed reaction in Kyougokudou.
I hope that's done a good job in explaining what the hell is going on!
Oh, crap, I haven't even had time to write what I thought about this episode - I liked it! The revelations are really difficult to keep up with and the story keeps expanding but I'm still intrigued to learn where it's going and how the hell it's all supposed to tie up.
I guess it wasn't so bad in the old DVD days because nothing worth buying came out in the UK (or if it did it was millennia after the States) so I could just import and be done with it, but now...
