Episode 1-3 introduces key players in the drama. Yoriko, classmate Yuzuki Kanako, Yuzuki Youko, Amemiya, Sasada and Dr. Mimasaka. It also relates the close romantic friendship shared by Yoriko and Kanako. Yoriko (who suspiciously resembles the girl in the box), is a middle? high? school student with an obvious crush on the seemingly perfect Yuzuki Kanako. Kanako takes her under her wing and they embark on cafe outings and moonlit promenades.
Both girls have in common, lively imagination and uneasy family relations. Yoriko resents her humdrum, aging mother – a practical, somewhat selfish doll-maker who cares more about appearences than understanding her rebellious daughter. Yoriko also resents her mother’s developing friendship with a business associate. When he presents to her a dolly as a gift, high strung Yoriko imagines it comes alive in a sinister way.
To Yoriko, the beautiful, knowledgeable, cultured Kanako takes precedence as the nuturing pressence in her heart and life. Kanako is also a troubled soul which infatuated Yoriko is blind to. Kanako relates a childhood incident where her mum tried to strangle her and she now lives with her sister. To Yoriko, Kanako is like a perfect immortal Goodess in fairytales, who will never age and coarsen (unlike her mother).
Kanako herself a whimsical and romantic soul, does nothing to discourage Yoriko’s fancies. She relates the tale of Tenin Gosui (death of immortal Goddesses) to Yoriko, and ties a thread around Yoriko’s wrist to symbolize their bond. She tells that they are each other’s past and next lives (raisei).
Sorry if this is confusing. It is really the fantasy gibberish of teens who have too much time on their hands. Their association enrages Yoriko’s mother who objects to the midnight outings. In the ensuing confrontation, Yoriko declares her aversion to aging (like her mum), her mum retaliating that those who do not age become evil spirits (mouryou).
Their friendship ends with a lake outing gone wrong. At the train station, Yoriko notices that Kanako is in tears and also the pimple on the back of her neck. But she fails to predict Kanako’s (apparent) suicide attempt on the train tracks – or was it an accident? Detective Kiba who happened to be on the train, was assailed by a spectural vision of WWII soldiers, before collision. He swings into action, and decides to bring the disraught, incoherent Yoriko to the hospital where Kanako undergoes emergency treatment.
There, we meet the rest of Kanako’s “charmed’ family -an unpleasant insurance agent/ lawyer Sasada, bespectacled guardian Amemiya-san and finally, actress sister Yuzuki Youko, who used to go by the stage name of Minami Kinuko as a well-known actress, but rumoured to have eloped with a lover.
Scene cuts to Sekiguchi and his compasions Toriguchi and Atsuko Chuuzenji – younger sister of Kyougoku-dou, investigating a disemberment case. Atsuko explains Kyougoku-dou’s theory that committing a murder is like being possessed, thus disemberment is trying to reverse that. Taking a wrong turn, they drove straight into a thicket of police guarding a mysterious building. Kiba appears and advises them to leave immediately if they knew nothing. Before they go, Sekiguchi gets an impression of a building that looks like a ‘box’ and sees Yuzuki Youko with a doctor at the door.
Next morning Kiba wakes up at… some sort homeless shelter? As a Tokyo policeman in Kanagawa, I can understand if he puts up at temporary place…but a homeless shelter? Anyway, he gets another prophetic warning by Random Citizen A that if he goes back to “the box”, he will become entrapped and caged (like dogs). This hint is impossible to ignore, but Kiba does just that. He goes back to “the box” – hospital that houses Yuzuki Kanako and romantically sees it as his “territory” – where he has someone to protect and an (invisible) enemy to oppose, filling up his empty life. Clearly, “the box” is a dodgy establishement, with one doctor Mimasaka and one assistant. Kiba chances upon Yuzuki Youko reading a ransom letter. which claims to “have” Yuzuki Kanako and demands 10 million yen, giving them until September to pay.
On the other hand, Yoriko returns home with her mother who continually made insensitive comments about Kanako’s accident prompting Yoriko to retaliate coldly “why don’t you die?”. This sent her mother freaking out that Yoriko is possessed and gets a priest? quack? to exorcise the house. I don’t get it – it seems as though nervousness and superstition runs in the family.
In the streets, a mysterious guy (Akabane lookalike) brushes against Yoriko. After pondering over it in the cafe, Yoriko suddenly makes up her mind and gives a highly dubious testimony. She claims that Kanako’s accident was a murder attempt. She was standing diagonally behind Kanako that night, and someone, she said came suddenly from behind a pillar/ lamppost and pushed Kanako onto the tracks, brushing against her in the process.
They all troop to see Kanoko who appears to be lucid and installed in a room that looks more like an underground warehouse, littered with boxes, crates, wires, than hospital room. However after that, Kanako as if by magic, mysteriously disappears from the room.
Recent Comments