Tasogare Otome X Amnesia – 10

First person bitchslapping.

Hell yeah, I’m on time again Finally, a look into Yuuko’s past! I’ve been looking forward to seeing what SILVER LINK comes up with to explain all of this and while I was a bit disappointed, it was an okay explanation overall. …By okay, I mean predictable. You probably saw this from a mile away. …It wasn’t bad though.

Into Yuuko’s past we go and other then the obligatory blind and panicked people in charge, there was the introduction to Kirie’s grandmother and …some other girl. I loved the personality connections that Yukariko (I also love that name) had with Kirie. It made Kirie’s personality make a little more sense and in this case, Yukariko’s slight bitchyness actually had a reason. The sisterly bonds were strong in their past and really, Yukariko was just worried about Yuuko. I’d like to know Kirie’s excuse (other then the fact that she probably picked it up from her grandmother). An interesting thing I noticed though is that her hair was an awful lot like S. Yuuko’s. …Did they do that on purpose or  is S. Yuuko’s hair just supposed to look unkept as opposed to wavy…? I don’t know. I don’t think S. Yuuko has a connection to Yukariko really since it was shown this episode that it came from Yuuko alone. …Though if there was a connection, it might confirm that S. Yuuko was stalking Kirie exclusively.

On the other hand, we had Asa. Now I kind of want her to be related to Niiya somehow since that seems like a logical connection that could be made. We know absolutely nothing about Niiya’s family, it would link him to Yuuko in the first place and maybe explain why they connected so quickly. …Plus it would be deliciously ironic. Another thing that might be a hint towards that plot twist is the fact that we never knew her last name. Though for that bit of ‘evidence’, her name would have changed anyways if she ever married, so I’m probably wrong on that part. Anyways, I’d bet pretty much anything that she’s the one who made the grave up by the tree with Yuuko’s name on it and placed her bell there. I’m not entirely sure why the village leaders made her the Akahito (or if they didn’t, I don’t know why she was there in the first place), but maybe they’ll explain that in the next episode. The hole in her clothing was never really explained either. Other then that, she was basically there to prove that Yuuko was probably the last person who deserved to die.

Dear lord, alive Yuuko was practically a saint. To the town’s credit, if they were looking for a young and innocent sacrifice, they picked THE perfect person. Up until her untimely end, Yuuko could do no wrong. Now that I think about it, that contradiction in her personality at the end is probably what brought on S. Yuuko. As for the town leaders, I’m kind of sad at how one dimensional they were. There was a crisis, they decided to blame it on the supernatural and if that wasn’t enough, they decided to shove it on some poor, unsuspecting family and then blame the plague. Grade A+ bastards, right there. Then again, with what happened in the present day with blonde Yuuko, it’s not that surprising that people panicked like that in the past as well. Lol, maybe it’s something in the water. Though thinking about that incident with blonde Yuuko, it was almost a reenactment of what happened here. People thought they were going to die, decided to offer up a sacrifice via the Red Person, and a girl named Yuuko suffered. The only difference here (other then time period) is that the students thought the Red Person was the cause. In the past, it was the solution. After this, I want to know more about the town’s legend of the Red Person. Obviously the story was warped somewhere along the way.

While I’m not entirely sure why they had Niiya as a child (…maybe to show how helpless he was while in Yuuko’s memories? It can’t be how old he was back then; he wasn’t even born yet), I did appreciate the visuals they did with him while inside Yuuko’s memories. Him back to back with Yuuko at the end was nice and it was a really great scene to have him with her when she died like that. He quite literally shared her pain and even if she didn’t realize it, he was there for her until the end. The romance between them really does transcend death. So the next episode? ….I have no idea. There’s still Shadow Yuuko to deal with, but I’m sure Niiya’s over 9000 level of understanding will come through.

End Thoughts:

Well overall, I’m a bit… disappointed in how simple Yuuko’s backstory was. In the end it was just a case of people panicking and Yuuko dying because of them. Sure there’s drama, but I was expecting more. To me, I don’t really think Yuuko’s sudden bipolar-ness towards her death justifies the creation of ghost Yuuko and S. Yuuko. No one wants to die. If ghost Yuuko was created just because of that, why aren’t there more ghosts wandering about? Sure there’s the whole thing about needing to expect something to see a ghost, but there were also all of those sick people around that time who didn’t want to die like Yuuko. Why hasn’t there been any mention of them?  Even if I’m disappointed though, I kind of have to wonder about the afterwards of Yuuko’s sacrifice. Did it actually work or did she just die for nothing? Since we already have the supernatural involved here, I thought that there might have been at least some interaction with the shrine god or whatever that created S. Yuuko, but it seems that it might have something to do with that mirror. …Or maybe that was just a symbol for Yuuko’s hatred of her ‘ugly’ reflection? I hope they go more into that, but really I think they could go on without explaining any more and leave it up to interpretation.

I liked the use of the candles this episode to show the passage of time/ how close Yuuko was to death in the shrine, though I’m not entirely sure how she died. She was bleeding a lot from the leg, but she looked like she had been down there for quite a bit since her lips looked pretty dry… Or maybe the candles going out was from lack of oxygen? Anyways, having the camera first person was great too (I was impressed that they even added some of Yuuko’s hair in there). I still don’t think this is really a horror anime, but SILVER LINK does a good job at creepy atmospheres where they can. Yuuko’s death was just the right amount of length for me. Also, Hara’s acting as Yuuko here was pretty damn amazing. As for the rest of the episode, they did well with the muted colours and making it look old. I’m still enjoying this story of what happened to Yuuko, so let’s see how SILVER LINK finishes this off.

Preview:

About Karakuri

University student and the one at Metanorn who's known for wearing glasses. Likes blood, insanity and plot twists, but also plays otome games and adores cute romance anime. It balances out... somehow.