Tsugumomo – 09
The next mystery
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I enjoyed seeing the gang in full investigation mode… |
Kamioni and Tegami
Upfront, you know it’s going to be chilling…
So our cold open gives us a few clues regarding the soon to be unfolding mystery. The freckle faced girl looks on. and then we see that she sees the lonely school issued slippers. The dour evening sky seals the deal. We’ve seen this trope before, haven’t we? After that we get our typical weekly theme-tuned narration that spells out this our newest amasogi, the monster hair! I rather like this one, as it’s both macabre and it’s the oddball sight – you can do a lot of atypical things with supernatural powered creepy hair, it’s an attention grabber, and a person grabber, too! Then after the OP we get tons of clues about our third act, don’t we. Kazuya is still having troubles with some of the finer points of his training, and he’s no more ready to be a cleaner than he was the last time, just at a glance. Of course, Kiriha does more than just glance – and even those can with a person. It’s got the poor boy running ragged. He barely has enough time to recover before the next mystery comes along.
It was here that Nanaki realized that news reporting wasn’t where the money was…
The story of the former students of Class 1-5 and of Naga Eiko is something of an old chestnut in Japanese school-life based fiction. It is one of many variations of how the bullied can no longer tolerate being bullied and end up taking their own life as their only means of escape. As such, the version presented here is just about the same, only with Tsugumomo’s own supernatural feel and twist to it. Starting off, all the basics of the haunting are there – even if Kiriha makes the rather sotto voce claim of ghosts not being real, turns out she wasn’t wrong on this occasion. Still, all the unresolved emotions fettering a soul to one place, all to haunt a specific group of people remain. It’s just a matter of putting the clues together, and finding out what should have been expressed before all the tragedy stuck. Tsugumomo also manages to use the familiar story in it’s own world building. We know that getting rid of a amasogi is risky business for the host, as anyone else destroying it bring on a bad atonement. Losing you hair is one thing, or any other curse would be bad but maybe bearable. This one takes it up a couple of very hard notches.
For love of sister, not…
That brings us to Nanaki-san of the newspaper club, the able ally in the investigation. The show even uses the new character to weave the familiar tale in the same old vein but with a sinister twist, She is closer and deeper in the case than they first expect. As the deceased’s sister – and good job on the name change- she has a higher stake in the outcome than the main characters do. I love the little twists and turns it takes of Nanaki finding what she lost in this terrifying new outcome. The familiar story type doesn’t diminish the nature of the feelings, and the episode paced itself well enough to keep it interesting and feeling fresh all along. I felt for Nanaki-san and her sister, as both of them were caught in that vortex of negative feelings, in something that was very avoidable, but unfortunately part of everyday life. We are young, we make promises we can’t keep, we get jealous. But that ugly blemish gave the younger sister some sense of hope for the most part, but that was measured by the amasogi to maximize it’s powers of despair. That’s the chilling part of the story too me, and it’s a good grounding element. But after that, it’s was the Big Damn Heroes moment with Kazuya giving a giant hair golem a beat down, and all because he learns that responsibility is the best teacher, and Kiriha was really connecting the human feelings together, staunching the flow of despair from Nanaki-san.
New take on “me and my shadow”
In another post, we discussed an author’s experiences informing and shaping their stories, and one of the many experiences they can have are the other stories they read. Doing your version of a story that you love, and that other people recognize and love themselves has been going on since…well, for as long as people have been telling stories. You can use the familiar as a backbone to tell a great many other stories, and they do a good job using such hoary old material here. I like this version, as it has all of Tsugumomo’s trademarks and indelible charm. It was, when I read the manga, the one chapter that made me realize that the mangaka was going to do a good job going forward, that he was interested in playing with, and engaging in familiar styles and caring enough about them to put his own spin on them, and that the story would be about more than just fanservice…
…but there is still plenty of fanservice…
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
We discussed an author’s experiences informing and shaping their stories…
I think Re Creators lightly touched on that in its last episode; the (hypothesized) implication of one’s character/story being processed and shaped by the author’s negative feelings.
Which then leads to a whole load of poop when said story breaks loose with the aim of destroying all multiverses…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Well, I don’t know if that applies to what I was saying in this episode of Tsugumomo. Just that “it’s called a classic for a reason”, and all that jazz.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
In other terms, the phenomenon of sh** hitting the fan.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
If all the multiverses are being destroyed, then the fans are hitting back…
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
Just caught up with this series and boy this was an odd episode that kinda doesn’t fit all that well imo! Because up until this episode things have been veryyyyyyyyy silly and suddenly suicide is brought up this week mixed in with the fun joke time stuff just didn’t work for me. I get they are trying to dip their toe into the big boy pool to try new things, but Tsugumomo is better off sticking with the silly off the wall plot stuff vs attempting the super serious side of things.
Also after nine episodes especially the end of episode eight? Yeaaah…I’m totally seeing what “audience” this is aimed at aka lolicons since Kiriha hasn’t even shown signs of turning back to her original form even thou yeah I know her original form isn’t much older in appearance anyway.
I guess in short i’m disappointed in this series so far? I was expecting a bit more battle shounen and less of a the har har wacky scooby doo antics with lolicon fanservice.
I’ll keep watching cause I’ve stuck around this long might as well continue.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Battle? Shounen? What?
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
I don’t know about you but I never sensed or expected any shounen, let alone battle shounen elements like Naruto or other similar titles out of Tsugumomo looking at the Meta Team’s Spring Anime 2017 Picks. The synopsis and visuals were screaming “supernatural comedy” more than anything else. Just that the ecchi elements were an unexpected add-on.
POWUH: Meta Team and PreCure Mastah with 9203 comments
@Sky: Yeah I assumed I guess? I’ve only read like four to five chapters from the manga and had no clue it leaned more on the comical side of things! Had I known that I probably would have skipped out on this one from the start.
@BB: Well for me Tsugumomo obviously has a lot of shounen tropes mostly from Bleach since both series have “inner worlds” and “spirits” that live inside the minds of both main characters and both series also deal with similar monsters that feed off humans aka their wants and desires? At least the normal everyday Hollows at the start of Bleach were like that. Also its got Soul Eater vibes since Kiriha can transform into a weapon that talks and she also has a humanoid form? Either way like I said to Skylion since I haven’t read a lot of the manga I really had no idea this series was more comical in overall tone.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
This episode had a creepy ghost story feel to it. Sad the older sister committed suicide to protect the younger one but it begs to question what the situation was with the department Kazuya was forced into. Was the spot for malison cleanser vacant for that long? Because the girl’s demise could’ve been avoided if one was around.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
….answers coming next arc!