Mouryou no Hako Episode 1

Yep, they’re lesbarus.

It is the twenty-seventh year of the Showa period (1953), and a man is riding a train when another man sits down across from him. The man is brought out of his thoughts when he hears an odd noise, and the second man smiles slightly, and opens the box he is carrying – in it is a human head, a woman’s head, and it smiles, blinks, and makes another noise.

In a girls’ high school, Yoriko sits in class, thinking about her classmate, the beautiful Kanako. Yoriko likes Kanako, and when Kanako smiles at her, she becomes flustered and doesn’t realize that the teacher is calling on her. As she falters, Kanako smoothly covers for her, impressing the class and throwing off the teacher.

That day, Kanako asks Yoriko to walk home with her. Yoriko is unable to speak, but it is the beginning of a friendship. However, Kanako says weird things to Yoriko, stating that they are one and the same, and makes mention to the Five Death Omens of an Angel. But Yoriko finds herself believing Kanako.

At home one evening, Yoriko is upset with her mother. A businessman, Sasagawa, stops by to buy the doll heads that Yoriko’s mother makes, and brings a doll for Yoriko. But Yoriko imagines the doll’s face as changing, and drops it in shock before fleeing. Out in the night, she finds Kanako, and the two dance in the moonlight.

The time spent in the moonlight becomes a habit, and Kanako ties a thread around Yoriko, saying that it binds them forever, for she is Yoriko’s reincarnation, and Yoriko is hers. Yoriko’s mother is upset by her friendship with Kanako, though, and the two argue. Yoriko states that she and Kanako are each other’s reincarnations, and that she never wants to get old and ugly like her mother. Her mother says that she can only cease aging by being a demon, and in a voice-over Yoriko states that this is the last time she and her mother spoke.

Kanako and Yoriko plan to go on a trip during their school break to a lake at the end of the train line. When Yoriko arrives at the station, she sees tears in Kanako’s eyes, but doesn’t ask. They stand in silence on the platform.

On board the train, a police man Shuutarou is having a flashback to WWII when the train suddenly stops. He gets off, and discovers that the train has halted as it has hit a girl. The girl in question is Kanako, who has apparently leaped in front of said train. Yoriko is sobbing, and the train workers say they haven’t been able to get her to answer anything. Shuutarou questions if Kanako is her friend, and she says no, to his surprise. As Yoriko looks over at Kanako, who is being taken away on a stretcher, she notices that the other girl is smiling.

Impressions:

FUCK YEAH SUBS

Definitely creepy, definitely a bit confusing. I’m hoping this isn’t the last we’ll be seeing of Kanako, given how much a central role her relationship with Yoriko was playing in the show. Also, I’d like to know why Kanako was upset, and why she jumped in front of the train.

Other things I would like to know about: the severed head in the box (seriously, wtf mate), what Yoriko’s issue with her mum is, and more about Shuuntarou’s past. But, hey, I’m sure we’ll be getting these answers.

I think its interesting to see a show that isn’t set in present-day, or in samurai-era Japan (as that seems to be the most common historical setting). The post-WW II environment is one I feel isn’t touched upon a lot, and if it is, it is done in an explicit setting, by which I mean it relates directly to WWII. This doesn’t, so I think it provides an interesting look at people simply living after it, as it clearly does have some effect on them, but not entirely explicitly so (I would suggest that Yoriko and her mother are irreconcilable due to the fact that Yoriko would be too young to remember how hard WWII was, as she is a high school student eighter years after the end of the war).

Great artwork in this, I was very impressed. I also enjoyed the music, particularly the opening song… and the OP had great animation too.

THANK YOU FOR SUBBING THIS, AERO SUBS! I love you.