Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori ep.14

January 15, 2007 | 6 Comments

It's getting harder and harder to be excited about this series lately, which is unfortunate since the first few episodes were quite good. But now they're back to the usual pattern of having an innocent person getting the blame. While it makes a dark story, it doesn't make it as entertaining. I can only hope that this leads to an explanation about Kikuri whose action has been inconsistent to say the least. Last week she seems to behave nicely while this week she acts as if she is the one who's indirectly responsible for causing problem for one of the characters. And it's already episode 14 and yet they still haven't got any kind of arc. Last year, we're already into the Hajime/Tsugumi plot and gets to see Ai's past through the old man who's about to die. This season, however, there's not much known about Kikuri and despite the initial potential of seeing the helpers' past, they seem rather superficial (ie. Wanyuudou's past).

The episode begins by showing a man who has just watched a romance drama on the television when his telephone rings. Upon picking up the phone, the man opens the curtain of his window a little bit and observes the man on the opposite side of the street. After a while, the first man answers the phone and introduces himself as Kakinuma. Kakinuma immediately greets the man on the phone as "Kure-san" and apologises for sleeping. He claims to forget that today is the moving day but promises to come and help out. Meanwhile near a lake, a boy can be seen singing while Ai observes him from on top of the tree. Back in the neighbourhood, someone is talking about how the area has changed. A quick flash of the area reveals some signs offering either a land or a house for sale. A bus then arrives in front of a house and the boy who was seen earlier got off here. When he walks towards his house, however, he notices that Kikuri is playing on the ground.

Back inside the house, it is revealed that someone has been throwing garbage into Kurebayashi's house. Amongst some of the garbage there are notes about "Obey our rule" and "Die!" written on it. The wife then explains that they only forgot about the garbage day (in Japan garbage day is the day where you can put your garbage out in the neighbourhood so garbage collector can pick it up) for 1 day and yet this is happened to them. Kakinuma claims that the neighbourhood is fussy about appearance and rule so they don't forgive easily. If it's not because of Kakinuma's help, they wouldn't be able to bear it. Kakinuma tells them not to think about it after all they bought the house in this area together 10 years ago. Since Kurebayashi has kids, they consider moving out of the neighbourhood if this continues. Their conversation then comes to a halt when the boy, whose name turns out to be Takuma, returns bringing Kikuri with him.

When Takuma's mother asks Kikuri about her name, however, the little brat runs away. Kakinuma then decides to go back home so Kurebayashi asks the guy about his work. Kakinuma claims that he's just got a role in a drama series. Upon hearing this, Kurebayashi congratulates Kakinuma and asks the guy where the series will play and wonders if it's his TV station but Kakinuma denies that it's not JTB. Apparently since Kurebayashi, who was a TV producer at the station left to New York, Kakinuma hasn't got a job from that TV station. Inside Takuma's room, Kikuri is drawing a picture of a dismembered man. Takuma is shocked to see this and asks her not to draw something like that since it's bringing bad omen but Kikuri wonders why not since Takuma is thinking about it every night, pointing out that she knows he's been accessing Jigoku Tsuushin. Their conversation comes to an end when Kakinuma's mother enters the room bringing some drinks.

Takuma's mother wonders where Kikuri has gone and true enough, when Takuma turns around, she has disappears from the bed. This makes him wonder if Kikuri is Jigoku Shoujo. Kikuri herself is actually standing outside the house and is being pinched by Hone-Onna, who orders the brat not to interfere with their work. In retaliation Kikuri calls Hone-Onna an old hag before running away from her and Ichimoku Ren. Ren thinks that Kikuri is a problematic child, a statement which Wanyuudou agrees so he thinks they should talk to Ai about what to do. Hone-Onna realises that this has become an unpleasant job. Inside his house, Kakinuma gets a phone call but slams the phone down when he finds out the caller and orders the person not to call him again. He then prints a flyer which has "Demon's child" written on it. Inside his room, Takuma looks at his laptop, starring at Jigoku Tsuushin but doesn't put any name on it.

He tries to convince himself that although he hates that person, he doesn't want to kill the person. He's quite happy to be starring at the computer screen like this so he hopes Jigoku Shoujo doesn't appear. Unknown to him, Ai has been observing him with an amused expression on her face. The next day, Kakinuma comes to Kurebayashi's house to take a look at the notes that the family have been receiving as well as few gruesome photos. Kurebayashi hesitates to call the police because he's afraid it'd inconvenience his company. Because of all of the stress, his wife's heart disease comes back again so he's had enough of this and wants to get his family out of the house. When Kurebayashi explains that they're going to move to the hotel tomorrow, Kakinuma claims that he's busy to help them today but he can help them move the box together. Kakinuma asks Kurebayashi to cheer up and wonders what happened to the strong guy with whom he made a drama together.

Kakinuma then asks for Takuma's whereabouts and wonders if he has seen the pamphlet which accuses him of being a devil's child but his mother claims that the boy hasn't seen it. Meanwhile, Takuma is busy doing his homework when Kikuri arrives in his room. Takuma tells her that he already asks her, who he assumes to be Jigoku Shoujo, not to come again but Kikuri denies that she's Jigoku Shoujo. She's just Kikuri. She then proceeds to show him a pamphlet which accuses him to be a devil's child. When his mother comes to the room, Takuma can't help but crying about this. Kikuri, however, is not impressed and yawn at the two of them. Meanwhile, Wanyuudou tells Ai if she's not going to do something about Kikuri but Ai asks him to leave Kikuri alone and claims that the brat is not interfering with her job. That night, the Kurebayashi has packed the essential item, ready to leave the house. The wife wonders if the situation is their fault or if Japan had changed.

Takuma then comes down with Kikuri so Takuma's mother tells Kikuri that her mother would be worried but Kikuri claims that she doesn't have any mother. All of a sudden they hear a loud noise coming from the front area of the house so Kurebayashi decides to investigate the sound, leaving his wife and Takuma on their own. All of a sudden, they hear someone nearby so Takuma's mother asks the kids to stay away from the windows. Before she can close the window, someone has shot her throat using an arrow. By the time Kurebayashi returns to the living room, his wife, whose name turns out to be Reiko, has lost a lot of blood and dies instantly. Just as they grief for her, Takuma notices a dark shadow running away from the area. Takuma tries to follow it but loses track and only finds several arrows on the grounds. He also finds a crossbow in the bush but when he picks it up, a Pizza delivery guy sees him and runs away in fear.

During the funeral, rumours quickly spread that Takuma was the one who shot his mother so they call him a devil's child. Takuma himself notices that a woman has been starring at the funeral. Kakinuma, who sees her as well decides to confront the woman, asking her what she's doing coming to a place like this. The woman knows that the wife of the family is dead and knows that Kakinuma was the one who killed the wife just like he killed her baby. She then calls Kakinuma murderer before leaving and tells him that he'd go to Hell. Takuma who overhears this decides to inform his father but his father refuses to believe this, thinking Kakinuma just had a fight with the woman. Besides, he already told Takuma before not to hate a person and to leave the matter to the police. Meanwhile, Ren finds out from the woman who confronted Kakinuma that she hates him because he pushed her off the stairs after he found out that she's pregnant with his child.

Takuma eventually can't bear his anger and enters Kakinuma's name into Jigoku Tsuushin. Enma Ai immediately appears in his room and gives Takuma the doll and the drill. Kikuri then appears to tell Takuma that what he's about to do is a bad thing. She then makes a strangling movement before Ai scolds her. Before Ai can leave, Takuma decides to return the straw doll to her, claiming that he'd let the police to handle the situation. At the same time, Kurebayashi finds out that Kakinuma has a surf board filled with holes from arrow shooting practice by Kakinuma and realises what this means. When Kurebayashi asks Kakinuma why he killed Kurebayashi's wife, Kakinuma explains that was beyond his intention. The truth is he just wants to injure her but what happened wasn't bad either. Kakinuma was planning on making Kureyabashi's reputation even worse around the neighbourhood by involving the mass media. The idea was so that Kurebayashi becomes a social outcast.

Preview

Kurebayashi becomes angry and attacks Kakinuma but ends up getting punched instead. Kurebayashi wonders why Kakinuma does this because he thought Kakinuma has a job but Kakinuma denies this, claiming people thinks he's incompetent and therefore he was fired from the studio. Kurebayashi wonders if these past 10 years Kakinuma has just been waiting for a good job. He reminds Kakinuma that he knows well that their field of work is not easy but this simply angers Kakinuma. When Takuma comes into the room but he finds out that his father is already dead. Before Kakinuma can bash his head with the bottle, however, Kakinuma disappears because the woman with grudge on Kakinuma has pulled the string on the doll and sent him to hell. Unfortunately the police thinks that Takuma killed his father so they apprehend him. The episode ends with the neighbours talking about Takuma being a "Demon's child" while Kikuri can be seen showing Takuma an eerie smile.

Impression:

In the end Kakinuma gets his revenge. Not only he kills Kurebayashi and his wife, he managed to implicate Takuma in the murder. No wonder he looks happy even though he ends up in Hell. While there's a possibility that Takuma could be cleared off from suspicion if the police do some finger-printing job, it's hard to deny that there was only one person in the room apart from the dead body. That would implicate Takuma a little bit. Setting that aside, Kikuri looks really evil in this one. When the neighbours talk about Takuma being the demon's child, I'm sure the animators actually refers to Kikuri instead of Takuma himself. I think she likes seeing someone suffers in real life and to a degree, Ai's offer lessens the suffering that people have to endure (although at the cost of their soul). At this point in time, I'm too confused to figure out what's her plan. It doesn't help that she's very contradictory from episode to episode.

© memento 2003