Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori ep.20

February 26, 2007 | 12 Comments

First thing first, I'm sorry about the downtime. I wasn't aware of it until someone emailed me about it since I was still asleep when it happened. It's basically Nightmare host trying to update something so they shut down everything off but everything is back to normal now it seems. Anyway, moving on to this episode, this is the kind of episode which makes blogging episode by episode worth it. There are quite a lot of materials worth of discussion in this episode. Mostly deals with friendship and how individuals tend to react to it. Having said that, this is pretty similar to episode 10 from the first season. Even the string-pulling part of the episode is identical. The only difference in this one is that I think the girls genuinely like each other. It's just that circumstance and lack of trust tore them apart.

The episode begins with a girl cutting up a photo while saying that she won't forgive a girl called Mari for betraying her. Cut to a shot of her laptop which has a custom wallpaper with 'Juri and Mari' written on it. The girl then uses Deegle to find Jigoku Tsuushin before submitting her request by writing her friend's name, Fujimaki Mari. Suddenly she feels someone behind her and when she turns around, Ai already stands at the balcony with a straw doll. Later on inside sunset world, Ai is seen combing Kikuri's hair with a comb while Ren comments about how girls look good dressed in Yukata. Kikuri asks Hone-Onna if she's jealous but the later quickly counters by saying she has no need of being jealous at a brat. Ren then asks Ai what they would do about their latest client since she's been holding Wanyuudou for a while now. The next day at school, Mari's friends ask her if she'd like to go with them to see a French film.

Upon hearing this Juri coldly asks Mari if she likes French film. This instills fear in Mari and see apologises to her friends saying that today is not good. Later on that day, Mari helps carrying Juri's bag as the two go home together. As it turns out, Juri's leg is injured and she has to use crutches to walk. Juri tells Mari that Mari hasn't answered her question about French film. Mari tries to explain that she and the girl who asked her out were always together in middle school. Before she can go further, however, Juri cuts her sentence by saying that she hates French film so Mari should stop seeing them as well otherwise....Juri pulls out the straw doll out of her purse. Not far from the two, Ren and Kikuri observe the two. Ren is surprised to see someone threatening another person using the straw doll and wonders what happened to these two. Ai suddenly appears and tells him that it's a deep hatred that materialised out of strong love.

Inside her house, Juri shows Mari Juri+Mari muffler, knit cap, and mitten that she has knitted. Mari is surprised to know that Juri knitted it all on her own. Juri claims that it is for Mari's sake and mixed her grudge into it. She then points out how her leg is still not getting well. Juri also reminisces about the past saying how they had fun for a year, playing tennis or going on travel. She thinks if Mari didn't break her promise but then, they probably would still be like that. Mari apologises and wonders how things turn out this way but she is startled when her mobile suddenly rings. She informs Juri that it's from her mother and apparently they are going to go out to have dinner. Juri realises that it's Friday and that means it's the day when Mari's family have dinner together. She claims it's fine and Mari can go. Before Mari can leave, however, Juri asks her to take their History Album so Mari can see how close they were back then.

As Mari runs in the rain, Juri who observes her think that maybe she should have lend Mari an umbrella. She, however, changes her mind and thinks about how she wouldn't have to resort to threatening to pull the string if Mari didn't betray her. While having dinner, Mari's parents notice that Mari doesn't seem to have any appetite lately. Mari claims that she's just not hungry. However, she thinks to herself that her parents won't believe her anyway if she tells them that someone is threatening to send her to hell. After dinner, Mari accidentally drops the photo album and it's not until she goes home that she realises that it's missing. Because of this she tries hard to look for it and ends up going back all the way to the restaurant. Just as it seems she can't find it, Ren comes out and hands her the album. After Mari explains to him that this is her and her friend's history album, Ren asks her if he can take a look at it.

Mari tells Ren that her friend's name is Juri. When the two ended up in the same class at high school, the two quickly became friends. The two even made sure that their hairstyle and bags are similar. They were practically unseperable and promised to be best friend forever. Mari believed that if she has Juri, she won't need anything else. As Ren goes through the album, he notices that the later photos show Mari looking unhappy while Juri looking cruel. Mari admits that during summer this year, she hurt Juri. Their conversation comes to a halt when Mari receives text message from Juri who's angry because Marid did not tell her what she ate. Mari tells Ren that she would get scolded when she doesn't give report to Juri. Mari also tells Ren about Jigoku Tsuushin and how Juri can send her to Hell at anytime if she unties the string on the straw doll. Mari knows that the person who unties the string would also go to Hell but Juri apparently doesn't care.

Inside the sunset world, Kikuri has just placed a flower on Ai's hair so that it would match hers. She then proceeds to rub it in Hone-Onna's face by saying that she doesn't have one. Hone-Onna decides to ignore the brat and instead asks Ren about his investigation. A flashback reveals that Juri is actually weak at sports but she did her best so she can be Mari's tennis partner. One day, however, Mari was approached by the tennis club's star player who asks her to double with her. Mari tried to reason that she already has Juri as a partner but the star told her that she doesn't have to give immediate answer and can think about it slowly. When Mari agreed to give it a consideration, Juri overheard the word and became upset. When she tried to run away, however, her leg fell into a ditch and got injured because of it. Later on when Mari visited Juri, she found out that the photos of the tennis club's star has been cross-hatched in the face.

When Mari confronted Juri about this, Juri argued that the girl was the person who tore them apart. She claimed that she could never forgot the spectacle because she got hurt due to that girl. Although the doctor said her leg will be okay, it still hurts. Juri then told Mari that the next time she betrays her again, Juri will pull the string on the straw doll. In the present time, Ren concludes that the irony with this story is that right now, the only thing that connects these two girls are the string on the straw doll. Hone-Onna thinks that a woman's grudge is awful and she can't imagine being connected in such manner. At the same time, Ai takes the flowers Kikuri put on her head, disappointing the brat in the process. The next day at school Juri claims that she couldn't study for the test because her leg was in pain. Because of this she asks Mari to write her name on Mari's test paper. As a result, Mari ends up being the one who get the lower score.

When two other students see the test result, they refer to Juri and Mari as the bakappuru (baka couple). Juri asks Mari not to pay attention because they are okay and will go to the same university. A disappointed Mari, however, can't hide her sadness and tells Mari that she'd go and buy lunch for them. For the first time ever, Juri actually shows some kind of remorse in her face upon seeing Mari's sadness. On her way out of school, she meets Ren, who's now wearing a biking outfit. Ren asks Mari if she's still being controlled by Juri and Mari confirms it. She, however, doesn't really mind since she only has Juri and she wants to patch things up so they could go back to the way they were. Ren tries to encourage the girl by patting on her head but this causes Mari to cry and hug him. At the same time, Juri is walking on the street trying to find Mari, possibly to apologise. She's happy when she spots Mari until she sees her in Ren's arm.

Juri immediately runs away crying and in doing so, she ditches her crutches. Ren realises that all of these times her leg is actually okay. Mari confirms this saying that it's Juri's heart that is hurt not her leg. Mari then tries to stop Juri by saying that the two of them would always be together. This stops Juri but because she stands in the middle of the street, she gets hit by a truck. Later on at hospital, Juri is on a critical condition. A regretful Mari asks Juri to pull the straw doll. Juri shakes her head and instead asks Mari to pull out a photo from the pouch, saying that the photo is her favorite. Mari cries as Juri's pulse weakens and uses her friend's hand to pull the string. Mari explains that if she dies, she won't know where she will go but this way, the two of them would be in Hell together. On the boat to Hell, Wanyuudou informs Juri that her friend is coming, pointing at a lantern with a pouch. The episode ends with Kikuri deciding that she's had enough of matching up her style with Ai.

Impression:

It's strange that popular media doesn't address the topic of friendship that often or at least not in great detail. Or maybe I've been watching the wrong kind of shows. I think this kind of relationship is as hard to maintain as a romantic relationship. There are different degrees of friendships and the closeness associated with it. Different people also reacts differently to situations between friends. Before I go further, however, I probably should distinguish best/close friend as opposed to casual friends whose presence you enjoy but you're not really close with them. To be honest I have no idea how to categorise best friend, but to me it's a person with whom I connect really well. Someone who I'm comfortable enough to tell about my personal problem and is willing to listen/give advice. And maybe it's because I don't get along that well with my brother so I often regard my best friend as either a brother or a sister.

Anyway, with close friendship also comes territory. Whether one admits it or not, it's hard not to get jealous when your best friend gets close to another person. Different people have different degree of jealousy and some people can deal with it easily by being friends with the new person. Unfortunately Juri is not one of these people. To complicate matters, there is the issue of trust or lack of it. Judging from Juri's reaction when Mari was offered the chance to partner with the senior, she clearly didn't have enough trust that her friend will choose her. Mari didn't even say 'yes' to joining. There's a likelihood that she was just being polite to the senior tennis player. Of course, it doesn't help that Juri has such a lousy luck. If she didn't injure her leg in the ditch, the two might be able to patch their friendship. As a last note, I can't help but being amused that Ren actually ruin the girls' friendship instead of helping them.

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On next week's episode: It's Memoirs of the Geisha redux!!

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