Re-Kan! Episode 8: Let’s All Play Together

Once the episode opened up with children in a hospital, I knew this episode was going to be sad. When children are hospitalized, and this show deals with ghosts, then you know at least one of them is dead.

Not like I expected anything else. I mean, it’s the ghost of a little girl, how else can this episode go? As per usual with this show, there was a nice balance between the cuteness, the comedy, and the emotional. Once we saw the little girl poke her head out of the curtains, we knew she was the little girl in the hospital coughing. Whatever disease she was plagued with, she died from it at a young age. She can’t be older than 5, she looks super young, and that breaks my heart. Throughout most of the episode, the gang teaches the little girl how to speak, since the only thing she can say is “Morya”, and they don’t even know what that means. Roll-call samurai notices that because she is young, her consciousness is cloudy and that she can’t remember much of anything, so she might disappear without having her last wish granted. Well, there’s only one thing to do. The gang decides to play with her. They want to make new memories for her, so they teach her how to speak, to say their names, saying hello and goodbye, things like that. They have fun and play with her, and they all love her.

Two teachers at school announce their marriage and the students make a fuss. When the little girl gets sight of the groom, Moriya-sensei, she reacts. And she speaks clearly now. “Morya” actually meant “Moriya”, and of course we can all guess that Moriya-sensei was the little boy in the hospital with the girl. I had a little problem with this part of the episode. When investigating why the little girl reacted to Moriya, the students go to the bride and talk to her. Uehara shows her a picture of the ghost, and for some reason she remembers, not Moriya. Yeah, Moriya told his fiancee that he was sickly as a kid and was hospitalized, but did he mention the girl to her? And how did she even recognize her? When Moriya is playing with the girl, he tells her he’s going to marry the next day, and she understood, pointing out how grown he’s gotten, and how he finally eats his carrots. He didn’t totally realize then.

The gang understand everything now, but even so they still play with her. That night Amami and the girl sleep, and when they do she sees a snippet of the girl’s memories. Amami asks if she can stay forever, but the girl says no, she has to leave. She slowly starts to fade away, while embracing Amami before she goes.

The wedding scene was the most tear-jerking part though. Before officially leaving, the little girl’s ghost is right outside of the church where Moriya and his wife are standing. She calls out to him, and he finally remembers everything: her existence and the promise they made. Their promise being when they’re grown, they’d meet again. Which they did, and she was happy enough to pass on for real. Mind you, they made that promise as children and Moriya is a grown man now. She stayed on Earth for over two decades. Maybe three? Her little love for him was so strong, she wanted to see him again so bad that she never was able to move on. Even if her consciousness was hazy, her feelings were too strong, because before meeting Amami, the only thing she could say was “Morya”. That really says how much she cared about him.

Which is so sweet. Seeing how young she was, and seeing how bad her illness was, she probably didn’t even go to school. Maybe she was in the hospital her whole life, or at least most of it. Little kids don’t really have much of a life since they’re only just starting out, which makes this extremely sad. Moriya was probably the only friend she had. She probably never went to school, seeing how sick she was. So Moriya being her first and only friend and love, really speaks a lot that she would stick around for so long. But now she’s happy. And what really touched me more was that Moriya’s wife was very understanding, and when she threw her wedding bouquet, the “spirit” of the bouquet also went to the little girl, signifying her love for Moriya, and also her daydreaming marrying Moriya too, which is what we saw through the chalk drawing she made in the park. Re-Kan knows how to mess me up.

Inoue, as usual, was scared of the girl. But slowly, compared to other ghosts in the show, she tried really hard to accept. Her slowly warming up really showed in the end of the episode, when she cried when she learned of her passing. I’d say Inoue has really developed in the course of the show, which makes me happy. Besides that little detail with Moriya’s fiancee recognizing the girl instead, this was a very good episode. Re-Kan can really dish out the emotional stuff. Next week is Valentine’s Day, and Amami has a secret admirer! I wanna say it’s Inoue, but it’s probably roll-call samurai. :/