Fukigen na Mononokean Episode 3

After opening the door to the underworld twice within 24 hours, Ashiya is completely drained and needs a day rest. And on Ashiya is sent on his first errand on his own! His job is to retrieve a Laughing Mask that Mitsuchigura had lost at the time Abeno had exorcised him. The masks are the only way the yokai can express his emotions. Furthermore, it is dangerous to leave the mask lingering around as if it possesses a human, they will be stuck laughing for the rest of their lives- so as long as they are awake. Luckily for Ashiya, he was able to quickly locate where the Laughing Mask is, however it has possessed a man. In order to remove the mask, they must how it a crying face. Ashiya, who cries easily was supposed to be the perfect person for the job, but unfortunately he can’t cry when he is so conscious of his surroundings. Instead, the one who makes the magic happens is Zenko, the daughter of the man who is possessed. She cries after she speaks with Ashiya and learn she has misinterpreted her father’s words. With that the mask is removed and the job is done.

As you can see, this week was a simple episode. But while it was relatively uneventful and didn’t make me cry for once, we did get some interesting hints. The Mononokean is a yokai itself, and its previous master was a yokai, who supposed taken the medicine. We were not given the full picture of this story, but I am already speculating perhaps this is why Ashiya is afraid of using the medicine we saw him offer last week. Perhaps the previous master needed the medicine and was not strong enough to survive, and as result Ashiya inherited the Mononokean in his place.

There was also an interesting pointer made by Mitsuchigura, claiming how humans like Ashiya are invaluable, but also dangerous. I wonder what makes them dangerous though, I am curious about that point. Perhaps developing attachment to the other world?

It goes without saying I really like this show a lot. It is something I look forward to every weekend, but it is proving to be difficult to write about since the nature of the show is not meshing with my writing style. I am tempted to give it another chance, but I know deep in my heart that it looks like it just wasn’t meant to be. On the brighter note I will probably write up a Random Review for this series (so as long I remember to to it, hahaha…)