Episode six picks up where the last one left off, with Monk doing his exorcism of the house. However, a particularly strong spirit appearing in black looms in the background. Though for some reason, despite it showing up on the camera. Monk can not see it in the room, neither can Mai when she runs down to check the room. Though she is nearly strangled by it. A crack opens up in the living room, revealing a well that the house had been built over.
A spirit in a well. I feel like anyone strongly familiar with Japanese horror is used to this story set up, it even became vaguely popular in the states for a bit when the Americanized version of the movie Ringu [Just named the Ring in the US version] became popular. The black spirit is the one holding the spirits of the children to the house, it’s there, pretending to be their mother and in the end of it all. It’s seeking it’s own daughter and that’s why it is killing and trapping the spirits of children, probably close in age to that of her own child.
Naru leaves for some additional research. Leaving the rest of the group to fend for themselves. So they have Ayako attempt to cleanse the house while he is gone, she has Mai sit with her but as the cleansing commences the spirits grow angry again and one grabs Mai and drags her down into the well.
While in the well, Mai has a vision of the older spirit’s daughter being kidnapped and possibly killed. So, stricken by grief at losing her daughter the woman threw herself into the well.
It’s worth wondering, Mai has no training and no previous experience as a medium. She has never had a particularly strong connection to the spirit world until the events of the first three episode that we are aware of. Yet this is not the first time since arriving at this house that she’s been keen to notice a spirit or gotten a vision. I’d never given it much thought before, but is it her connection to Naru and the ‘Dream Naru’, that we will discuss in later episodes that give her this power or was this something that was always latent with her?
I don’t recall the series actually ever specifying but it has been years. So we’ll probably end up discussing this again in a later episode. After this, she dreams again of the other Naru who assures her that Ayumi will be alright and when she awakes, she hears the same thing from the real Naru who claims this will all be over tonight.
Naru has them put up wards to keep the ghosts from fleeing to other parts of the house, and then uses John to draw out the spirits. The woman comes from the well, Masako is uneasy about this entire plan. As Naru paints it as he is doing an exorcism [the complete destruction of a spirit], as opposed to a cleansing. When he does, in fact do a cleansing in the end by using a doll with the woman’s daughters name inscribed on it. Creating the illusion for the ghost that she is being reunited with her daughter.
They take time to explain the doll he used and the way it can be used for both light and dark magic. Naru gained the respect of Ayako with his little trick and everything is well.
The house is safe and Ayumi and her aunt move back in. Now they just have to do something about you know, the huge hole in the living room. Well, that probably won’t be a problem. This wraps up the Doll House Saga.
I really love these episodes. They are certainly some of the creepiest in the series from what I recall and honestly, I don’t even find dolls that scary, for someone who is afraid of them. These episodes might be pure torture.
Episode seven is pretty hard to write about, because a majority of it is set up. The group of episodes, called the ‘After School Hexers’ is about a school that is experiencing a large number of supernatural occurrences.
A desk in which everyone sitting at it suffers the same kind of injury. Things falling and moving strangely in the gym storage room. A girl acting as if possessed by the spirit of a fox. So naturally, the team is all brought together.
There is one factor, a human factor. A girl named Chiaki who is said to have put a curse on the school after intense bullying from the students and teacher for supposed supernatural powers such as spoon bending. She at first assumes that Naru is going to deny that she can do these things and reject her as well, he says actually, he can bend spoons as well and besides, no paranormal researcher would deny that abilities like that are possible.
He displays the spoon bending for her and she opens up to him. Though she doesn’t believe she has truly cursed the school, she doesn’t believe that such a thing is within her powers. Naru asks Mai not to tell anyone about the fact he bent the spoon, Lin in particular. Which is highly unusual. Though Mai doesn’t seem to mind, she has an almost fangirl moment of realizing that this is the first secret just between the two of them and is basically over the moon about it.
The episode ends with Mai drifting off and seeing the ‘dream Naru’, he motions to the school that they are in and it’s full of fox fires. Interesting that foxes seem to keep coming up, a girl that seems to be possessed by a fox, fox fires.
If I recall this arc, I feel like it’s the teacher of the Biology department that has the power and is cursing things and not the girl? I may be mixing things up entirely. We’ll see when I come back and look at next weeks episodes.