The gang reach the top of the stairs and come face to face with…the parts they put together. And man is it ugly. It didn’t go in the way I expected, such as the woman using the puppet they created to attack them. The pathetic thing fell apart before it could even take a step, and it was deemed another failure. And the body that was made wasn’t for her, but for someone else.
Yako’s backstory is sweet but also sad. Looking at the photo in the notebook, for some reason I was drawn to the fox statue that was beside Misaki. I didn’t think much of it but for some reason I was drawn to it, and it turned out to be more significant. While Hanako and Kou were busy fighting off Yako, Hanako sent Yashiro down to the deepest depths to find the yorishiro and destroy it. As Yashiro begins to walk, she bumps into a table and finds a notebook. It was like a little school notebook where a child was practicing their writing and documenting their day to day activities, with teacher notes on the bottom of the page. It started off normal and cute but then slowly became a little dark when the student started writing about Misaki not showing up, over and over. There was also a page of a rumor of a teacher falling off stairs to his death, with the child not knowing what “die” means. Turns out the owner of the notebook is Yako, the woman, who is actually a fox spirit that Misaki, the teacher, befriended. Yako seemed to have gotten a little crush on Misaki and always looked forward to having him around, until she knew that one day he never would.
All the bodies that Yako wanted were to make an entirely new Misaki just for her, and the scissors that Misaki gave her is the most treasured thing for her and is her yorishiro. Yashiro had a very cool moment herself when she called out Yako. The way Yako was talking, it reminded Yashiro of herself in her past romantic attempts at getting a boy’s love. Of course we know that it wasn’t truly love but mostly validation for Yashiro. Yako wasn’t doing all this for Misaki’s sake, she was only doing all of this for herself. Yashiro is always being attacked and saved by the boys so it’s nice when she has cool moments like this, and very nice that she can continue to show some maturity and growth.
After destroying Yako’s talisman on the scissors, her world was completely shattered and her role as the Second Mystery was stripped away from her. We don’t know who will take over for her and if it’ll be significant later, but it looks like Yako will still be able to wander around in her fox form. And while Yashiro didn’t forgive Yako for what she did, she gave back the photo that was in the notebook at least to show at least a willingness to be friends. But that was only returned with a bite on the hand.
This was an interesting little arc. The story with Misaki I found to be sweet and tragic, and it’s a little more sad that a fox spirit didn’t even understand the concept of death. While this arc was nice, I didn’t find myself too emotional over it. It’s probably because this show is very comedic at times and I feel like the balance of the comedy and serious moments could be done better. Yako is cool and all but I can’t really say I love her or anything. The one highlight for me was that moment with Yashiro calling out Yako for thinking only of herself. Oh, and I guess the other highlight was Hanako kissing Yashiro on the cheek as a reward. That was really cute and I ship them.
Oh yeah, and Kou was turned into a doll! And he was really cute too! Too bad they forgot about him. But like the rest of the students that disappeared, he and all of them will go back to normal since Yako’s power is gone, so all is well. I’m just curious with the guy from the previous episode and the girl with the green hair. The black crane came back to them and I guess reported to them on the situation, and the girl has a little spirit thing like Hanako. Why are they focusing so much on Yashiro and what do they want? I hope we learn more about them soon.
