I went on "vacation" recently to an island nearby. My in-laws rented an expensive Air BnB in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere next to the water. I suppose the plan was to just kinda hang out in the area and pretend we were all rich enough to live there or something? I don't know, my husband and I were looking forward to whale-watching and such instead, so we kinda had to convince them that we should do it. While THAT part was pretty enjoyable, our stay toward the end was rather... less than satisfying. I sure hope Hijiri Island has a bit more going for it, is what I'm saying. For the sakes of our protagonists.
A lack of "swampy" smell would definitely up the enjoy-ability score, for sure.
Of course, it's only a plus in the hunt for the water-and-flowers smell that was coming off Naraku's puppet. He reminds himself that this is what he's looking for, a smell as pure as Mt. Hakurei's, just as Sango flies in on Kirara with a short greeting. Miroku and Kagome both acknowledge her, the latter asking how her little trip went, and Sango responds that it was no good because the barrier around Mt. Hakurei has only gotten stronger since they were up there last. Miroku suggests with disappointment that it'll be impossible for them to break in then. Well, not all of them, of course. Inuyasha abruptly changes the subject to Naraku obviously having been near here, though he offers no logic for that statement. But he might just mean the MOUNTAIN in general, because he says they should check every place beside water around it in order to find that unique smell.
Cut to, you guessed it, a place next to water! It's a village with some boats moored at the shore, and someone BEGGING to be loaned one. The person being begged says no WAY, but the boy asking says his father has been gone for half the month already, and he's SURE something happened at Hijiri island to him. The man unwilling to give up the boat gives the hesitant excuse that Hijiri Island is sacred ground, and they'll be cursed if they step on it. The dude next to him agrees, a position that should make them think twice about what kind of divinity would curse them just for helping a boy find his lost father.
The kid promises that he'll go alone, and they just have to lend him that boat. He twists around when he hears someone behind him ask if he was just talking about "sacred ground".
Story Corps over here. Get ready for a tear-jerker.
Turns out this village's lake has an island near its center that ordinary folks can't enter. The boy is telling our heroes about this, or Miroku and Inuyasha anyway. They've moved to a room where the boy sits across from them with three women behind him. Sango, Kagome and Shippou wait on the porch outside, for some reason. The boy says this the men in his family by chance were the only ones who have been able to cross to Hijiri Island, to take care of someone called Hakushin-Shounin. Miroku repeats this name in question, so the boy explains that this guy was a great priest from over a century before, who became a living Buddha and was enshrined in a small temple on the island.
Thankfully Inuyasha is the one to ask what a "living Buddha is", because I would have felt stupid asking. Miroku says the kid is most likely referring to a "Sokushin-butsu", or a saint-like priest who abstains from food while still alive, entering Nirvana while their flesh mummifies. That sounds less saint-like and more actual nightmare-like to me, but hey.
It's also apparently saintly to hand out curses like candy to guys who kinda sorta insult them a little. Side-eyeing this concept HARD right now.
Kagome steps in from outside to redirect the conversation, asking the boy for clarification on how his father hadn't come back. He hangs his head and repeats that it's been half a month already, and he would LIKE to check up on his father, but... One of the women sitting behind assure him, calling him Shintarou, that it's impossible by himself. He addresses all three of them at once as his elder sisters, which explains that, I guess. The sister on the right mumbles that she's also worried about their father though, the sister in the middle says that the villagers are worried about the curse in the meantime, and the one on the left agrees that this seems to be a real conundrum for them.
Leaning down toward the still seated Inuyasha, Kagome asks if they should go. Inuyasha is on board, saying he's pretty sure there's something going on with these sacred grounds. Shintarou offers to be their navigator, since there's always a dangerous fog hanging over the island. The sisters all lean in around Shintarou, the right-most one asking that the visitors take good care of their brother, the left-most stating that Shintarou is the only son the family has.
Miroku says that this must be lonely, because women make shit company, I guess. By the next panel, he's right up close and personal with the left-most sister, her hands wrapped in his own, making his OWN offer to put some sons in them before he goes.
Probably not, but kids are hardy. I'm sure he'll be FINE...
Cut to the lake, where Inuyasha stands in the middle of a boat to push them along, flanked by the seated Miroku and Shintarou, Shippou looking off the bow, Kagome sitting at the stern, and Sango atop a swimming Kirara behind them. A scene very reminiscent of my favorite arc surrounding the Water God. No word on where they got this boat, or how they convinced the other villagers so very concerned about petty curses to hand one over. Inuyasha's fists probz had something to do with it, I'm sure.
Anyway, Shintarou is busy acting more as tour guide than as navigator, talking about this Hakushin-Shounin dude's very strong houriki, and how he saved a shit ton of people in the area, or so it's said. Miroku politely makes an encouraging comment at the vague accolades. Shintarou directs their attention over the the jagged misty peak of Mt. Hakurei, at the base of which he says is the purification place. Kagome asks for clarification, and Shintarou says that's where Hakushin-Shounin opened his temple, in which you can pray and have ANY sin purified.
Inuyasha glares over at the mountain, seeming a little put off by its mention again. Kagome hesitantly wonders just who set the barrier on the sacred grounds, a question that garners silence from Inuyasha and Miroku at first. Sango breaks the quiet, agreeing that there is indeed someone holding up that barrier, but she is certain that Naraku couldn't have been the one to set it up. She says it's pretty much the OPPOSITE of what that guy is capable of. Kagome thinks on it and also concludes that a holy person had to have set the whole thing up, but she's just not sure for what purpose. Pulling a prank on the local youkai? Priests have the WEIRDEST senses of humor in my experience.
The boat creaks and a mound of earth rises out of the misty water ahead. Shintarou tells them it's Hijiri Island, and warns them to be careful of all the rocks around it. He begins to go into what happens upon hitting one when a large scrape sounds off the side of the boat.
Some navigator the kid turned out to be. You're not getting that deposit back, that's for sure.
Inuyasha scoops up Shintarou and Kagome, leaping out of the sinking boat and yelling over his shoulder that they're going on ahead. Miroku, Shippou perched on the top of his head to avoid getting wet, confirms that he does indeed want onto Kirara as Sango suggests. Meanwhile, Inuyasha encounters some resistance as he gets to the island, a crackle of a barrier across his face that he winces against. The same type as the one around the mountain, he observes, though not nearly as strong as that one.
He makes it through and touches down in a veritable SEA of flower petals.
Flowery enough smell for you?
Indeed it is - as Kagome hops off his back, she begins to ask him the obvious, and he cuts her off with an affirmative. Inuyasha thinks these are the flowers he was smelling on the puppet remains. To Inuyasha's and Kagome's alarm, Shintarou tells them that there weren't flowers covering the ground like this before. They got busy since the last time he was there, it seems.
A rustle later, we get a glimpse of Shippou hanging off Miroku's shoulder, looking ill. Miroku asks if he's alright, and even though Shippou assures him he's just fine, it's obviously taking some effort for him to say it. Sango has dismounted Kirara, an arm wrapped around the giant cat, telling them that Kirara also seems to be feeling pretty bad. If that hanging head is anything to go by, I'd say that's a fair assessment.
They head toward the interior of the island, all the while Inuyasha contemplating how much more to all this there seems to be. He questions why Naraku went to all the effort to bring out the puppet just to let the Shichinin-tai escape, somewhat suspicious that the thing left behind a traceable scent that led Inuyasha RIGHT into a sacred ground. His entirely logical thoughts that this might be a big ol' trap don't cause him to reconsider their march right into the possibility, nor does he mention this to anyone else for a little conference on the best course of action is going forward. Not that I expect a 15-year-old boy to be that calculated. Still...
The mist fades around a hipped roof, where Shintarou says Hakushin-Shounin is enshrined.
I'm cringing as a homeowner. Looks like a VERY expensive repair.
Shocked, Shintarou starts running toward the shrine, in an effort to find a reason it was damaged. On his way, he trips over something in the flowers, and looks back over his shoulder to see what it was. He sees an arm, reduced to its bones, poking out of a sleeve - his father's sleeve, as he notes in horror.
There is no amount of therapy that will make THIS okay.
Miroku recalls that Shintarou had said that his father only left for this island about two weeks before, supposedly. Inuyasha remarks that this is too short a time for a corpse's flesh to COMPLETELY rot like this, so Miroku suggests that it must be the work of Naraku's youkai, an assessment Inuyasha agrees there can be no doubt about now. Kagome twists from her comforting embrace of Shintarou to ask for what purpose this was done, and Inuyasha nods toward the shrine, indicating it was for what's inside it on the island. He's being uncharacteristically cryptic right now and it's weirding me out more than the pile of dad-bones on the ground.
Suddenly, Kagome senses some Shikon shards. This is followed immediately by an annoyed comment about being made to wait so long in this place.
I think you were already 90% to that conclusion, Inuyasha.
So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I'm a little amazed that Inuyasha was allowed to be SMART in this one! He wasn't allowed to DO anything with his little bit of clarity, because plot, which is a bit disappointing. Still, Inuyasha shows some capability for deduction from the highly suspicious circumstances he's working under, something he SHOULD be able to do regularly, considering his past fraught with a multitude of people opposed to his very existence. That's the kind of life that fosters a careful consideration of the motivations of enemies' actions, in my mind. But since Miroku so often gets cast in the role of the "smart one", he's so rarely given the opportunity to display the minimum of cunning that he would have to have to have survived this long.
None of Inuyasha's musings rise to the level of genius, mind you, but given that I'm so used to reasoning below the level of expectation from not only him, but EVERYONE, it is somewhat refreshing. I mean, this is the comic about which I've complained multiple times about characters just randomly coming to the conclusions they're supposed to without anything leading them there, and generally vague or nonexistent logic leading from one action to another. The above exemplifies the OPPOSITE problem - the right reasoning leading to NO action - but it's a change of pace, at least.
Not that this chapter doesn't have its share of frustrating lack of logic. What convinced the villagers to loan them a boat, for instance? Would they have just agreed to do so if they had been given enough time to consider Shintarou's proposal of going alone? We are also given MORE reasons to question this dichotomy regarding the "pure" barrier and the "profane" nature of the youkai/bad actors being repelled by it. The villagers AND Miroku seem to be under the impression that one can be "cursed" for the mere slight of a mild insult directed at a supposedly "holy" being. You'd think a mummified saint would be above such pettiness, but as we'll soon learn, even a human of the highest caliber of purity can't help but get rankled at his fellows' insensitivity. Again, I must emphasize that something COULD be said with this about how arbitrary or tribal these classifications are, if RT is willing to redefine what they REALLY mean in the context of the story. But...
The horror aspects of this chapter are HIGHLY satisfying, though. This poor kid having to find his father not only dead, but unnaturally decomposed, bones exposed, is very much in the decreasing tradition of this manga. The "wrongness" of RT's horror designs is one of the primary things that attracted me to this story in the first place, so it's always a treat to see her revert back to its roots every once in a while. I just wish she would do so more often. I like the laughs, like the annoyed comment from Inuyasha that he should have gotten a warning sooner as the boat is sinking, but I want the chills too, and I'm finding those fewer and farther between.
Perhaps I'm just wistful over the good ol' days of being able to indulge in some FICTIVE horror instead of the very REAL variety a lot of us in the states are dealing with at the moment.
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