Inuyasha Manga: 036 Until the Eyes Open...

As you might have guessed from the ending of the last chapter making it entirely clear, this is referring to the fact that the Tatari-Mokke's eyes are opening. My question is why they are always closed UNTIL something makes them open. Isn't that inconvenient? Is it not always flying straight into stuff? I guess, being made of souls, it can probably faze through solid objects and whatnot, so maybe that's not a problem. I think it might become one if it had to answer a whole bunch of kids' questions about a certain bedroom scene they accidentally float into is all.

Of course, that's only concerning modern kids, because I'm pretty sure one-room households in the Sengoku Jidai would find it IMPOSSIBLE to hide that activity from their kids.

On to a much less uncomfortable topic; poltergeists!

I'm surprised that Kagome was able to hide her sudden interest in the topic until the evening. I would have pulled Souta aside pretty much the moment we got out of that hospital room and interrogated the poor kid, especially knowing that this keeps happening with some frequency and I might not have a whole lot of time to stop the activity before it actually does its job. But that's just me.

Souta says that at first ALL the guys in his class would visit Satoru with some frequency, but one day someone fell down the stairs on their way back from the hospital, claiming he was pushed. No one took responsibility and were kind of flabbergasted by this. Then, another time, the group was almost hit by a car, and strange things continued to happen from there, until everyone just stopped coming to the hospital.

This leads into Souta telling Kagome that Satoru's sister Mayu died in the fire six months ago. Kagome's heart hammers as she gains a concerned look. This coincides with a scene elsewhere.

Aaaaaaand here's the first of many scenes that will continuously shatter my heart.

The next day, Souta is hiding behind Kagome as he shows her an apartment building with one of the balconies still covered in soot and burns, the window shattered. Souta says this is the place where Satoru and his family used to live. Kagome wonders why they haven't managed to clean it up in six months, and Souta tells her that there were accidents every time they tried. Kagome has a bad feeling about the place, when a little fist suddenly yanks on her hair.

Ghost stories will do that to you, for sure. I know because I was in that same boat last night. Why do I have to be so drawn to ghost shows during this season? Why??

The woman with the baby apologizes, but is clearly offended by how overly startled Kagome and Souta were. I mean, jeez, can't you control your sense of alarm? Kagome and Souta watch the woman walk away, hearts hammering. Souta yells at Kagome not to scare him like that and Kagome yells back that he's one to talk. He comes back at her with an assertion that she should be braver because she deals with youkai all the time, but Kagome counters that they're dealing with ghosts in this situation and she has every right to be scared.

They stop bickering and look up when they both hear a creak above. The creak gets louder before the window in one of the apartments pops out of its frame and comes crashing down in front of them. Kagome shields Souta from the flying glass, cringing away herself. A flowerpot flies down at them too, along with a small tricycle, and Kagome kneels on the ground hunched over Souta, holding his head to her chest with one hand and using the other arm to protect her own head.

Once the onslaught stops, she looks up to see the little girl standing on the railing to the apartment balcony she was just throwing things from like an asshole. The little girl jumps from the railing, prompting Kagome to reflexively shout that she should watch herself.

Well EXCUSE Kagome for being a halfway decent person and being concerned by default. Mayu doesn't appear to be at all impressed with anything Kagome says, including identifying her correctly as Satoru's sister. She just glares instead of answering, so Kagome takes that as an opening to ask more about why Mayu is doing horrible things to Satoru and others. Mayu claims that she's going to kill that damn Satoru, and Kagome's eyes widen in surprise.

Mayu says that her mother hated her and that's why she was abandoned, only causing Kagome quiet confusion. Eyes looking a little teary, Mayu states that she knows she was an unwanted child, and this turns Kagome's puzzlement to alarm. She reaches out to Mayu and tries to reason that her mother seems like an awful nice person, and that if Mayu continues to do nasty things she'll only make her mother more sad.

Squeezing her eyes shut and yelling at Kagome to stop talking, Mayu telekinetically snaps a pole in half and flings one of the halves at Kagome. Kagome recoils and turns away from the flying object as Mayu runs away, threatening to kill Kagome too if she gets in the way of Mayu's murder plans. Kid, you've been trying for SIX MONTHS to kill your tiny bed-ridden brother with no success. What makes you think you can kill a perfectly healthy 15-year-old?? Kagome reaches out again, telling Mayu to wait, but something stops her from giving chase.

Hey, what happened to Souta? Kagome is too distracted by the weird flute-playing bubble monster to really wonder.

Oh, there he is, good deal. I was getting a little worried there for a second.

Anyway, yeah, the Tatari-Mokke is like, "Hey, I'm giving you a window to set this little brat straight. Don't let me down." Unfortunately, Kagome doesn't quite have the knowledge necessary to translate the message, so she's just mystified by it. But she knows where she might be able to GET that knowledge.

So, she heads back to the Sengoku Jidai, and at the end of her tale someone is pretty upset to learn that the Tatari-Mokke's eyes weren't entirely closed. That person is, of course, Myouga, who sits in Kagome's finger while she and Shippou rest on the edge of the well, the former of them covered in self-adhesive bandages because of all those cuts she got from Mayu's attack. It's news to her that the bubble monster is called a Tatari-Mokke, and Myouga is interested to know that there's one in Kagome's world too.

He explains that it was originally a youkai that comforts children's souls with its flute music, watching over the kids until they enter "Nirvana". I thought that was somewhere that took a lot of conscious effort to get into, but I'm no expert on Buddhism or anything. Kagome asks what happens if the kids can't seem to enter the afterlife, and Myouga tells her that the Tatari-Mokke drags them to Hell before they become a full-blown poltergeist.

Kagome deduces that's what happens when those eyes open completely.

You're not doing Myouga any favors, though.

Inuyasha, revealed to be sitting some ways away, tells Kagome that she should quit getting involved in this little ghost drama while she's ahead. He says ghosts aren't like youkai, and you can't subdue them by just chopping them up. If Kagome loses this fight, Inuyasha states that she'll end up a lot worse for wear than she is already.

But Kagome says she can't leave Mayu alone, being part of a family of shrine-keepers who should be able to do SOMETHING about the issue. Inuyasha leans his head into the palm of his head, scoffing that he wouldn't even bother, because there's no use in such actions. He looks back to find Kagome has disappeared, and Shippou tells him that she left while he was talking. Rude.

In the well, Kagome is thinking she HAS to help Mayu, remembering her sad expression as she said she knew she was an unwanted child.

Satoru's mom is being reminiscent herself, and not in the good way. She remembers the fire-fighters recovering the body of her daughter, saying what a shame it was for a kid to die like that. Satoru's mom remembers herself shouting that it can't possibly be true, because Mayu should have been outside, and COULDN'T have been in the house. She looks down at her current sewing project and thinks that it would have been Mayu's birthday pretty soon.

Guys, I can't! I can't even!

Thankfully, they're interrupted by Mayu floating outside the hospital window, spying on her mother. She plans to come back after her mother leaves the hospital and kill Satoru.

Run FASTER, Kagome!

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? This ticking time bomb is a great setup. It amps up the tension by putting a time-limit on everything going down. Sure the tension was already pretty high with Mayu trying to kill her brother, but as I said above, if she's been attempting murder for six whole months and nothing's come of it, that by itself wouldn't have made this nearly as compelling. Clearly RT knew she needed to raise the stakes just a bit more for readers to be truly invested.

That being said, is it just me or is this Tatari-Mokke system REALLY terrible? Mayu isn't EVIL, she's just being a brat because she's feeling neglected and unwanted. One might cite the fact that she's trying to kill Satoru as an indication of evil, but I'm not even certain that her heart's really in it, considering how long it's taking her. She's only trying to punish her mother and get her attention at the same time, and the extreme actions she's taking are only because she's LITERALLY INVISIBLE.

But the fact that this youkai is willing to drag kids to HELL because they're acting out in the only ways they're able seems like a horrible mistake to me. This behavior could easily be fixed with some good old-fashioned therapy and empathy, but I guess since the Tatari-Mokke isn't exactly a licensed therapist, maybe that's not a viable option.

Anyone else notice that while the Tatari-Mokke was surrounded by children in the Sengoku Jidai, he's only hanging with Mayu in the present day? Is that a not-so-subtle indication toward the horrible child-mortality rates back then or what?