Ghost Hound 08

Focus:08 Revolution of Limbic System
More Screencaps from "Ghost Hound" Episode 08

This episode is told from Hirata's POV, which makes it unusual. Apart from that, this is standard Ghost Hound fare with a few surprising discoveries.

It seems that Taro's father is going to re-open the sake brewery business again with Kei as manager. Hirata is treating Taro's mother, using the E.M.D. technique.

On his way to school, Masayuki witnesses his friend being bullied by a group of older students in an alley. He pretends not to see it. Later, he tells Taro that even though his fear of heights has disappeared, his past deeds have not.

Makoto is skipping class again. He goes to the pachinko parlor and then to Kameiwa Shrine to ask Komagusu more about his father but learns nothing new.

Back at home, Taro goes to his sister's room and has another OBE. He flies towards the Kameiwa shrine where he overhears Makoto and Komagusu's conversation. Komagusu mentions Makoto's mother, sending the boy into a sudden fit.

On his way down from the shrine, Makoto encounters Miyako on the steps. They regard each other for a moment -- Miyako with her usual blank stare and Makoto with his angry eyes -- before Makoto stalks off.

Something catches Miyako's attention then and she sees Taro's astral form appear. Taro thanks her for helping him that time when he lost consciousness. They talk for a bit, wherein Miyako unintentionally reveals that sometimes she sees a man enter her home.

The conversation is interrupted when her father asks her if it's her visions again. Miyako denies it and turns for the house.

For his part, instead of heading for his own home, Taro explores the Kameiwa mountain forest for a while, where he meets a prehistoric dog-like ghost creature. He follows the phantom to a huge hole in the sky where he sees thousands of other phantom creatures.

As he goes deeper and deeper into the hole, he finds another hole that looked a lot like the inside of his own head. Before he can find out more, he wakes up.

The next day in school, Masayuki and Taro discover that the creature that the latter saw from s recent OBE experience existed hundreds of years ago.

It is afternoon and Taro is telling Hirata his recent OBE experience as well as the fact that the E.M.D. treatment Hirata performed on his mother seems to be working as his mother is smiling more. But Hirata points out that it could also be because his mother is making herself busy with the business opening.

At 5:45 p.m., Hirata prepares to go home but finds that he has to go the edge of town in order to get a taxi. On his way there, he passes by the pachinko parlor.

By then, it is already dark and the streetlamps keep flickering on and off. The mailbox also starts rattling and a truck drives by.

Hirata pays no heed, until a moment later, the same truck coming from the same direction passes by again.

His taxi arrives some thirty minutes later and the nervous Hirata quickly gets in. As the taxi drives off, however, he notices a strange large oblong-shaped light on the sky.

COMMENTS:

Like I said in the beginning, this episode stands out because it's narrated by Hirata. It's very clever, what the scriptwriters did. Not only does this allow the viewers a fresh take on the events so far from the scientific viewpoint (which is only proper, after the extremely technical mumbojumbo of episode 7), but it also gives us a good glimpse of what kind of person Hirata is.

Before we know this episode, what we know of Hirata is that he is a scientist, extremely objective and existential. That's why it was very interesting to see how Hirata reacted at the end of the episode.

It must be a nightmare, if you were a person of Hirata's character.

On a different note, Makoto obviously has abandonment issues about his mother and he reacts the way any abandoned child would initially react -- with hate. Perhaps, the reason he is so obsessive about the circumstances of his father's death, aside from the fact that he saw it happen, is because he is searching for clues to define who he is.

It's a strange turn of events when Taro found himself looking at the inside of his own brain even though he was, in a manner of speaking, in the Parallel World.