More screencaps from Ghost Hound Episode 9
A group of highschool teenagers are cursed by the ghost haunting the abandoned pachinko parlor. Later, Taro, Makoto and Masayuki visit the place in their astral form and encounters the ghost. A change occurs in Taro while Masayuki discovers that he can use the weapons from his virtual-reality game in kakuriyo.
More Screencaps from Ghost Hound Episode 10
Taro, Makoto and Masayuki are still mulling over what happened that night -- why Taro was able to transform and why Masayuki could use his game weapons. During therapy session with Hirata, the psychologist reminds Taro that both fear and hate come from the same region of the brain, the amygdala. Taro and Masayuki want to know more about kakuriyo and so they decide to visit Komagusu at the Kameiwa shrine. Meanwhile, Makoto investigates kakuriyo on his own.
More Screencaps from Ghost Hound Episode 11
Taro has another OBE in which he finds himself above the dam, looking down at a body floating in the water. News of the floater quickly spreads over Suiten and crowds begin to gather around the dam, watching as helicopters and rescuers attempt to extract the body. Makoto unexpectedly sees the mother he did not want to see and Komagusu finally reveals the story of how he, Ogami, and the Chairman Yazaki used to hang out together with Sanae (Makoto's mother) as the group's "madonna." But something occurred that caused a rift in their friendship. Coming home from Kameiwa Shrine that night, Masayuki discovers something else about his father.
COMMENTS:
After Denno Coil, Ghost Hound is probably my second favorite Winter 2007 anime release. So far, every episode has been wonderful, possessing that strange mixture (I've come to call it the Ghost Hound formula) of funny, surreal and downright strange. It's a problem actually since it makes it difficult for me to choose which episode to blog about. If I could, I'd blog about every single one, but since I can't, I decided to compromise by taking the gist of several episodes at once.
#9 - The title's meaning is pretty obvious, although knowing Ghost Hound, it probably means something more. Still, this episode is as straightforward as only Ghost Hound could get.
Why does the ghost keep reappearing and the same thing recurring always at that hour and within the same span of time? Whatever the reason, that was a scary first fifteen minutes.
Strange developments this episode. Who knew Taro could transform into that creature and Masayuki could use his game weapons? And that was some cool shooting he did (nice graphics, too), albeit a little too short. And Masayuki's father suddenly seeing ghost-like creatures is another interesting development.
I don't know if anyone else has noticed but there is something off about Masayuki's family. Each one of them seem to live distinct from each other as though nothing more connects them other than the fact that they share the same roof. Even the siblings do not talk to each other. Are they even blood-related? Seeing this, it is easy to see why Masayuki resorted to bullying in his previous school.
#10 - The title comes from a psychoanalytical technique, which in turn is based on a theory by Callahan that thoughts and emotions do not exist inside the brain but outside it -- the thought field. Hirata explains it as something like television, where you know that the images do not exist inside the monitor itself but is merely sent to it in the form of signals from another source.
By incorporating this in the episode, could it be that kakuriyo is in the nature of Callahan's thought field? If that is so, then it would explain why Taro, Makoto and Masayuki could manipulate their own consciousness while in kakuriyo, similar to being in a lucid dream. Then it must be that kakuriyo is merely a place where people's subconsciousness exists. It is like this large melting pot of people's thoughts and emotions, which therefore explains why it is so impossible to understand.
But how does that explain the prehistoric animals and other strange creatures? Are they imagined, or are they in fact memories of people long gone?
On a lighter note, it seems that Taro's interest in Miyako has developed into a full-blown crush. How cute. :) Of course, if Miyako can smile like that, I can understand why a boy Taro's age would turn red. But why did Miyako suddenly run away, I wonder?
Makoto's wolf-form is not that surprising, when you think about it. And I never thought "yo" was such a scary word until this episode. LOLz
#11 - Finally, we learn something about Makoto's father and we also meet Makoto's mother for the first time. She looks depressed, if you ask me, but depressed over the suicide of Makoto's father or what? Episode 7 hinted that she was still alive and that she lives somewhere far away from Suiten. That guy with her must be a husband or a shrink. Anyway, her presence gets Makoto strangely worked up. He obviously has abandonment issues.
Actually, we learn so many things about the characters' family members in this episode that I can't help but wonder how all these extraneous facts fit into the story. For one, we learn that Masayuki's father, Professor Nakajima, and his assistant, Ootori Reika (Taro's doctor in Episode 7) are having an affair. As is the nature of every affair, they try to hide it, which is difficult, considering the tight security at their workplace. But that was a nice touch the way Professor Nakajima dropped the magazine (which features Hirata on the cover, by the way :)) so he can pretend to pick it up and stare at Reika's legs. That is something that could happen in real life.
As for Makoto's parents, it seems that they were friends first before they lovers, and Komagusu hinted that it is the fact that Sanae and Ogami became lovers that the relationship between the four friends was never the same. He said Sanae was their "madonna." All three boys probably had a crush on her.
I wonder if the same thing is going to happen between Taro, Makoto, Masayuki and Miyako, considering that they all seem to follow the same adventures that the friends did. Glasses guy can't be part of the group. I can't even remember his name.
I also wonder what happened to Miyako's mother or Komagusu's wife? The show makes no mention of her. Oh, and I should also probably mention that the opening clip is starting to make sense. We see the cat, for instance, when Taro OBEs in his full-body form instead of that baby-like astral projection. We also see the lab rat with the cybernetic brain. Apparently, the rat is an experiment and it looks like they are trying to see if the rat can find its way through a maze even though it is covered in a box and can't see anything outside.
All in all, these are very interesting episodes and I can't wait for the next ones. Things are beginning to make a lot of sense but still not enough to give you a complete clue as to where the story is going. Looking forward to how this all turns out.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment