Kagewani 2: Sub Zero

EPISODE 2: Ice Fang

Sousuke Banba receives a call about a friend of his, Kuroda, a professional mountain-climber who got into in an accident and had to be rescued. According to Kuroda, they were five days away from reaching the peak when one of their team members went into hypothermia. The team decided to head back, much to Kuroda's dismay. Kuroda joined the expedition partly to find her father, who went missing in that mountain six years ago. That night, while the team was sleeping, they are attacked by a mysterious creature. The only people spared were Kuroda and the team member with hypothermia. As Kuroda calls for help and lights a flare, something knocks her from behind. She wakes up in a cave filled with human remains. She hears a sound, which turns out to be an old music box. This brings back old memories of herself giving a music box to her father just before he left for an expedition. Not surprisingly, the corpse holding the music box belonged to none other than her father as the name plate on his clothes revealed. Kuroda's sad reunion with her father's remains is cut short when the creature returns. Kuroda realizes that the creature can sense heat so Kuroda takes off all her clothes in order to avoid detection. The creature inspects her, unsure if she was prey. A desperate Kuroda prays to her father's soul to save her. Suddenly, the music box plays and the creature turns to attack the corpse. The creature leaves just as the rescue helicopter arrives. At the hospital, the staff believe that Kuroda's story is none other than the product of fevered imagination brought about by the extreme condition she was in. However, Kuroda shows Banba the name tag that belonged to her father.

COMMENTS:

This was a nice story and reminds me of the Dyatlov's Pass incident, involving the death of nine hikers under very mysterious conditions. According to this show, it was Big Foot.

But this episode has a very glaring plothole: if the bigfoot-like creature can sense heat and that was the reason it attacked the other climbers but not the guy with hypothermia, why didn't the creature also attack Kuroda?

The actual story of the Dyatlov's Pass incident, based on physical evidence, is much more fascinating. For one, the tents were torn from the inside and the hikers appeared to have left camp without shoes or proper clothing to protect them from the subzero conditions. Until now, they haven't solved the mystery.

At any rate, this episode is fine. But I'm waiting for Banba to actually do something. Isn't he supposed to be investigating these mysterious creatures? I thought this show was about Banba investigating these creatures, with Banba taking a more active role. But he's more of a passive character here, standing in for the audience in the horror stories of the victims.