Kyousougiga – 05

In the past, a young Myoue watches his house burning, lamenting his parents, and commits seppuku, but Myoue Shounin find him and brings him home as his son, later passing the care of the temple to him. In the present, Myoue waits by the station for his parents to arrive; Kurama compares him to Hachiko. A frustrated Myoue lashes out at Koto, but after spending a night alone, finds her at the station. They take a scooter trip to the fields outside the city, where Myoue tells Koto the rabbit she’s looking for is probably his (adoptive) mom, and asks Koto to kill him when they find her.

The Kyousougiga OVAs that ran last year were only brief tastes of what was to come, but they were enticing ones. Even a year and several dozen series since we last watched the fourth, the gorgeous environs at the end of Myoue and Koto’s scooter ride remain clear in our minds. This week represents the last of the material the OVAs previewed, in which we delve into Myoue’s story, which proves more complex than either of his non-human siblings. In fact, after keeping him on the margins for the previous four episodes, this episode establishes him as the unequivocal heart of the entire show. Everything revolves around him, and he’s the product of his father saving him from that fire. It’s not crystal clear whether Myoue Shounin saved ‘Lil Myoue’s life back then, or if he somehow resurrected him (that was a lot of blood), but we know Myoue would surely have died without Shounin, hence no show.

Myoue got a new life, new parents, a new family, and a new home; the parents left, and he’s lived in Mirror Kyoto for a very very long time ever since, waiting for them to return. We see Myoue’s increasing fatigue with his unending life, and when Koto arrives with the “beginning and end” his father promised before leaving, he apparently believe’s Koto’s presence to be the beginning of his end. They’ll find the rabbit – his mother – and then he’ll be released of his immortal burden, having lived a full and wonderful life—unlike that suicidal boy surrounded by flame. Up to this point the world was so wondrous and fun and peaceful that it never occurred to us Myoue would be ready to move on to…whatever’s next, but there it is. The episode closes before we can see Koto’s reaction to his asking her to kill him, but we wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t okay with it.

Rating: 9 (Superior)

Next Week: A live-action tour of the temple that inspired the series. So lifelike!

Kyousougiga – 02

This episode documents the young Koto’s life prior to entering the Mirrored Kyoto and becoming the ward of Myoue. Abandoned at a very young age, she was taken in and trained by Inari (AKA “The Fox”), and despite early complaints by his peers, she proves to have a great deal of talent. When Koto suddenly appears in the Mirrored Kyoto with her two familiars, A and Un, the Council of Three (the siblings Kurama, Myoue, and Yase), they debate whether she is related to them, or could actually be the reincarnation of their mother, who shares her name and eyes.

It’s just a fact of anime that whenever there are two characters with identical eye color (in an anime where not all characters have the same eye color, that is), it almost always means they’re related. So it’s no coincidence that lil’ Koto has the same red eyes as the departed Lady Koto or Myoue Shounin, just like it’s no coincidence that Inari also has the same color eyes. The narrator in the very first moments of the episode is also quite clear: “This is the story of one family’s love and rebirth.” Meaning Inari and Koto could well be Shounin and Lady Koto, reborn.

Mind you, the episode doesn’t come right out and confirm anything one way or the other, while the dream-like sequences of Koto and Inari in the secret room with the drawings of Mirror Kyoto and Koto the rabbit don’t make things much clearer. But whether she’s Myoue/Kurama/Yase’s mother or sister, she’s definitely a member of their family. Her appearance represents a sea change, both in their lives and in the world they preside over. The first major change since their parents left. We’ll see how each of them end up dealing with it.

Rating: 8 (Great)

Kyousougiga – 01

In ancient times, monk Myoue Shounin leaves Kyoto to resid in the mountains of Takao. What he draws can come to life, including a black rabbit named Koto who falls in love with him. Koto makes a deal with a Buddha who gives her human form. She and Shounin have a family made up of Kurama, a drawing, Yakushimaru, a human, and Yase, a demon. This strange family garners derision from the town, so they move into the drawing of Kyoto, “the Mirrored City”.

They live there for hundreds of years, until Koto starts to dream of the world’s end, a warning to return her human form she borrowed from the buddha. She and Shounin depart for parts unknown, leaving their three children. Fast-forward to the present day, when Myoue Yakushimaru has replaced his father as Takao monk. The sky fills with unusual lightning, which he thinks could be a sign of Shounin returning, but it turns out to be a girl named Koto from a parallel dimension, looking for her guardian.

This stylish, engrossing, inventive series has been teasing us with small tastes since December of 2011, but has finally gotten a run of ten episodes in which to expand its already dense and tantalizing story. We’ve been licking our chops for some time, and this first non-recap episode takes us all the way back to the beginning with Myoue’s father. It’s a charming, romantic tale that turns bittersweet when Koto, the rabbit who became a lady, then a wife and mother, has to leave that ideal life. There’s an alarming abruptness to going from happy family to three kids on their own, but Mirror-Kyoto is devoid of war or suffering, so the kids fare fine.

Once we’re in the age of cell phones and video surveillance (this episode covers a formidable length of time), the three now run the city like their parents once did, in the configuration we’re familiar with from the OVAs. Then, out of the blue, a girl who vaguely resembles their father suddenly makes a big, Terminator-style entrance, flanked by twin demon brothers, brandishing a big hammer, hunting a black rabbit we know to be Myoue’s mom’s original form. Just as suddenly as he lost his parents, Myoue gains a family.

Rating: 9 (Superior)