Episode 9: Mud Games
Plot: A mother picks up her daughter from daycare in a rain storm when she starts telling her a strange story of what happened when she was playing in the sand box.
Breakdown: Well, we’re back to incredibly sad again.
I didn’t see the twist of this one coming, and it did have one or two very unsettling moments, but the whole story is a bomb of sadness. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s like they came up with the bare-bones plot and asked themselves ‘Hm, what’s the most depressing route we could take this story?’
It’s not a bad story by any means, in fact it’s very good, it’s just incredibly sad.
Episode 10: Tree of Innocence
Plot: Twin boys, Satoshi and Takeshi, decide to climb a big tree. When Takeshi steps on a rickety tree branch and begs his brother for help, their mother arrives and pleads for them to come down….Well…one of them anyway.
Breakdown: This is so similar to episode nine it’s weird. Starts off normally, leads into creepy, revelation that one of the characters is dead, leads to the death of the loved one of the initial person who died.
The only major differences are the situation and the absolute ending, and it somehow makes the entire situation even more tragic than episode nine.
Spoilers! When Satoshi tries to save Takeshi, his mother begs Satoshi to get out of the tree because Takeshi recently died from falling out of that same tree. Satoshi was lured into the tree by Takeshi’s restless spirit. He caused Satoshi to fall, and when he did, Takeshi took over his body and walked home with their mother.
Dying is one thing, but having your dead brother take your body and leave you as a spirit in a tree with no one mourning you because they believe you’re still alive is heartbreaking.
I have no clue why the comments were so lenient on this one when they weren’t on episode nine. Tons of people were saying ‘Finally a good episode!’ when every other episode has been either mixed or littered with ‘This isn’t scary.’ This one’s even sadder, and, in my opinion, it’s less frightening. Ghost Takeshi is a little unsettling, but he’s a lot easier to watch than that scene with the toddler in the previous episode.
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The Anime Madhouse 