Kusumoto despaired because of her debt and the fear that her daughter wanted her dead. She gave Yoriko hell over that one childish remark, bringing in a quack priest and getting involved with a cult, all to help banish the evil spirit in her house. After Yoriko told her she should just die, the mother believed that her daughter had been possessed by and/or replaced with an evil spirit. Kusumoto also tended to be superstitious. She has the makings of a truly great mother, because she raised Yoriko on her own, worked hard for her education expenses, and strove to keep ownership of the house so that Yoriko could inherit it. Yoriko’s mother had always been emotionally insecure and sensitive due to the way her family broke apart as a child, and the way her husband disappeared on her. Then we just realize one day, like we’re suddenly waking up from a dream, that it didn’t really happen in that way. We believe it’s true, sometimes for years. Then it made her experience dissociative symptoms and false memories related to topics she fears. Shock made her develop amnesia of the details of the incident. In the anime, it’s safe to say Yoriko isn’t lying, or rather, that she believes what she says is true. Look up false memories in psychology if you don’t believe me. There’s no way to prove the person with false memories is lying, and there’s no way to prove that she’s not, because it’s very possible– and common, even– for the mind to deceive itself.
This “lie” of Yoriko’s is interesting because it touches on the real topics of false memories and selective amnesia.įor cases like this in reality, it’s the Devil’s Proof. Her mind made up the description of the man with black clothes and white gloves because she read about a character like that in Sekiguchi’s haunting stories. When a stranger in town pushes her roughly, it triggers Yoriko’s mind to generate a detailed false memory of a man pushing Kanako onto the tracks. Unable to cope with the shock and guilt of causing Kanako’s near death, she forgets that she was indeed the one who pushed Kanako. There is another interesting case of Yoriko’s psyche being troubled and disordered after the train incident. And if not for her mother (or grandmother, in actuality) telling her die all the time, Kanako wouldn’t have fooled around with the ideas of death and killing. If not for Kanako saying things about killing Yoriko, it’s possible that the latter would have been less likely to push the former in front of the train that night. That’s where things start to get out of hand. Like a surprising number of love-addled young couples, Yoriko and Kanako think dying together or killing each other might be romantic. They talk of whimsical things like angels, goddesses, and each other’s reincarnations they play and dance under the moonlight, and Kanako ties a thread– of “love and destiny”– around Yoriko’s wrist. Yoriko and Kanako were two girls deeply in love, and both were the romantic, fanciful type. This isn’t a case of mental illness as much as mental instability due to poor family lives and upbringings. The first episode shows how the beauty of youth and young romance can turn tragic if the adolescents are mentally unstable. This is best exemplified by the characters of Yoriko, her mother, Kiba, and Sekiguchi. One recurring element in Mouryou no Hako is mental illness and psychological disorders. (L to R: Kiba, Sekiguchi, Reijiro, and Kyougokudou) Let me tell you some interesting things about this underrated anime series. This post will serve as an analysis of the themes.ĭo spirits and gods exist? What is the nature of the evil spirit known as the Mouryou? What are the true forms of demons? If you could live forever, or make a loved one live forever, would you? How can one stay stable living in a troubled era and/or dealing with mental illness? What is the metaphorical signficance of boxes? All these questions are present in Mouryou no Hako (Goblin’s Box) in the form of recurring themes.
I’ve written a review of Mouryou no Hako or Goblin’s Box if you’re interested. Main characters are Kiba, Sekigucki, Toriguchi, Reijiro, Yoko, and Chuuzenji, who everyone calls Kyougokudou.
The story is about the different characters as they are caught up in solving two mysteries: the disappearance of 14-year-old Kanako Yuzui, and the three serial killings and dismemberment cases. It’s a psychological and sci-fi mystery with some supernatural elements. It was produced by studio madhouse with all character designs done by CLAMP. Mouryou no Hako is a 2008 anime based on the 1995 novel by Natushiko Kyogoku.