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100 Demons 16
Makes me go arghh arghh arghhitty argh.
Not the stories themselves, exactly. The stories are a fun read-- a fun couple of reads because they do all the standard Ima tricks and one never learns to see them coming. (That's 'cause one always has Insufficient Information to work with.) Vague conversations full of uninformative thises and thats and theys. Intertwining plots that start in three different places and converge. Dashiell Hammett-like lapses-- 'Oh, I never did say who murdered him, did I?' But they're all puzzle stories and thus fun to puzzle out. That's not the problem.
What drives me bats is trying to figure out how she constructed the plot in the first place. Possibly I'm doing it wrong: I assume she puts together a coherent time-linear plot and then rearranges it as a fractured narrative-- starts halfway through plot A, inserts flashback to plot B, continues with plot C that eventually gives you the background information of what happened in the (unseen) first part of A, etc. In fact she may not. She may actually see it in her head the way it appears in the book- begins in medias res and then oh yes! a flashback to this sidestory here about blah-blah, and ravens are cool, I'll put ravens in and explain later on why they're there.
I can only say, if you're a linear thinker, reassembling her multi-strand stories is tough, and trying to construct an Ima-ish multi-strand story yourself is nigh impossible. I know; I've tried.
Of the v.16 stories, I've read the River of Death one enough times that I can more or less reassemble it linearly, but of course it's a bitch the first time or so through. Remove a section of someone's memory so their assumptions are all 18 months out of date, then have them surrounded by people who don't in fact say OK what you remember happened the year before last and this is what's happened in the meantime. Unreliable narrators don't get any more unreliable than that. Really conveys the sense of dislocation an amnesiac must feel, though.
But Island at the Edge/ The Wing-grazed Island ie the first story still hurts my head. I tried to do a summary and got lost a third of the way in. (Granted, it *is* 64 pages long.) Even after figuring out *what* happened, I still don't know why. I have no idea why the woman's spirit came to Saburou's garden in the first place (which is at Kinu's house, after all, not a place the woman should know anything about), or why/ how the one-eyed woman's spirit came to Kai's office, ditto, nor what's with the little bag-- is that what caused the accident? then why?-- nor why comatose Kinu's spirit also went to the garden, having reverted to childhood, nor what it is Kai's suggesting Mrs. Komai do with her property (but that's a fault of my Japanese), nor how it is the son suddenly shows up with Kai and an inflatable dinghy to take the woman away. Because where are they then- at the Komai house or at Kinu's? or neither, but some sort of spirit form?
Ritsu also arrives with dragon Aoarashi to get Kinu's spirit from the garden. But when it all goes down Kai and Aoarashi are at home by the wreckage of the garden, and Ritsu and Kinu are at the hospital with rooster!Saburou. And I have no idea how anyone got anywhere in all this. Fine, Ritsu is able to go from his hospital bed into Saburou's world, but the thing is that he already knows about the garden world and has been there before. Kinu-- I don't know if she knows what the garden is-- a chronic mystery, the extent of Kinu's knowledge- but she's certainly never been there, and neither has the woman. So why are *they* there?
Not the stories themselves, exactly. The stories are a fun read-- a fun couple of reads because they do all the standard Ima tricks and one never learns to see them coming. (That's 'cause one always has Insufficient Information to work with.) Vague conversations full of uninformative thises and thats and theys. Intertwining plots that start in three different places and converge. Dashiell Hammett-like lapses-- 'Oh, I never did say who murdered him, did I?' But they're all puzzle stories and thus fun to puzzle out. That's not the problem.
What drives me bats is trying to figure out how she constructed the plot in the first place. Possibly I'm doing it wrong: I assume she puts together a coherent time-linear plot and then rearranges it as a fractured narrative-- starts halfway through plot A, inserts flashback to plot B, continues with plot C that eventually gives you the background information of what happened in the (unseen) first part of A, etc. In fact she may not. She may actually see it in her head the way it appears in the book- begins in medias res and then oh yes! a flashback to this sidestory here about blah-blah, and ravens are cool, I'll put ravens in and explain later on why they're there.
I can only say, if you're a linear thinker, reassembling her multi-strand stories is tough, and trying to construct an Ima-ish multi-strand story yourself is nigh impossible. I know; I've tried.
Of the v.16 stories, I've read the River of Death one enough times that I can more or less reassemble it linearly, but of course it's a bitch the first time or so through. Remove a section of someone's memory so their assumptions are all 18 months out of date, then have them surrounded by people who don't in fact say OK what you remember happened the year before last and this is what's happened in the meantime. Unreliable narrators don't get any more unreliable than that. Really conveys the sense of dislocation an amnesiac must feel, though.
But Island at the Edge/ The Wing-grazed Island ie the first story still hurts my head. I tried to do a summary and got lost a third of the way in. (Granted, it *is* 64 pages long.) Even after figuring out *what* happened, I still don't know why. I have no idea why the woman's spirit came to Saburou's garden in the first place (which is at Kinu's house, after all, not a place the woman should know anything about), or why/ how the one-eyed woman's spirit came to Kai's office, ditto, nor what's with the little bag-- is that what caused the accident? then why?-- nor why comatose Kinu's spirit also went to the garden, having reverted to childhood, nor what it is Kai's suggesting Mrs. Komai do with her property (but that's a fault of my Japanese), nor how it is the son suddenly shows up with Kai and an inflatable dinghy to take the woman away. Because where are they then- at the Komai house or at Kinu's? or neither, but some sort of spirit form?
Ritsu also arrives with dragon Aoarashi to get Kinu's spirit from the garden. But when it all goes down Kai and Aoarashi are at home by the wreckage of the garden, and Ritsu and Kinu are at the hospital with rooster!Saburou. And I have no idea how anyone got anywhere in all this. Fine, Ritsu is able to go from his hospital bed into Saburou's world, but the thing is that he already knows about the garden world and has been there before. Kinu-- I don't know if she knows what the garden is-- a chronic mystery, the extent of Kinu's knowledge- but she's certainly never been there, and neither has the woman. So why are *they* there?
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Kinu ended up in the garden I think because of two things -- the little poach that she was trying to return to the owner, that belonged (well, not exactly belonged, more spiritually) to the woman. I think it's supposed to contain her eye. *ewww* So that's how she got drawn into the accident and why she first appeared in the woman's cottage on the garden. And the other thing that Saburou says, that people come to the garden because there's still something tying them to the living, and Kinu was of course still attached most to her son, Ritsu, which was why she was so motherly to him even as a little girl. Maybe not exactly linear, but there's enough of the connection for this part to kind of make sense to me.
I thought Kai went to find Ms Komai's son to help after he realized that the pouch given to Kinu was not the actual thing, and that the real thing was actually in the storage shed of Ms Komai. I suppose it could be that he collected Ms Komai's son and went to Kai's home and got Aorashi, which is why they ended up at the same place eventually, but that's speculation on my part.
How the woman got to the island is less clear. On my third reading it seems to me that Kai was already in contact with that family with the mask wearing son when Kinu went to visit him. The lady already knew him, and he say "that's a really nice mask you're wearing today". So I think that's how the spirit found the way into the garden, the exact mechanism unknown. Was there any hint about it in the previous volumes?
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That must be it then. And that would explain the woman as well-- still keeping her grudge against the living Komais.
Kai was definitely already dealing with the Komai family, I assume trying to find a way to undemonize the house/ nullify the bad vibes; and possibly also, Kai being Kai, persuade them to sell a chunk of the property. There's some suggestion that the Komais haven't been totally upfront with him to date: I mean, they haven't mentioned the eye curse yet or the family history.
I assumed the bag contained her eye too, but when Kai opens it it's child Kinu and the garden that's inside. Possibly the bag has what's most important to you in it. I'm still not sure why the woman left it with Kinu-- unless she meant to leave it with *Kai*, the onmyouji manque, and instead found the natural onmyouji Kinu, and so gave it to her instead.
The woman's always looking for help from someone-- Saburou is the one we see- and she might have been trying to get help from Kai. Or else to get him out of the way because he was trying to exorcise her, even if he didn't know it was she he wanted to get rid of.
I thought Kai went to find Ms Komai's son to help after he realized that the pouch given to Kinu was not the actual thing, and that the real thing was actually in the storage shed of Ms Komai. I suppose it could be that he collected Ms Komai's son and went to Kai's
You mean Kinu's?
home and got Aorashi, which is why they ended up at the same place eventually, but that's speculation on my part
But Kai is with the Komai son, and Aoarashi is with Ritsu, and Kai is surprised to find himself next to Aoarashi when both fall out of the garden. So Kai and Aoarashi must have been acting independently of each other. Frankly, I think Ima probably just forgot where everyone was at that point and went for the emotional womp-- Kinu rescues Ritsu from the water, oh sweet, Kai and Aoarashi land on each other, haha.
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I don't think Ima forgot where everyone was. I think some aspects of the garden is related to corporal reality. That's why that chicken came to life in the hospital. Remember that Saburou can also move between the real world and the garden to some degree in a physical form, not just spiritual. I guess what happened is that Ritsu reached for Kinu, but Aorashi dropped him. Kai was pushed into water, and Aorashi picked him up. They were all in the garden, so when it disintegrated that's how they ended up.
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Also what I'm not clear on is where the little spirit Kai gives Ritsu comes from. Just some possessed house in the neighbourhood?
OK, I see how Aoarashi got hold of Kai by mistake and brought him back to the house where the garden is. But why does chicken Saburou manifest in the hospital? He's no longer carrying child Kinu. She's somehow back in the water reaching for Ritsu and, I assume, bringing *him* to the hospital.
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