Umibōzu[]
Umibōzu is the second arc of Mononoke (2007) spanning 3 episodes, beginning from episode 3, and coming to a conclusion in episode 5.
To find out more about the Mononoke of the same name, visit Umibōzu (Being).
Characters[]
- Kayo (加世) (voiced by Yukana): A woman who knows the medicine seller from the previous series Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales. She is a servant girl seeking a new job in Edo.
- Genkei (源慧) (voiced by Ryusei Nakao): A respected Buddhist monk.
- Sōgen (菖源) (voiced by Daisuke Namikawa): An apprentice monk following Genkei.
- Hyōe Sasaki (佐々木兵衛) (voiced by Daisuke Sakaguchi): A young samurai who possesses a famous sword named Kanesada.
- Genyōsai Yanagi (柳幻殃斉) (voiced by Tomokazu Seki): A minstrel practicing Shugendō who is knowledgeable about Ayakashi.
- Tamon Mikuniya (三國屋多門) (voiced by Yasuhiro Takato): The owner of the ship.
- Goromaru (五浪丸) (voiced by Eiji Takemoto): The captain of the ship.
- Umizatou (海座頭) (voiced by Norio Wakamoto): An ayakashi who demands that the passengers reveal their worst fears.
- Oyō (お庸) (voiced by Haruna Ikezawa): The younger sister of Genkei. She volunteered herself to replace Genkei as a sacrifice to the Ayakashi.
Plot[]
Traveling on a merchant's luxurious ship, the Medicine Seller and the other passengers drift into the Dragon's Triangle, a mysterious sea full of ayakashi. Among the passengers are Kayo, a servant girl from the Sakai house of Bakeneko fame, Genkei, a Buddhist monk, and Genyousai, a minstrel and spiritualist. Through the appearance of Umizatou, an ayakashi who demands that the passengers reveal their worst fears, the group discovers that Genkei was the one who set the ship off course.
Genkei explains that he and his sister Oyō, who was five years his junior, grew up very close ("too close" he states) because they were left alone on their tiny island home when their parents perished at sea. This lust for his sister drove him to become a Buddhist ascetic at the age of 15, leaving Oyō behind.
The Umibōzu as seen in the episode.
Although he faithfully immersed himself in study and the solitary monk's life, he still could not extinguish his lust for his sister. When he learned that their home island's ships were sinking and being destroyed at sea, he accepts his village's request for him to return to become a human sacrifice to the sea by being imprisoned alive in a "hollow boat" set adrift. He explained that he would rather be dead than live with his unquenchable thirst to "lie with" Oyō. However, on the night before he was to climb into the boat at sunrise, he met with Oyō, who was now 16 and "so pretty." She then confessed to him that she had the same feelings for him all along and that since they could never marry she would rather become the sacrifice in his stead, preferring, as she stated, "to go to the pure land" rather than marry a man who was not her brother. Upon hearing this, the young recently promoted monk fled vowing to commit suicide to join Oyō in the afterlife. He could not do this and, instead, spent 50 years in deep meditation praying for the soul of his poor sister Oyō, her corpse supposedly adrift in the hollow boat in the Ayakashi Sea. However, deep down he actually was glad that his sister died instead of him, and that guilt followed him. It was his intense focus—metaphorically and specifically, his right eye—on that area of the sea and magnified by his guilt over not truly loving his sister that had caused the Dragon's Triangle or Ayakashi (spirits, generally malevolent) Sea to be so deadly.
Tragically, the ayakashi showed the hollow boat to the current passengers by dragging it up from the bottom of the sea onto the deck of their ship. Although they thought they heard scratching from the inside, they discovered that it had lain empty for 50 years, and that Oyō had in reality "given herself to the sea," as she too could no longer live with her own lust for her brother. The Medicine Seller discovers that Genkei is the mononoke, or at least his darker side has become one, and that this particular mononoke (literally translated as "enraged god who is sick" that form when human feelings of vengeance, rage, guilt etc. meld with ayakashi) was responsible for the Ayakashi Sea's unrest. The Medicine Seller exterminates the mononoke at Genkei's request and restores calm to him. After 50 years of guilt and lust, he is now at peace, although his beloved Oyō died for naught.