Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae – 24
What Ai needs is a big hug.
Summary:
Recalling her recent conversation with Ai, Yuzuki again declares that she will not become the next Jigoku Shoujo. When she looks out of her window, she seems to catch a glimpse of Akie just before her disappearing soon after. While Yuzuki checks to see the results of her entrance examinations, she is relieved to see her number on the boards. She overhears an energetic child mention the same number to her mother though, and when she looks at the student’s card, it certainly contains the number that should have been hers. Yuzuki runs home and throughout the school in search for her now missing card, but as she does, she realizes that it has started to appear as if she is disappearing from existence. Yuzuki sights Akie again, but when she reaches her this time, Akie can only wonder why Yuzuki did not save her. Yuzuki finally realizes that this is the work of Ai, and after screaming her complaints to the Jigoku Tsushin to hear, she is met by Tsugumi.
Yuzuki finds that Tsugumi is the only person that can recognize her, as she wonders why the current world is so strange. Yuzuki continues to ask Tsugumi what she should do, but Tsugumi finally reveals that she did not previously have the same fate as Yuzuki. All she could do in the past was watch. In her house later, Tsugumi continues to recall her father Hajime’s multiple attempts to stop Jigoku Shoujo. He had finally given up though, expressing that people become exhausted. Tsugumi had become tired as well, and had given up. Tsugumi believes that the Jigoku Shoujo may have simply wanted her to see all of the terrible things in the world, and that it would have been better if she let it be. There were actually people she saw who were saved by the Jigoku Tsushin, though these were not the people directly involved with the correspondence website. Yuzuki believes that Tsugumi has not actually given up though, which would explain her being in the town among other things. Tsugumi agrees that she may have had some form of hope left in her, and with this, she finally tells Yuzuki something shocking.
Before instructing Yuzuki, Tsugumi reminds her to not go past the shrine archway no matter what. Tsugumi implies that Yuzuki should accept what is happening to her, as she had disappeared from the current world long ago. Her current life was just an illusion. Yuzuki cannot accept this, but as she runs home to the now revealed to be crumbling building, she sees a small child’s skeleton clinging to her stuffed bear. When Ai finally reappears before Yuzuki with the Jigoku Tsushin, she confirms that this is truly Yuzuki.
Preview: Yuzuki loli days.
Impression:
Uh oh! Life inside the matrix is always so much more comforting isn’t it? Despite the hints we’ve been getting recently (Yuzuki’s unable to contact her parents, and the constant past visions of sakura petals), I didn’t see this coming at all. Yuzuki’s being something otherworldly may explain Ai’s being able to interact with her so easily, but it’s not like she was extremely different from Tsugumi before this. That said, I’m still digging Tsugumi’s constant involvement in the season recently. There’s something about lolis and their growing up! A lot of people have been bringing up theories about Hajime as well, which I can’t throw completely out the window. They haven’t technically explained how he passed away, after all. At this point, I’m kind of expecting that Yuzuki may really become the next Hell Girl. The overall theme of this show has always been to show how messed up the world is, and I just don’t see the Jigoku Tsushin suddenly dissolving after so long. Still, that would make me wonder what would happen to Ai.
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I almost thought the card said she was 21, before I read the word “Heisei” next to it. Yes, moar training in mountainous forest, etc, etc.
Anyways, cool episode. Certainly explains why there are those other girls in the ED sequence, who didn’t become or accept their fates as Hell Girls, and ended up lost between this world and the next.
But enough about this episode, let’s see how they kill off loli Yuzuki!
What’s happening to Yuzuki right now sort of reminds me of that movie called the Invisible staring Justin Chatwin.
So, she was dead all along…
And does this mean Tsugumi is dead as well, or just that she sees dead people?
Hajime might be the old man from episode 14..
…I think you’re on to something about Hajime being the old man
The show is just trying to trick us into thinking he’s dead, but abandoning his life and becoming a homeless man would be a great twist.
looks like she will be indeed the next hell girl >_< but i cant imagine her a cute short haired kind girl, having red eyes… brrr… *shivers* well let’s see… 2 more episodes…
Shocker episode! Yet my money is on Yuzuki escaping her destiny. If the opening lyrics are about Ai and the closing ones are about Yuzuki, it is kind of a dead giveaway. Then again, I am hoping for that to be what the writers want me to think, and get a surprise at the end.
I mean, if others “escaped”, even if that was into nothingness, it is proof that there is no such thing as unavoidable fate. ANYTHING could happen, and I doubt Yuzuki will end up like the rest.
either, way her existence is being erased… more likely, she was slowly turned into a persona like ai… yesterday i hate seeing her as the hell girl but now, i think i want to see her as the jigoku shoujo *grins*
cant wait her (yuzuki) to say the catch phrase… before you slip to hell…
maybe, Yuzuki was send to hell….
Just a theory
But what about the episodes from the start of Mitsuganae up til now? Where the people that were sent to hell an illusion as well? Or…
In response to the comment above: Tsugumi said that a life with Yuzuki is the illusion, maybe she meant that her involvement with the Jigoku Tsuushin’s clients where just her own delusion – i think thats more of a proper description to Yuzuki’s mental status.
But I kinda hate the writers for destroying much potential of a 26 epi season. They could have build the tension far longer instead of the frequent “person sent to hell week”.