(L) Tasogare Otome x Amnesia Anime

[thundrakkon]

The mob mentality coupled with fear is a very real possibility in this world to do what they did in the anime. Of course, I felt the urge to just punch all those people when they wanted to break down the door, in order to knock some sense into them. They were just going overboard. Then again, we have to realize that they are only around 11-14 years old. Scared children can do a lot of damage, although attempted murder does seem over the edge.

A very intense episode, although not an episode I would enjoy watching again. I hate seeing the ugliness in people. Hope is so much better when available.

[Randrak42]

Originally Posted by thundrakkon

Then again, we have to realize that they are only around 11-14 years old.

13-16 actually

[Marcus H.]

I hate seeing the ugliness in people.

This is probably the reason why this episode receives its current criticism. Not that the episode wrongly portrays this aspect supernatural belief. We have already seen how possible it is to self-suggest the existence of a ghost (see Episode 2 for Momoe's experience).

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Haak

To be honest I just felt like the whole episode was one massive Idiot Plot. Pretty much everyone except the main four were acting like such complete idiots, I couldn't take it seriously at all.

That is the point. It's reinforced especially when the mob runs out into the sunlight at the end, looks back sees nothing like they've all been scared by...exactly nothing.

It's to show just how mass hysteria can get out of hand, that people can be driven insane by a story someone twisted to her own aims.

Also, if you think such things are uncommon in real life....they are not. Especially in middle school....


And yeah...epic fail there Kirishima....In the end having to be saved by that which you detest.


BTW, from the preview....maybe next ep will go back to that bit from the previous one?


Really good visuals for this ep....

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

It's to show just how mass hysteria can get out of hand, that people can be driven insane by a story someone twisted to her own aims.

Also, if you think such things are uncommon in real life....they are not. Especially in middle school....

I would like to de-emphasize the fact that this happened because they were kids, adults are just as vulnerable to being manipulated by lies (whether they are ghost stories, political propaganda, religious blabber or any other kind of lies) they hear, must I remind you what happened when Orson Wells read out loud War of the Worlds on radio?

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

That is the point. It's reinforced especially when the mob runs out into the sunlight at the end, looks back sees nothing like they've all been scared by...exactly nothing.

It's to show just how mass hysteria can get out of hand, that people can be driven insane by a story someone twisted to her own aims.

Also, if you think such things are uncommon in real life....they are not. Especially in middle school....


And yeah...epic fail there Kirishima....In the end having to be saved by that which you detest.


BTW, from the preview....maybe next ep will go back to that bit from the previous one?


Really good visuals for this ep....

It's more than just acting idiotically.

It's one thing when a group of people turn into a mob and gang up on a single person. It's another to suddenly think "hey, I just realized after all this time that this girl has the same name as the ghost! GET HER!"

[mangamuscle]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

It's more than just acting idiotically.

It's one thing when a group of people turn into a mob and gang up on a single person. It's another to suddenly think "hey, I just realized after all this time that this girl has the same name as the ghost! GET HER!"

That is the way the human mind works, or do you have problem with how Phytagoras was having a nice bath and then realized his body moved an e volume of water equivalent to his submerged body volume? Should he have known all along? Should he have made several experiments before yelling "Eureka"?

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

It's more than just acting idiotically.

It's one thing when a group of people turn into a mob and gang up on a single person. It's another to suddenly think "hey, I just realized after all this time that this girl has the same name as the ghost! GET HER!"

That's assuming the decision is rooted in cold logic rather than last ditch desperation after fear broke down all other inhibiting barriers

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

That is the point. It's reinforced especially when the mob runs out into the sunlight at the end, looks back sees nothing like they've all been scared by...exactly nothing.

It's to show just how mass hysteria can get out of hand, that people can be driven insane by a story someone twisted to her own aims.

Also, if you think such things are uncommon in real life....they are not. Especially in middle school...

Sorry but I find it hard to believe that it's common for middle schoolers to go into mass hysteria and attempt murder because of a prank.

The problem here is that the whole pretext is flimsy. Students were apparently getting scared because a few people started disappearing and Yuuko was attacked and they just suddenly decided to take Yuuko's word for it that a ghost was doing it. That's all we know.

And how exactly was Yuuko making students disappear? Black magic? Were the students that disappeared complicit in her scheme? If so then why didn't they come out when things got out of hand? Did she make them disappear by force? How did she manage to pull that off without anyone noticing and where are they now? Did Yuuko simply convince them to leave? If so then why couldn't the other students simply contact them using their phones? And how were they convinced that Yuuko had been attacked by ghost? Did anyone actually see anything? And this is all before they went into mass hysteria. For all we know the students could have actually tried everything but we don't know. This crucial turning point was given far less attention than what was required. Are we really supposed to believe that it's human nature to just suddenly start believing in ghosts at the slightest provocation? In this day and age and in modern societies, I just don't think that's something that would happen so easily. Maybe it's a bit of values dissonance but if that sort of thing is actually common in Japan then its news to me.

The other explanation I've seen is that there's something about the school that pushed the students into believing it so easily, which would make sense but is not particularly well set up because the only hints that would suggest such things are Yuuko-san's pranks and that's always been played for laughs (There's also Momoe freaking out over everything but...well...that's just Momoe...). And if it was Yuuko-san’s previous pranks that pushed them into believing then you would’ve thought another moral of the story at the end of the episode would be for Yuuko-san to knock it off.

And frankly I thought the students running outside to find everyone else being normal, made even less sense. Because then that would have to mean there were two groups (The mass hysteria group and the majority of students outside) that were completely isolated from each other without any interaction, as was the case in the War of the Worlds reading. How does that even come about? What extremely specific set of circumstances (which ought to have been explained) would’ve allowed that to happen? You would’ve thought that someone from the majority of students outside would’ve noticed a bunch of crazy ass students running around screaming and acting like Armageddon is coming and wonder what the hell was going on. And you would’ve thought that someone from the mass hysteria group would’ve noticed the majority of students outside and wondered why none of them are worried. And it’s not like the mass hysteria group was stuck inside the building either since we frequently saw them outside as well. There’s just a lot of holes in this case so it’s really difficult for me to buy.

[GrimJack]

Originally Posted by mangamuscle

That is the way the human mind works, or do you have problem with how Archimedes was having a nice bath and then realized his body moved an e volume of water equivalent to his submerged body volume? Should he have known all along? Should he have made several experiments before yelling "Eureka"?

sorry had to correct it Pythagoras was a nutter who was wholly obsessed with triangles

back on topic There have been experiments done and the group mind is capable of great evil even among kids. Bullying and thus attempted murder will happen if given enough build up

[Kaoru Chujo]

On the one hand, I agree with the doubters that the reaction of the students seems to go beyond realistic. On the other hand, I think the point is the reaction, rather than the details of realism to get us there. And the show conveys very well the emotional truth of human susceptibility to a mob mentality, under the influence of fear. Great episode, for me.

[Shadow5YA]

Originally Posted by Cosmic Eagle

That's assuming the decision is rooted in cold logic rather than last ditch desperation after fear broke down all other inhibiting barriers

The overwhelming implication you're making here is "they are panicking, therefore anything they do makes sense." There is a logical fallacy in this line of thinking.

Even assuming that it's true, that argument fails to explain why the blonde Yuuko must be the mob's victim. If it's just because of "last ditch desperation", why not another person? Using desperation as an excuse is circular; it explains nothing, unless you're really claiming that there is no reason why it had to be the blonde Yuuko and that it could have been anyone.

This is a story written by a logical person. Even if the mob has no logical sense, the arrangement of events does. Mob mentality aside, why did the writer make the blonde Yuuko into the victim? The writer is not panicking, nor is he part of the mob.

A better reason would be that "Yuuko instigated the whole thing to get back at everyone for equivocating her identity to a ghost, but it backfired as retribution." In this case, story fails to portray the blonde Yuuko in a more negative light as the culprit.

[DragoZERO]

Originally Posted by Haak

Sorry but I find it hard to believe that it's common for middle schoolers to go into mass hysteria and attempt murder because of a prank.

The problem is we skipped over a dozen of chapters that establishes how much these ghost stories take hold of the students and the build up to the climax in this arc is longer. I also think the anime went a little overboard with the insanity of the students, like when they tied Kirishima down.

In the all too common conclusion, read the source material.

[GrimJack]

Kirishima Yuuko was always the victim, she was bullied by her classmates in the anime at least simply because her name was the same as the "school ghost" In the manga there are others reasons she was being bullied but as the weren't presented here I wont go into them.

The fact that she was being bullied made her lash out to what she percieved as her tormenter, the supposed existence of a ghost in the school.

Where she failed is that the fear she was causing rebounded against her because if all that was needed was a sacrifice of a "Yuuko-san" the mob realized she would do in a pinch.

[Randrak42]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

The problem is we skipped over a dozen of chapters that establishes how much these ghost stories take hold of the students and the build up to the climax in this arc is longer. I also think the anime went a little overboard with the insanity of the students, like when they tied Kirishima down.

In the all too common conclusion, read the source material.

Yea...basically this...

[ellifeedn]

Either the studio is trying to squeeze everything into a 13 episode series or they're airing the episodes out of order a la Suzumiya Haruhi. Which seems more likely?

[thundrakkon]

Originally Posted by Randrak42

13-16 actually

I thought they were in Middle School, which would be grade 7, 8, and 9? Since at 13, you are probably only in grade 8 or 9 at the most. Well, actually, considering Yuuko was 15, then is the school a combination Middle and High School?

Originally Posted by Haak

And frankly I thought the students running outside to find everyone else being normal, made even less sense. Because then that would have to mean there were two groups (The mass hysteria group and the majority of students outside) that were completely isolated from each other without any interaction, as was the case in the War of the Worlds reading. How does that even come about? What extremely specific set of circumstances (which ought to have been explained) would’ve allowed that to happen?

I think it was a case of a group of people that believes in the stories, who were probably in Kirishima's class, versus everyone else. Those who believe will band together and create more hysteria amongst themselves. Paranoia and fear can cause crazy things to happen, and those who think alike tend to band together.

Originally Posted by Shadow5YA

Mob mentality aside, why did the writer make the blonde Yuuko into the victim? The writer is not panicking, nor is he part of the mob.

Kirishima has always been compared to the ghost Yuuko, which was the premise to her doing the things she has been doing. In the paranoia state the mob was in, they just released what they were already thinking inside, that is, Kirishima and ghost Yuuko are one and the same.

[Kismet-chan]

Originally Posted by ellifeedn

Either the studio is trying to squeeze everything into a 13 episode series or they're airing the episodes out of order a la Suzumiya Haruhi. Which seems more likely?

They're trying to squeeze most of everything into 13 episodes, obviously. It's in the proper order.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by DragoZERO

The problem is we skipped over a dozen of chapters that establishes how much these ghost stories take hold of the students and the build up to the climax in this arc is longer. I also think the anime went a little overboard with the insanity of the students, like when they tied Kirishima down.

In the all too common conclusion, read the source material.

Not only that but they blew through this story ridiculously fast. In a lot of Japanese stories there is a cultural urban myth that schools contain "seven mysteries" (or something to that effect), and that is supposed to be true here. Yuuko is one of them, and she plays a part in most of them (like the anatomical doll missing a heart), but when the anime blasts through some of the setup you miss out on a lot of character development and buildup. For example I really felt that how the anime handled Kirie's realization of her relation to Yuuko, including how much they resemble each other, was done very poorly. This is because all of the build up the manga used is largely absent in the anime.

The reactions of the students in the manga were quite believable because the "fake" Yuuko had basically driven them into a rumor based frenzy. She played them against their own fears so well that she became the target of the rumors and in turn all of the fear. None of what happened to the students in the rumors was real. No one disappeared or anything like that, but by the time it became obvious that the story had gotten out of control, the students were too freaked out to listen to any logical explanations.

However since the anime essentially omits so much of that build up and rushes through the development in one episode everything seems extreme to the point of being silly.

Yet another case of an adaptation that is enjoyable by itself, but does a poor job of capturing the essence of important plot points from the source.

[Marcus H.]

Speaking of the Seven Wonders of the Seikyou Academy, have the production team decided to mention them on the very last parts of the anime? The manga repeatedly pointed out that certain mysteries belong to the Seven Wonders, and I think the anime would instead bring that up by Episode 11 or 12.

Breakneck pacing isn't really the anime series' fault. Take note that the story has already spanned two years, and it will be really weird if they try to take things slow.

霊魂

Interestingly, that word can mean "soul gem" in an alternate interpretation.