(L+CR) Mushishi: The Next Chapter

[Guardian Enzo]

I think if there's any character in Mushishi that deserves to be judged, it's Shino. I suppose one can say that anyone who attemps to murder a child (their own or otherwise) is mentally ill. But Shino comes off as quite logical and self-aware - indeed, perhaps her only redeeming quality is that she knows how despicable she is. She was forced into a marriage against her will and went into a lifelong pout, making an innocent child her victim. In the end she couldn't even bring herself to say she'd like him not to die in order to save his life. Judge away, I say.

Many Mushishi chapters are about the redeeming quality of love (we've had two mother-son stories in recent weeks that are) but the redeeming quality here is the strength of someone to fight onward and retain their decency despite being screwed over by life. Reki has had a truly terrible upbringing and the story as a whole is incredibly sad, but there's a sense that he's going to be OK.

[ndqanh_vn]

Well, in a sense, I could relate with Shiho. I don't think that what she did is justified, I think she's less an evil human than a woman who was too captured in her own misery.

She probably had felt she herself died when getting married to a man she did not want. And when she got pregnant, she probably felt her life once again was stolen away by the child inside her womb. The child was born, and the rest of her life would be nailed as his mother, or as the wife of its father. And a child could be a pretty annoying thing if one, for some reason, could not develop natural feeling for it. Days and days of pain, hopelessness and troubles probably killed whatever in her to love him. If she did not want the kid, all the pain going with the pregnancy and child-bearing would feel like unjust torture.

Shino probbaly knew herself a mother should have loved her child. That was why she was so traumatized when she realized she could not.

Shino's situation is actually not strange in Eastern countries of the old day, and some of my relatives had said they only had child because the husband's family wanted it. She was living a life when nothing was her choice, and she had no right to have any choices, just like many other women in that time. I think the problem with Shino was the fact she refused to accept her fate: Something inside her still cried help, still saw all of this was unjust, unfair, and therefore her subconsciousness denied her child as the last act of revenge.

When I read this chapter in the manga, and then watch the anime, I always feel what a sad life it must be, for both of them. I don't know whether it is only me to feel more personally connected to the mother's tragedy. Looking at the thread, it is probably just me.

[Haak]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I think if there's any character in Mushishi that deserves to be judged, it's Shino. I suppose one can say that anyone who attemps to murder a child (their own or otherwise) is mentally ill. But Shino comes off as quite logical and self-aware - indeed, perhaps her only redeeming quality is that she knows how despicable she is. She was forced into a marriage against her will and went into a lifelong pout, making an innocent child her victim. In the end she couldn't even bring herself to say she'd like him not to die in order to save his life. Judge away, I say.

The ability to think logically and be self aware does not necessarily exclude mental illness. At the end of the day, she felt so guilt ridden over her inability to love her own child that she was willing to kill herself instead of just lying to him. That to me suggests much deeper problems. At the very least she definitely struck me as someone suffering from severe depression, which is a bit more than just a "lifelong pout".

[Irisiel]

Well, considering that beside the whole rejection by her mother and forced marriage, she was sexually assaulted (socially pressured into having sex and bearing children because that's what a wife's supposed to do according to society, and any sex forced upon a person is sexual assault) by a guy who is confused about why she wants to commit suicide when she's pregnant with his child, and then said guy is annoyed that she doesn't shower the child with affection/behaves like all is hunky dory ("Why do you have to be like this?" or whatever he said).

On top of that, being pregnant and giving birth when you don't want to is traumatizing, not to mention dangerous. Even with modern medicine plenty of women die from it, so it isn't that strange that she tried to die (drown) on her own terms, because she has no control of her life.

Think about it. She's an adult person who is a prisoner in her situation by society, put there by her mother. All she wants is to escape that prison (life) by any means necessary (suicide).

Oh, and on top of that she keeps berating herself for not being a happy and loving mother, making her spiral even further down.

But somehow the husband cannot step in and divorce/separate from the woman and raise his child for the betterment of both of them (we've seen fathers raise children, even separating them from their mothers).

So yeah, I believe that both mother and son were the victims in this episode, and that sending the son away from his depressed mother and uncaring father (seriously, this guy barely featured when he was such an active participant in fucking this family up. The way he tried to be the rational or reasonable one put my teeth on edge) was best for the son, but unfortunately, the mother is still being victimized in her hated marriage.

Also, I wonder if Reki picked up on the fact that he isn't the cause/source of his mother's unhappiness. It would certainly explain how he bounced back so quickly when he was removed from that situation.

[Guardian Enzo]

Tell it to the judge.

Just to be clear - this is a woman who tied her child to a tree during an electrical storm, hoping he would be struck by lightning (he was) and killed (he wasn't, only because of the Shouraishi's interference). Being depressed does not in any way, shape or form mitigate the sheer evil of that act. Yes, she has real and serious problems and lives in a time and place where such problems don't have treatments, which is a terrible thing for her to bear. But the way she manifested them is the most cruel and vindictive possible. If anything, she would have done everyone a service by simply abandoning a family she wanted no part of anyway and turning up anonymously in a distant village, starting over.

[Irisiel]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Tell it to the judge.

Wouldn't she be sentenced to forced mental care, IRL?

If anything, she would have done everyone a service by simply abandoning a family she wanted no part of anyway and turning up anonymously in a distant village, starting over.

I wonder if she could do that. She seemed apathetic and took the path of the least resistance until she hit a wall (first, she felt reluctant to find the umbilical cord, but her husband's annoyance made not finding it more troublesome, so she tried. She didn't want to go with Ginko and save her child, but did when he kept insisting, yet she hit a wall when Ginko tried to force her to lie and admit feelings she didn't have).

And what if the husband wants her back and searches for and forces her to come back? He already found her when she tried to drown herself.

Don't get me wrong, I think what she did was atrocious and that she had no business raising a child, and that Reki is the ultimate victim in this situation, but that I can also see the "logic" (as to why she did what she did) of the mother's actions, if that makes what I mean more clear?

[Guardian Enzo]

I understand what you're saying - I just don't feel that way myself. She started out as a victim in this too, but I think there are times when we try too hard to find mitigating factors for truly evil actions. What she did to Reki was a choice, just like parents who drive their cars into a lake or river to commit suicide with their kids inside. They obviously have serious mental illness, but the act is still what it is.

Who's to say to what lengths the husband would go? He might search, but if she went a fair distance away it's not as if there would be the internet or detective agencies to help him look. In any event, I don't think Ginko was trying to "force her to lie". I think he miscalculated, thinking he could force her to confront that the fact that she loved (or at least had some regard) for Reki if he showed her just how noble Reki had been and how much he'd suffered. He was clearly wrong.

[Irisiel]

I just feel that even if we judge the mother, we should judge both husband, both sets of families and anyone else watching, ignoring and enabling this behavior as harshly, since their logic and judgement aren't being impaired by being continually victimized (since you said "I think if there's any character in Mushishi that deserves to be judged, it's Shino."). Erm, does that make sense?

Also, it's been so long since Ginko was completely wrong (when he is given all the facts), that I automatically thought he figured that the mother was telling the truth, she didn't feel love towards her child, but that he hoped to get the son back to safety and then maybe address the fucked up family thing.

Is it wrong that I hoped that the mother would go to some form of prison? Because I wanted her punished for abusing Reki, but I didn't want her to be continually victimized in her marriage.

[ndqanh_vn]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

If anything, she would have done everyone a service by simply abandoning a family she wanted no part of anyway and turning up anonymously in a distant village, starting over.

It is very hard to do something like this in the older time, when woman has no money, and not much skills to substain their life. Many Asian women were unhappy about their marriage at that time, but they could not run away, and sometimes, the fear of the life outside the safe zone scared them too much. If one did, it became a big scandal that ruined the name of everyone involved forever. And worse ever, their mind sometimes were rendered in a way that told them to give up since the very beginning.

I do think Shiho subconsciously wanted to fight again it, but her mind also gave up, and the whole thing showed itself in the horrible emotional abuse she put her child into. It's a horrible case, but also a very sad one.

I don't plan to say what she did is right. She's a horrible mother, that's for sure. I just want to say, her case is definitely not an isolated case of a crazy woman and should be examined in the context of a society that is very unfair to women (and children too)

[Flower]

I personally agree with the logic and reasoning both of what Enzo is saying here and what ndganh_nh and irisiel are saying. I think they both make plenty of "sense", if you will. The difference is where an individual's heart leans, though, and for some there is more culpability towards Shino in terms of individual responsibility and for others there is less, emphasizing, ultimately, I think, that she was already a broken human being when the marriage took place. Sorting this out and making a decision if this were somehow brought to a court of law is one of the most difficult tasks of a judge or authority figure, I think (musing objectively for a second here)....

I dunno...as I mentioned in my initial post about this ep I happen to have known a family very similar to this. The wife was left by the husband after a few years of marriage after he found out she was pregnant. As a result the woman's mind broke - not "bad enough" for her to be put in an asylum, but enough so that she was receiving counseling and was occasionally given to hysteric fits early on - it was definitely broken. In her broken state she unreasonably placed the "blame" on the child for "destroying her marriage", and was very often outrightly mocking, emotionally abusive and pretty unloving in her attitude as she grudgingly provided for the child - curiously her profession was that of a nurse. This became worse when the child began to grow and become a man - I myself witnessed the nastiness, the viciousness with which these two interacted with each other on many occasions. After the boy left the house when he entered college he rarely came back, but ultimately she died alone in a house by herself, having become a bit of a "cat lady" in her declining years, and slowly becoming detached from reality and rationality bit by bit, though never to a level that was "bad enough". I happened to know this family quite well, and still am in touch with the son, who is my age and whom I have literally known since nursury school, as my mother went to the same nursing school as the mother.

I think that it is largely because of this that I find myself leaning emotionally leaning more to the side of those who feel that Shiho's mind was broken upon entering into the marraige, though not enough to have her "committed". Early manifestations of this were: 1. her attempt to kill her child in the womb - something which may have shaken the father quite a bit, and 2. the attempt to take the child's life again when she tied her son to the tree that had been hit by lightning...though part of me still wonders if it was deliberately in the hopes that he would be struck by lightning or whether the child was crying and she could not deal with it and tied him to a tree outside and was waiting until he would stop. In either case when the lightning strike actually came she was horrified, and even more horrified when she saw her son still alive. This caused her to "break" again. The further times when the mushi inhabited son would climb the tree to protect his parents and the villagers from getting struck by lightning were for her further ocassions of a sort of inner fragmentation and breaking, I think.

Ultimately I think that separating the child and the parents (yes, the father as well...where was he in the midst of all this?) was the best decision in this case. Bringing legal action against or punishing the mother somehow when her mind was already long broken to my mind (again, based on my experience of the childhood friend I know) does not seem like it would help much of anything. As for what would be an ideal thing to help...I do not know. I think it is right, normal and natural to be moved to indignation and anger at what happened to Reki, though. And very understandable.

Anyway, sorry for such a lengthy, musing post like this. This ep was definitely one of the darker ones of the Mushishi series, but it also touched on something similar to things I have experienced in my own life, so it touched very deeply...perhaps it is no surprise for me to muse aloud like this.

[Guardian Enzo]

Seriously, Flower - agree to disagree and all that, and I get how Shino can be perceived as a victim in all this. But to speculate that tying the kid to the tree was just to get him to shut up, and that the whole lightning thing was coincidence? Sorry, that's just beyond the pale. There's no evidence whatsoever to support the notion, and overwhelming evidence to refute it. Defend her if you want, but do so without setting up a false set of circumstances to do so.

[Amarantine]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Seriously, Flower - agree to disagree and all that, and I get how Shino can be perceived as a victim in all this. But to speculate that tying the kid to the tree was just to get him to shut up, and that the whole lightning thing was coincidence? Sorry, that's just beyond the pale. There's no evidence whatsoever to support the notion, and overwhelming evidence to refute it. Defend her if you want, but do so without setting up a false set of circumstances to do so.

But we didn't even see the circumstances that led up to Shino tying Reki to that tree. The scene was presented without any context from which we might infer specific intent. And intent is something that is by nature hard, if not impossible, to provide conclusive, tangible evidence for.

I'm saying this partially because, as a matter of fact, that scene didn't really strike me as attempted murder when I viewed it, and it was only when I read other people's impressions that I saw how it might be interpreted as such. I suppose some will find this view rather naive, but I honestly just saw it as an old (and particularly twisted, to be sure) form of grounding. One time, when I was a child, I was making a big ruckus and bothering people, so my mother locked me inside the toilet for a bit. Now, putting aside whether that's good parenting or not, what Shino did to Reki, while certainly contextually different in that it put the child in actual danger, did still strike me as more of an attempt to shut out an unwanted presence than attempted murder. After all, that was before that tree became famous for attracting lightning (which in fact only happened because Reki subsequently climbed it every time a thunderstorm approached), so even as far as methods of indirect murder alone go, it seems to me that if Shino really intended to kill Reki, she could have come up with something a little more straightforward perhaps.

I think this idea is further supported by the fact that Shino interpreted Reki's sticking to that tree when a thunderstorm took place as a means of punishing her, and the fact that she did attempt to call him back inside their home after the first incident. If she was truly trying to kill him when she tied him to the tree the first time around, would she really see him remaining near the tree in subsequent thunderstorms as an attempt to punish her? That would be more like he was doing her a favor.

And if someone claims it was attempted murder because she had already tried to get rid of the child once, I don't think attempting a self-induced miscarriage whilst pregnant necessarily means the mother would have no qualms about murdering the child once he was actually born.

So honestly I do believe the scene can be interpreted as something that came about as a result of Shino's general unwillingness to take care of Reki and not necessarily something that was intended to kill him (of course, I still find the action itself quite twisted regardless of her exact intent). And that is in fact how I viewed the scene as I watched the episode. Now, after reading other people's impressions, I can see how it can also be interpreted as attempted murder, but I certainly don't feel that's the only way it can be perceived.

[Guardian Enzo]

So the fact that it was the tallest tree in the entire valley was, in that scenario, an innocent coincidence? She couldn't have tied him to, say, a six-foot tree? A twenty-foot tree?

[Flower]

Originally Posted by Amarantine

But we didn't even see the circumstances that led up to Shino tying Reki to that tree. The scene was presented without any context from which we might infer specific intent. And intent is something that is by nature hard, if not impossible, to provide conclusive, tangible evidence for.

I'm saying this partially because, as a matter of fact, that scene didn't really strike me as attempted murder when I viewed it, and it was only when I read other people's impressions that I saw how it might be interpreted as such. I suppose some will find this view rather naive, but I honestly just saw it as an old (and particularly twisted, to be sure) form of grounding. One time, when I was a child, I was making a big ruckus and bothering people, so my mother locked me inside the toilet for a bit. Now, putting aside whether that's good parenting or not, what Shino did to Reki, while certainly contextually different in that it put the child in actual danger, did still strike me as more of an attempt to shut out an unwanted presence than attempted murder. After all, that was before that tree became famous for attracting lightning (which in fact only happened because Reki subsequently climbed it every time a thunderstorm approached), so even as far as methods of indirect murder alone go, it seems to me that if Shino really intended to kill Reki, she could have come up with something a little more straightforward perhaps.

I think this idea is further supported by the fact that Shino interpreted Reki's sticking to that tree when a thunderstorm took place as a means of punishing her, and the fact that she did attempt to call him back inside their home after the first incident. If she was truly trying to kill him when she tied him to the tree the first time around, would she really see him remaining near the tree in subsequent thunderstorms as an attempt to punish her? That would be more like he was doing her a favor.

And if someone claims it was attempted murder because she had already tried to get rid of the child once, I don't think attempting a self-induced miscarriage whilst pregnant necessarily means the mother would have no qualms about murdering the child once he was actually born.

So honestly I do believe the scene can be interpreted as something that came about as a result of Shino's general unwillingness to take care of Reki and not necessarily something that was intended to kill him (of course, I still find the action itself quite twisted regardless of her exact intent). And that is in fact how I viewed the scene as I watched the episode. Now, after reading other people's impressions, I can see how it can also be interpreted as attempted murder, but I certainly don't feel that's the only way it can be perceived.

I had the same impression when I first viewed it as well (first bolded sections) ... and the same conclusion (last bolded section).

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

So the fact that it was the tallest tree in the entire valley was, in that scenario, an innocent coincidence? She couldn't have tied him to, say, a six-foot tree? A twenty-foot tree?

The tree was easily within walking distance (remember when the mother was talking to the child quietly from the porch as he was sitting in the tree waiting for the lightning to strike). We may just have to agree to disagree here, but I can certainly understand where and why you might be coming from the conclusions you are arriving at.

[Guardian Enzo]

I give up - believe what you want. But I will say just one final thing - why would Shino walk past countless smaller trees to get to the tallest tree - and one that just happened to be a safe distance from the house? More coincidence?

[Amarantine]

Yeah, that's a good point, but I still don't think it's enough for a 100% definite judgment about her exact intent behind that action. Because assuming it was simply, as me and Flower felt as we watched it, to shut him out so as to not have to deal with him, I think it follows that she wouldn't tie him to a tree that was right next to the house, but rather to one a little further away so she wouldn't have to hear his inevitable crying and screaming about it (though that didn't really work out).

Going over the scene again after reading yours and others' thoughts though, I do feel that attempted murder might be the most likely or intended scenario, but like I said, we never saw what led up to her doing that then, so I still think it's possible that she may have, say, tied him up before the thunderstorm started so as to not have to deal with him, but then once the thunder started she didn't bother to go get him back inside because she was scared and didn't care enough for him to do it. At least, the look on her face after the lightning came didn't strike me as the face of someone who was begging for it to happen and who had thus just successfully accomplished a fully premeditated murder.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this as an attempt to acquit Shino of blame, since 1) I don't think what her exact intent was changes the quality of story in any substantial way, which is what matters to me, 2) regardless of what exactly she was thinking there, any woman capable of leaving their child tied to a tree outside while a thunderstorm is going on is still a pretty awful mother by any definition.

[Freeter]

How ironic that after this long argument over whether Shino tried to attempt murder, this week we have a case of someone who unquestionably committed murder. Shino was quite the terrible mother, but she deserved some form of pity. I can't say the same for Shigeru, who ultimately got his comeuppance for his actions. Even Ginko showed no remorse for him.

Sadly, I fear the son will suffer the same fate since we never saw him take the medicine and he chose not to save Shigeru when he had the chance. But even if that were to happen, at least he'd be dignified enough in choosing to run away, since Shigeru was already beyond redemption.

[Amarantine]

Since there were only three stories left to adapt before this episode, I was hoping one of them would be of the eerie and somber kind that Mushishi does so well when it decides to venture into such domains, so I was glad Mud Grass was such a story, and even if it wasn't as good as the best of its kind (The Hand that Caresses the Night, The Journey to the Field of Fire, and Cotton Changeling would be my favorites), it still packed a powerful punch.

Looking forward to The Eternal Tree next week, and hopefully we'll hear something in the meantime about how the last story, Drops of Bells, will be adapted and whether it'll be a double episode special or not (though everything points to it being so considering that's how they did the Sun-Eating Shade and Path of Thorns).

[Kanon]

Originally Posted by Freeter

How ironic that after this long argument over whether Shino tried to attempt murder, this week we have a case of someone who unquestionably committed murder. Shino was quite the terrible mother, but she deserved some form of pity. I can't say the same for Shigeru, who ultimately got his comeuppance for his actions. Even Ginko showed no remorse for him.

I felt more pity for Shigeru than I did for Shino. His brother accidentally killed his daughter, camouflaged her death, and lied to him about it for years. That's not something that can be forgiven. I can't even imagine the rage he felt in that instant. The brother himself knew it would end this way and prepared himself to be killed.

Everybody in this episode was a victim. The daughter, the bother, Shigeru, the nephew. It's a pure tragedy.

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by Kanon

I felt more pity for Shigeru than I did for Shino. His brother accidentally killed his daughter, camouflaged her death, and lied to him about it for years. That's not something that can be forgiven. I can't even imagine the rage he felt in that instant. The brother himself knew it would end this way and prepared himself to be killed.

Everybody in this episode was a victim. The daughter, the bother, Shigeru, the nephew. It's a pure tragedy.

I feel some sympathy for Shigeru too, in the sense that this was obviously not premeditated (like Shino) and he certainly was given a reason to be enraged. But I wouldn't go so far as to say Shinobu expected to be killed. If he did, that was a pretty selfish act to confess, knowing he had a child himself he'd be making an orphan, and leaving his fate to the clutches of the man he expected to kill him.

The issue with Shigeru, really, is the ending. What would have happened had Shigeru not slipped and fallen into the river? Was his telling Sousuke "You'll kill me eventually" his was of justifying that he was about to kill the boy? Would Sousuke, perhaps, have eventually taken his revenge against his uncle?

Ginko's role in this is very typical. He figures out the truth, but even though he's just deduced that Shigeru is a murderer he doesn't appoint himself the arbiter of justice. He's the ally of truth, and he lets Shigeru know that he knows the truth - and what the truth is about how Shigeru might save himself. What Shigeru does with that information he leaves up to him. You'll notice there was no voice-over from Ginko this time saying what happened after he left, which suggests a tragic or at least downcast end for Sousuke as well.