As you can see, Kaya-chan wa Kowakunai won the patron poll for this season. In my view the voters made a good choice, as I find this show to be consistently compelling. It’s genuinely creepy and pretty much fearless in its approach to Japanese horror. So far it’s been pretty much a greatest hits of horror and urban legend convention – some Western, mostly Japanese. But wherever it’s gone it hasn’t pulled any punches. One doesn’t feel comfortable taking any plot armor for granted, and that’s a major plus for this sort of series.
Having checked off standards like cursed books, dolls, and mirrors in the first four episodes, Kaya-chan tackles trains this time. The difference is that this is an ep focused solely on the central plot, not a melange of three more or less self-contained stories. Trains are a staple of both Japanese and non-Japanese urban folklore but the story here is 100% local – Kisaragi Station. The urban legend in question sprang up out of 2channel in the early 2000’s, and involved a supposed string of posts from a woman named Hasumi (which happens to be Chie-sensei’s last name).
I won’t wade too deeply into the details – suffice to say the story is quite famous here and you can easily find them online. In this instance the kids are on a field trip (having taught kindergarten the idea of trying to corral 30 of them on a train trip terrifies me more than anything else here). I was highly amused by the obnoxious guy who snapped at the kids for taking seats, then when he sat down did what’s known here as “man-spreading“. Guys like that are the true horrors of Japan, but one can hardly argue he didn’t get his comeuppance and then some.
Uncle Mob comes to the rescue, though as always he has an ulterior motive. The lady we see driving him is his second wife, which I suppose is somewhat reassuring that he isn’t completely unhinged. I do think he has Kaya’s best interests at heart and clearly, his psychic ability is legit. He’s discovered that Kaya-chan’s grandmother was a famous psychic who worked on high-profile law enforcement cases and such, and coincidentally (very) lives in the same town where the field trip is taking place. Mob offers to drive Chie and Kaya there, but insists that they should meet the grandmother, Ebisumori Mutsu, and see if she can shed some light on what’s up with Kaya-chan’s mother.
Grandma lives in a managed care facility (and is apparently blind), and this setting is one of those spectacularly creepy set pieces this show has proved very deft at. The old people there are all being shadowed by something called “Pick-ups“. They’re not malevolent but apparently harbingers of impending demise, which understandably makes the seniors fear them. When Kaya shoos one away, the old folks all come at her, assuming that by doing so she’s preventing their deaths. That’s not how it works but the seniors don’t know that, and the trio have to make a brisk escape.
As for the grandmother she’s quite vigorous at first. She tells Mob-san that she and her daughter are long-estranged, and she had no idea Kaya-chan even existed. When she sees Kaya the old woman goes to pieces (a terrific performance by Sakakibara Yoshiko here), and when we see what she sees it’s easy to understand why. She wails “Where’s Nana?” and proclaims “it’s not her fault” and offers her own life in Nana’s place. We don’t know who Nana is – it could be Kaya’s mother, since we haven’t heard her first name – but there are photographs in the room suggesting the existence of at least two children.
The mystery deepens. Kaya remembers none of this exchange later, which corroborates the idea that whatever was in control of her body when it happened was a distinct entity. Is Kaya possessed, or is the truth even stranger than that? Bearing in mind that the manga is ongoing it’s entirely possible no answers will be forthcoming for a good while, even – loathsome as the idea is – not in the adaptation at all. But we have seven episodes to go, so hopefully we get at least somewhat closer to the truth.
