Mysterious Disappearances

Episode 11

Oto's got a ticket to ride, and I think she's going to care. Adashino has agreed to a measure of last resort, something I think he might have been considering for a while now. The mysterious old man warned him that if he used his eyes too often, he'd pay the price, and even if we aren't seeing it, it's clear that he feels the price looming over him, just waiting to be extracted from his body. And if he's going to die anyway, why not use what he's got left of his time to be of use to his beloved little sister? Adashino has sacrificed a lot for Oto already, a path he started down when he answered her cry for help, and to him this may feel like an inevitable full circle based on that initial choice.

The question is, is it worth it? Oto doesn't seem as eager to return home as she once did, largely because she's formed friendships and attachments. She's got her school friends, work friend, and even her teacher, to say nothing of "apartment wife" Sumireko, all of whom emotionally bind her to our world. The way her face falls when Sumireko says that she's almost finished her novel, the one thing Adashino is waiting for before their departure, indicates that Oto was hoping for more time, as does her reluctance to give all of her friends their parting gifts. Unless I miss my guess, those are granola bars of forgetting, and as the show very carefully showed us all of her friends consuming them, Oto is likely gone from their minds. Whether she's gone from their hearts as well is a very different question, because several of the arcs in this series have indicated that the two are not one and the same; Yorumun and Hong Yi Xiao Nü Gui's stories show the power someone vanished has to stay in people's hearts. Even Uname-sensei is an example of that, given how her grandmother's memory influenced her choices and continues to be her guiding light.

Also interesting is the fact that we don't see Oto give a granola bar to Sumireko or Shizuku. That doesn't mean that she didn't, of course, although it seems important that we haven't seen them consume the treats. It's possible that Oto feels closest to them and can't bear the thought of leaving them; whether or not the granola has a supernatural element, the mere act of distributing them indicates that she's going away. And that brings us to how Oto is going to handle learning that Adashino has sacrificed himself to get her a ticket home, because if she doesn't want to leave Sumireko and Shizuku, leaving Adashino is unthinkable.

Right now, that doesn't seem to be a factor for him, though. He's clearly not in top form, as the Cat Sovereign's ability to get the jump on him shows (Sumireko, in turn, surprising her, seems more like the Cat Sovereign underestimating the human than a demonstration of weakness), and he sounds resigned, not surprised, at what the ticket agent tells him. All he seems able to think is that he must fulfill his duty of getting Oto home, and since the Curiosities that he's acquired aren't going to do the trick, he'll have to do whatever it takes. Does he want to? I'd say no; the fact that he's not answering Sumireko's texts could be less a sign of his weakness and more a desire to ignore the fact that the deadline he set for himself has arrived. His use of the constipation excuse also seems to show that he's not ready to leave her, a last crass joke to end their relationship on a positive note. As the title for next week's finale implies, the last mysterious disappearance in the show could be his own.

Let's not forget what the Cat Sovereign's cat says to her, though. He refuses to hurt Sumireko because he owes her for taking him in and feeding him one night, a kindness he must repay. Adashino has shown a lot of kindness to people. Could their repayment save him from his determination to become a ticket? It all depends on which folktales you're reading – we'll have to wait and find out next week.

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