Glass Scenery | |
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Name | |
Kanji Title | ç¡åãé¢šæ¯ |
Romaji Title | Garasu No Fuukei |
Original Air Date | January 31, 2006 |
Season | Hell Girl |
Episode Guide | |
Previous | Next |
A Night Among Traveling Entertainers | Bound Girl |
"Glass Scenery" is the 17th episode of the "Hell Girl" series, belonging to the first season of the same name.
Plot[]
The Shibatas are driving down a foggy road. Tsugumi mentions that she doesn't like fog because she can't prepare for what's ahead, and Hajime gives her a piece of candy and tells her kids shouldn't be thinking about that kind of stuff.
They begin to hear the sound of a music box but don't know where it's coming from. Suddenly, a figure appears on the road, and Hajime hits the breaks, only find that the road is empty.
The Shibatas walk around in the woods and find a sanitorium, and they go inside to discover that it's completely deserted. Tsugumi hears laughter and is unnerved. They explore a bit and hear a music box and go towards the sound. However, as soon as Hajime puts his hand on the door, the music stops abruptly, to the shock of Hajime and Tsugumi.
Inside the room is a music box, and Hajime says it's nothing special and the two prepare to leave. However, blocking the doorway is a very pale girl with large blue eyes and long wavy blond hair. The large blue eyes are much emphasized. "Hello," says the girl in a very soft and polite, but emotionless voice.
The three of them go outside and sit at a picnic table and introduce themselves. The girl introduces herself as Nina. Hajime asks where the staff are, and Nina replies, "They're here." And a nurse walks by behind them. Hajime leaves immediately to greet the nurse, and Tsugumi and Nina strike up some conversation. Nina lets Tsugumi touch her nice soft, smooth hair, and suddenly grabs Tsugumi's arm and strokes it. "You're so warm," says Nina, while Tsugumi thinks, "What cold hands..."
Meanwhile, Hajime loses the nurse but finds another guy inside a room. When Hajime greets him, however, he is ignored. Strangely, the guy is drawing out the red liquid from a bottle with a fat pickled caterpillar inside, and the syringe is cracked.
When he returns outside, Nina suggests they stay the night because it'll be hard getting through the fog, and right after she says that, the fog starts to roll in. The Shibata's expressions show that they are slightly confused and weirded out.
Later, when Hajime and Tsugumi are having tea together, Hajime asks, "Is she the one that contacted Hell Correspondence?"
Tsugimi says, "Probably."
But Hajime noticed that there were no computers in the building at all. He starts talking about how the sanitorium is very strange, but Tsugumi suddenly yells, "Stop it!" probably out of fear. Immediately Hajime apologizes, and Tsugumi says she wants to leave. Hajime promises they will as soon as the fog goes away.
Inside the woods, Hone-Onna, Ren, and Wanyuudou are talking about Hajime. "It's not a coincidence since he's come this far," said Hone-Onna. Wanyuudou, ever wise, says that Ai is probably giving Hajime clues unconsciously. Hone-Onna and Ren say mysteriously, "I wonder why Ai would take this kind of request... a request from a soul."
Back to the sanitorium, in the room Hajime found the music box, Ai is with Nina. "You're finally here. I've been waiting for a long time," says Nina, looking pleased. However, Ai tells her that she cannot take her request, and leaves. "Wait, Jigoku Shoujo!" Nina yells, and Hajime and Tsugumi hear it and run into the room to find Nina staring at the wall, where Ai phased through.
"Did you meet the Hell Girl?" asks Hajime.
"No, nevermind,... nevermind now, because I have..." says Nina in a creepy voice, and turns around and gives Hajime and Tsugumi a creepy smile, which of course freaks both of them out.
Nina promptly takes them to eat dinner, and the Shibatas are surprised to see a table full of food. In the background, Ai watches them from a window, unnoticed. Nina says, "Come on, let's eat!" And laughs a little bit, to which Tsugumi responds with a nervous laugh. Hajime leaves to grab some tea, and Nina mentions how nice of a father Hajime is, to Tsugumi's surprise, and Nina talks about how her father disappeared and left her all alone. Tsugumi asks Nina about her mother, but Nina doesn't even know if she existed.
During dinner, Hajime asks Nina if she accessed the Hell Correspondence, and Nina unhesitatingly answers that she did, and she wants to take revenge on her father for leaving her alone. Then she suddenly says, "But it's alright now because I'm not lonely anymore now that I have a new father and Tsugumi."
Hajime looks surprised, and again it zooms in on Nina's large blue eyes as she says, "You won't leave me alone, right? You'll stay with me, right?"
"We only came to see the head doctor..." said Hajime.
It is then that Nina reveals there is no head doctor. There is no one in the entire sanitorium but Nina. "Let's stay together here from now on, right Tsugumi?" says Nina as she puts a hand on Tsugumi's hand, to Tsugumi's utter horror. Tsugumi pulls her hand away hysterically and runs towards Hajime and yells for Nina to stay away.
Nina freezes and stares. "It's the same... same as father," says Nina quietly, and the lights flicker off suddenly. All the glass in the room shatters at the same time.
Tsugumi screams, and Hajime takes her and runs out of the room. Nina has a terrifying expression on her face, and she whispers, "I... I won't forgive you."
As Hajime and Tsugumi are running in the hallway, Hajime yells, "We'll go to the car!" But then he notices something strange and looks down. Tsugumi says in a horrifying distorted voice, "Hajime-chan..." and looks upâshe doesn't have a face. Her entire face is made out of vines. The vine-doll Tsugumi attacks Hajime, wrapping him up with vines.
Suddenly, several kunai wreathed with blue flames fly out from the darkness and stab the doll in the back, and it cries out in an increasingly irritating high pitched voice and bursts into blue flames and collapses. Hone-Onna and Wanyuudou are in the background, and Hone-Onna muses while holding her blue-flamed kunai, "Even though it's Ai's orders, it's funny we have to save this guy."
"He's human, and he has nothing to do with this case," explains Wanyuudou.
Hajime stares at the pile of burning vines, then realizes that if this wasn't Tsugumi, then Tsugumi must be somewhere else. He runs off screaming. Tsugumi, meanwhile, is running towards the car by herself. She stops and yells, "Hajime!" and sees him a little further away. She runs towards him, but when she looks up, she sees that Hajime has no face, and is, in fact, another one of the vine-dolls. Tsugumi faints with fear, and Nina appears.
"Now you're coming with me," says Nina, and the vine-doll Hajime reaches down to get Tsugumi. However, Ren dashes at an inhuman speed into the scene grabs Tsugumi and jumps away.
"Who are you!" exclaims Nina, and Ren laughs obnoxiously and says, "Thanks."
The vine-doll Hajime attacks Ren, and his third eye flashes open and he teleports away with Tsugumi.
Hajime meanwhile, is running around trying to find Tsugumi, and he sees her lying on a bench. He runs towards her and picks her up carefully, clearly relieved, and behind him, Ren's eye appears on the wall, and then slowly closes as he watches Hajime take Tsugumi away.
Soon, Hajime starts trying to start the car, but it won't start. Tsugumi wakes up and gasps with horror as she sees Nina standing quietly near the building, and she slowly walks towards the car with a terrible angry look on her face. Hajime finally gets the car started, but he can't drive away because vines have wrapped themselves around the tires.
Tsugumi screams, and Hajime turns to see Nina pressed against their window, staring creepily into the car with her wide blue eyes. Nina's hands phase through the glass and she starts strangling Tsugumi, and vines wrap themselves around Hajime. Nina tries to strangle them, and her face is completely emotionless.
Then Ai's voice says gently, "Stop it."
Nina turns and sees Ai standing in the light of the car's headlights, and says, "Hell girl..." and releases Tsugumi. Hajime struggles, then sees Ai standing in front of his car and whispers, "Jigoku shoujo," before fainting.
Meanwhile, Nina yells at Ai, "You didn't take revenge on my behalf! I have nothing to do with you anymore!"
Ai says in her soft voice, "Stop. Don't get them involved."
Nina continues, "THEY'RE the wrong ones! They're trying to leave me, just like father did!"
And Ai delivers the hammer-blow: "You are not Nina."
Nina stares, shocked, and sputters, "What are you talking about? I AM Nina."
Ai tells her to try to remember.
In a heartbreaking flashback, Nina is shown lying sick on a bed. Ai says, "Your owner died." And Nina stares at Ai, suddenly remembering everything and tears run down her cheeks. Nina whispers, "Nina..."
As her tears hit the ground, it begins to rain, and everything fades out.
Hajime and Tsugumi wake up in the morning, then get out of the car and stare in shock at the sanitorium, which appears to be broken down and old, in contrast to the new-looking building that they first found at the beginning of the episode. They go inside and see that everything is broken and smashed, and Tsugumi asks, "What does this all mean?"
Again they hear the music box music and run towards the room where they first found it, only to find an empty place with tattered shades. However, the music box is still there. They enter the room and see a rocking chair swaying back and forth, and they look in it to see Nina, the doll.
The entire time, the Nina they were talking to was just the soul of the doll that the real Nina had.
Hajime picks up a photograph and sees Nina and her Nina-doll. It's a sepia-colored photograph; ancient. In a flashback, it's revealed that the real Nina was abandoned in the sanitorium by her father and cried out for her father to come back and get her, and the doll saw all of those feelings and took them in, eventually manifesting into the doll-Nina's soul. The last thing Nina said was, "Save me," which was what Tsugumi heard in her warning.
Tsugumi holds the doll and whispers, "The doll took Nina's feelings."
Suddenly the music stops, and the doll turns into dust. Two eyes roll out of the dust, bright blue just like Nina's doll, and Tsugumi begins to cry silently for Nina and the soul of her doll.
The episode ends with Ai sitting in her world, and focuses on her red eyes in stark contrast to the blue ones of Nina's doll.
Trivia[]
- The song the music box plays is Bach's "Air".
- The twist at the end may have been inspired by the real-life story of Robert the Doll.
Characters[]
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