The Morose Mononokean Season 2 Episode 11 with Karandi and Irina

It’s still snowing. Yesterday was a pretty nice day. A bit grey but warm and pleasant. Today it’s snowing wet snow and there’s this biting cold wind blowing everything about. Once again, it’s a great day for Mononokean. I’m going to miss this little show after next week. I hope they make more.

While we’re on weather, I finally got some rain. Too late to save any plant life in my yard given everything already died except the couple of trees I’ve been struggling to keep alive. Then again, half an hour of rain probably isn’t enough to break a couple of years worth of drought anyway. I’d definitely appreciate some more. In the meantime, we should probably discuss the episode.

This week’s The Morose Mononokean was a straight continuation of last week’s episode. We catch up with everyone still on that cliffside and find out that Komon has been taking care of these bird Yokai for years, waiting for them all to learn to fly before sending them back to the Underworld. Now the time has finally come, except for one small chick that can’t seem to get off the ground.

I really liked the design of these bird Yokai. The single lag and rold up ear/wings somehow created the perfect blend of weird and familiar.

I know. I kind of thought it was adorable how their wings rolled up like that, though I found the single leg thing a bit disconcerting. Still, these yokai designs were really cute.

Komon also threw out a touch of exposition, mentioning that the Mononokean had had a human employee before Itsuki but that person had been frightening and violent towards Yokai. I’m not sure if we’re meant to believe this was Hanae’s mysterious dad. The implications were certainly there.

Yes, more implication and no answers. I’m guessing this is going to be the season final material given how this episode ends it seems like Abeno is going to investigate this most recent lead and now that we know there is a classified situation they kind of have to tell us eventually what happened. I’m really quite curious about where this is going to go.

For the moment though, Abeno and Hanae just put the information away for later and decided they’re going to try to teach that last bird to fly.

Yada yada, contrivances and bam  he could fly all along! I know I’m making it sound bad – and it was a very contrived scene, but it was also quite sweet.

Sweet, but kind of expected given previous stories and his ‘attempt’ at flying was just too comically bad to be real. This is the kind of scenario that is cute enough to watch but not overly memorable. When I look back at season two of The Morose Mononokean, I’ll probably forget these birds even existed because my memory is going to latch on to the political situation and Hanae’s father as the more important take-aways.

When Hanae was yelling like a maniac, Abeno mentioned that he could hear him from a great distance and called him a siren. I just thought that was a particularly nice way to put it. Almost suspiciously nice. The Abeno I know would have told him to keep it down or called him annoying. Maybe he would have compared him to a Banshee or a wailing demon, but a Siren? Then again Abeno was also flapping his arms around trying to show the little bird how to fly. When it comes right down to it, he’s really a soft touch.

Speaking of soft touch, they really were going out of their way to show Abeno’s soft side this week. Komon throwing the sock away and then Abeno deciding to give it back to the birds afterward just kind of added to the feeling that Abeno is a little bit of a push over sometimes and has definitely softened from the character we met back at the start of season one.

The revelation that the bird could fly all along brought back Aois warning of “not taking too good care of them”. Komon had made the birds too comfortable and now one of them didn’t want to leave anymore. He’ll have a tough time getting use to life in the Underworld but the mundane world is dangerous for Yokai. I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what Abeno’s doing with Hanae. Or at least what he’s worried about. Making Hanae too comfortable and putting him in danger accidentally.

That’s a nice connection and probably fairly true given the lengths Abeno has gone to protect Hanae at times. It means Hanae isn’t even aware of half the danger going on around him.

The story of Komon and her birds ended on a heart pulling note. Turns out the little guy was faking it not because he was scared but because they had all agreed that one of them would stay behind to take care of Komon in return. And now that it was all out in the open, he finally just got to make the decision for himself and chose to go home, to the one that’s always been there for him. It really was quite adorable but I won’t lie, it made me feel a little lonely.

This one still doesn’t have the emotional clout of something like Natsume, but occasionally it really does deliver these moments that hit the right note. I enjoyed how this story wrapped up and the emotional notes it hit.

With just one episode to go, The Morose Mononokean plunged us back into the greater story arc with some more mystery afoot. Curious about what Komon had said, Abeno askes the Mononokean about a previous human employee and the mononokean replies that there has never been such an employee and Komon must be confused.

The scene is obviously suspicious but is the Mononokean simply lying or was that previous employee not quite human (or not quite an employee?)

I often wonder about the Mononokean and its messages. They sometimes seem suspiciously timed or convenient and certainly they are sparse on details. I often wonder whether Abeno is actually the master as his title says given it seems the Mononokean is the one calling the shots for the most part. It is an intriguing question for the future.

Of course, there’s no point in arguing with the Mononokean so Abeno simply let it go and went to file his report running into the Legislator who’s once again decided to fake an injury. The leislator doesn’t have much more information, but he mentions having heard of some incident involving White Sands prison that could be related. This said, the details of the incident are classified and getting their hands on them will likely catch the attention of the Justice and the Legislator.

Seems like this was quite some incident indeed. I guess we have one more episode to find out about it. Or maybe we can forget all that and have a beach special!

I’ll pass on the beach special but I do want to see if Abeno chooses to go sneaking into the prison. Honestly, I kind of think he has to. Otherwise, why even raise the possibility. But given Hanae can’t go into the underworld at the moment, I’m left wondering whether this is going to end well or rather, just how badly wrong will it go.

Really loving this season of The Morose Mononokean.

I am too. I’m already missing it a little bit.

Here’s some more cuteness for you guys including assorted birdies and fuzzy for Karandi!