Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni: Difference between revisions

| subheadertitle = '''Manga'''

:Marie is the main protagonist of the first story, "[[#Mesomeso-san|Mesomeso-san]]", and is a recurring character thereafter. She is introduced as a student who is constantly bullied by her classmates and molested by her homeroom teacher at an abandoned school building neighboring her school. While despairing over her predicament in the public toiletbathroom of thean abandoned school building, she becomes the subject of an eighth urban legend involving a yōkaiyoukai named Mesomeso (derived from the Japanese onomatopoeia for weeping and sobbing) that haunts the toiletbathroom. The school's yōkaiyoukai offer her the chance to become a yōkaiyoukai herself in order to fill thea new rank in their hierarchy, which she does after being strangled to death by her teacher. As Mesomeso, she appears before the series's other protagonists to support them if they are victims of bullying, or to confront them if they themselves are bullies themselves.

:Higanbana is the third-highest ranking yōkaiyoukai in the school, also known as the "Dancing Higanbana". She is a girl who takes the form of a Western doll that sits in the school infirmary andwhich, according to her associated legend, dances on its own at night. She is the yōkaiyoukai who directly offers Marie the chance to become Mesomeso, and later treats herMarie as her personal assistant. She regularly torments cruel or weak-willed students, and is depicted as either an antagonist if she targets a story's hero, or as an antihero ifdepending sheon targetsthe a villainstory.

''Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni'' takes place in an [[School (Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni)|unnamed school]] setting and is composed of numerous self-contained short stories, each told from the perspective of a student or staff member from the school. These stories feature bullying as a major overlying theme, as each story's protagonist is depicted as being either a victim of bullying or a bully themselves. ''Higanbana'' revolves around a series of urban legends caused by supernatural beings called ''yōkai'', each of which claims ownership of a particular "mystery" and kills anyone who tries to investigate it. There are a total of seven "mysteries" at the start of the series, with numerous ''yōkai'' fighting each other in an ongoing turf war for ownership of these mysteries, which is granted to the seven ''yōkai'' who emerge victorious in the conflict. The stories' protagonists interact with at least one of the school's resident ''yōkai'', who force the protagonists to deal with the consequences of their actions regarding bullying. The two arcs, ''Dai-ichi Ya'' and ''Dai-ni Ya'', each contain seven stories. Most of the stories are self-contained however a few stories either have references to or are sequels to other stories.

[[Marie Moriya]], a submissive and weakoften-bullied student, is often bullied by her classmates and eventually falls under the protection of her teacher, [[Yoshihito Kanamori]], her teacher, who uses his status to exploit Moriya. Kanamori frequently uses Moriya to fulfill sexual desires by taking advantage of Moriya's inability to say "no" to others. As their relationship comes to an end, Moriya learns that her crieshabit haveof crying in the school bathroom has become associated with the legend of a youkai; Mesomeso. She encounters a youkai known as [[Higanbana]] and desires to become a youkai herself through death. Moriya briefly considers suicide before eventually being murdered by Kanamori. As Kanamori kills Moriya, he himself claims the title of Mesomeso, throwing the title into contention. Later, Kanamori confronts the spirit of Moriya in the same bathroom he killed her in, which disqualifies him from being Mesomeso. As a result, the legend of Mesomeso comes true and Kanamori is torn apart by having every bone in his body broken. Moriya then ascends to become a youkai known as Mesomeso.

One day, [[Michiru Sakurada]], an unpopular girl with a "sixth sense" allowing her to perceive the spirit world, feels a strong burst of emotion emanating from a shrine behind the school. Michiru deduces that the emotion she felt was due to the fact that a group of girls had broken the shrine's doors with a ball. Shortly after, one of the girls who broke the shrine is hit by a falling chair. Michiru warns that the guardian deity of the shrine was angered and had placed a curse on the girls who broke the shrine. Michiru insists that the curse can be lifted if the girls apologize to the deity though the leader of the group, Hiromi, refuses to do this. A youkai, [[Marie Moriya]], helps the girls convince Hiromi to apologize to the deity. However, Marie learns that the guardian deity of the shrine, [[Sakunoshin]], is a meek animal spirit that has nothing to do with the supposed curse afflicting the girls. It is revealed that Michiru herself was responsible for injuring one of the girls with a falling chair and endeavored to hit Hiromi with a fire extinguisher before being stopped by Marie. Michiru explains her frustration with how no one would listen to her when warned her classmates about the supernatural. After she felt the burst of emotion from the shrine, Michiru expected a curse to befall the girls who broke the shrine and was disappointed to see that nothing happened to them. Thus, Michiru started her own "curse" in an attempt to validate her warnings of the supernatural. Marie convinces Michiru to give up her "curse" and instead visit the guardian deity herself. The school nurse had recently repaired the shrine door and Michiru will be able to feel Sakunoshin's joy at his repaired home.

"One Girl's Day" serves as a type of epilogue to the earlier story "[[#The Spirit Camera|The Spirit Camera]]." The story follows an unnamed girl who goes about her day with a positive attitude. In order to test her, [[Higanbana]] plays a number of tricks on her in an attempt to dampen the girl's spirits, including tripping her and taking her homework. Despite Higanbana's constant antagonizing, the girl maintains a positive outlook, even when she is briefly sent to the infirmary for injuring herself. After leaving the infirmary, the girl finishes her school duties by cleaning out the science room. While cleaning the room and playing with her friends, the girl knocks over the anatomy dummy, breaking it. Another classmate, [[Takeshi Nonomiya]], was meant to clean the science room and, in order to avoid him taking the blame, the girl takes responsibility for her actions. The girl, now revealed to be [[Yoko Numata]], heads to the rooftop to meet with Higanbana and [[Marie Moriya]]. Yoko, having eliminated any regrets she once had about her life, is ready for her soul to move on. As per their agreement, Yoko offers her soul to Higanbana, who begins to consume it as Marie voices her disapproval. As Marie leaves, Higanbana releases Yoko's soul and allows it to float to heaven before following Marie.

[[Yukari Sakaki]] becomes the object of intense bullying from her classmates, resulting from a brief period of time when she wore dirty clothes to school. Despite the bullying, Yukari maintained that she must never show any response to the bullies or else the bullying will get worse. [[Higanbana]] begins to tempt Yukari into committing suicide to escape her bullies, however [[Marie Moriya]] intervenes and protests that death isn't the answer to her problems. In an attempt to save Yukari from her bullies, Marie lures the lead bully, Ozaki, to the old school bathrooms. She invokes the legend of Mesomeso and uses her frightening youkai form to scare Ozaki out of bullying Yukari in the future. Ozaki agrees to never bully Yukari again before running away. However, Ozaki's lack of bullying doesn't deter other bullies from antagonizing Yukari, thus rendering Marie's plan pointless. To Marie's surprise, a transfer student known as [[Reiko Osumi]] joins Yukari's class. Reiko is even weaker than Yukari and appears to incite bullying from the class that exceeds what Yukari was subjected to. Thus, Yukari is left alone as the entire class, including the teacher, begins to bully Reiko. Despite being left alone, Yukari becomes frustrated with the bullying and tells Reiko that she wants to fight the bullying together. To Yukari's horror, Reiko reveals herself to be the youkai known as [[Sumire]], a fearsome youkai whose tears cause nearby humans to become addicted to bullying others. Marie attempts to save Yukari from Sumire but soon realizes that she cannot defeat Sumire despite being more powerful than her; if Marie were to get rid of Sumire then Yukari would once again become the object of the class bullies. Sumire takes advantage of Marie's inability to take action and quickly defeats her. Afterwards, Sumire decides to eliminate the characercharacter of "Reiko Osumi" anyway and watch how Yukari handles being bullied again. The next day, the class gangs up on Yukari and begins to strip her of her clothes. Yukari manages to escape but Higanbana trips her and Yukari falls down a flight of stairs. For the next several days, Yukari is absent from school, which causes her classmates to become restless as they have no one to bully. When the school trip comes around, Yukari is still absent. While the class is on a bus, Higanbana appears in the middle of the road, causing the driver to swerve and drive through a guardrail and into a forest below. The crash kills the entire class, thus destroying all of the humans infected with Sumire's tears. Soon after, Yukari is transferred to a new class where she knows no one. She vows to stop any and all bullying wherever she sees it from that point on.

[[Aya Souma]] firmly believes that little in her life matters. She barely eats and has difficulty sleeping, though she isn't bothered by this as she sees death as a preferably alternative to continuing her life. One day, Aya overhears the legend of the 13th step: If one goes up the twelve-step stairway in school and manages to count a thirteenth step, then they will be cursed. Out of curiosity, Aya begins to count the steps every time she uses the school stairway. Eventually, Aya counts a thirteenth step, though she chalks this up to her miscounting. That night, however, Aya has a horrible dream wherein she watches a panicked student get caught by the youkai [[Izanami]]. The student is then thrown into a hell reminiscent of a digestive system and is made to be tortured within that hell for eternity. The following day, as soon as school ends, Aya notices that every student has suddenly vanished. Izanami appears and reveals that she is caught within his own world, wherein Aya cannot escape the school and there is no one around other than Aya and Izanami. Izanami lays out the rules of a game to Aya: Aya is to run away from him until the clock hits 12:00. If Izanami catches Aya then he will kill her. However, Izanami cannot run to catch Aya, he can only walk briskly. Aya manages to survive her first night with Izanami though she learns, to her horror, that she would have to repeat the process the next day. Furthermore, the time that she had to run had been slightly extended. In an attempt to escape Izanami's daily games, Aya seeks the help of [[Michiru Sakurada]], a girl said to have a "sixth sense" with knowledge of the supernatural. Michiru reveals that the only way to escape Izanami's curse is to survive the games for 49 days. Seeing as the time she had to run increased with every passing day, Aya begins to believe escaping Izanami is futile. Soon after, Aya meets a boy named Osato, who is also caught in Izanami's curse. By sharing information with Osato, Aya learns that the time she spends in Izanami's world is dependent on how much she runs in the real world: the more Aya runs over the course of the day prior to entering Izanami's world, the less she would have to run to escape Izanami. Thus, Aya dedicates herself to running whenever possible in order to keep her time in Izanami's world as short as possible. After around a month of surviving, Izanami offers to make a deal with Aya: He will kill her and give her the peaceful death she originally longed for instead of sending her to hell. He offers this because Izanami has less time to hunt others as long as Aya keeps surviving and, seeing as Aya had considerable willpower from her daily runs, Aya's soul had grown distasteful. Aya rejects this offer and continues to survive until the 49th day. On the last day, Izanami appears at the school marathon. Unlike previously, Izanami will now run to chase Aya, though rather than running in Izanami's world, Aya just has to win the marathon to escape Izanami. With Izanami's motivation, Aya manages to complete the marathon before anyone else and thus completely escapes Izanami trap. Izanami conveys that he is proud to see how much Aya has grown and relinquishes her from his curse. Aya comes to the conclusion that "not wanting to die" is reason enough to live.

[[Yuuki Noda]] is mysteriously killed in the art room by having a plaster bust fall on him, crushing him. Rumors begin to circulate among the school community that Yuuki was killed by a youkai who lives in the art room and kills you by placing you into a painting if you lie to him. A month later, a teacher named [[Nafumi Shintani]] bemoans Yuuki's death as she had accidentally killed him by pushing him while they were in the art room. Yuuki had been the model for several drawings Shintani had done. While in the art room, an unnamed young boy approaches Shintani and asks about Yuuki's death. While talking to the boy, Shintani makes tea for the two of them. After drinking the tea, the boy passes out. Shintani approaches the passed out boy and begins to strip him naked. Before she can finish, however, a mysterious girl interrupts her. The girl presses Shintani about Yuuki's death, implying that Shintani had been abusing Yuuki before she killed him. Shintani refuses to admit to any wrongdoing and eventually realizes that the girl she is talking to is the youkai [[Renoir]]. Shintani and Renoir battle over who has domain of the art room and Renoir is eventually defeated and seemingly shatters. However, the being that lost to Shintani was actually [[Higanbana]] in disguise. The real Renoir is the boy that Shintani attempted to strip. Renoir reveals himself and reveals the fact that Shintani had lied to him earlier when he asked about Yuuki's death. Shintani attempts to escape before Renoir can put her in a painting, however she becomes trapped when she gets to the stairwell. While she is on the stairs, Renoir putstraps Shintani intoin M.C. Escher's "''[[w:Ascending and Descending|Ascending and Descending]]''."

"Thistle for Vengeance" continues the earlier story "[[#Utopia|Utopia]]." [[Yukari Sakaki]] continues her battle against bullying and repeatedly attempts to save [[Masaaki Yoshikawa]] from a group of bullies. However, Masaaki rejects Yukari's help as he refuses to see himself as the victim of bullying. However, the bullying continues until Masaaki considers suicide while on the school rooftop. [[Higanbana]] appears and encourages him to jump though she is stopped by [[Marie Moriya]]. Marie attempts to tell Masaaki that there is reason to continue living, however Masaaki takes Marie's encouragement as validation for his inner rage. He decides that, instead of committing suicide, he will take is revenge on his bullies. While walking home, he comes across a field of Japanese thistles. He recalls a school mystery he had heard before: while walking home from school one may find a field of Japanese thistles. In this field, there is one thistle that only bullied children can see. If they consume the flower, they will gain an intimidating personality and become bullies themselves. Just in line with the legend, Masaaki is offered a thistle by the youkai [[Azami]]. He eats the flower and, the next day, starts bullying others in his class. Originally he only bullies those who first bullied him, thus many people, including Yukari, see his bullying as somewhat acceptable since it can be seen as karmic revenge. However, Masaaki soon after begins to bully others in the classroom, causing Yukari to intervene. Yukari attempts to get Masaaki to see that he's just being a bully but he continues to believe that he is the victim overall. Masaaki vows to begin bullying Yukari the next day, however he doesn't get the opportunity as, while bullying a different classmate, Masaaki accidentally causes the kid to fall from the rooftop. The kid's accident causes the rest of the class to turn on Masaaki. The entire class begins to relentlessly bully Masaaki and continues to believe themselves to be in the right since Masaaki bullied them first. [[Sumire]] reveals herself to be working with Azami and is encouraging bullying within the class in order to get back at Yukari for insulting her earlier. Yukari decides that, in order to stop the cycle of bullying, she will have to become the victim of bullying again. She asks Sumire to use her powers to force the class to target Yukari instead of Masaaki. Sumire agrees and Yukari manages to endure the bullying with increasing difficulty. After ten days, Masaaki can't bear to continue seeing Yukari be bullied and asks Azami to give Yukari a flower to turn her into a bully. Yukari begrudgingly accepts the flower and, the next day, arrives at school with a profoundly changed demeanor. She declares that she will attack anyone who bullies anyone else. Yukari channels her urge to bully in order to keep the class under control and effectively eliminates any bullying.

''Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni'''s origin dates back to 2006 when Ryukishi07 started writing a [[w:Serial (literature)|serial]] [[w:light novel|light novel]] titled {{Nihongo|''Gakkō Yōkai Kikō: Dai-hachi Kaidan Boshūchū''|学校妖怪紀行 第八怪談募集中|lit. ''School [[w:Yōkai|Yōkai]] Travelogue: Recruiting the Eighth [[w:Kaidan|Kaidan]]''}}, with illustrations by Nishieda. The novel first appeared in the third volume of Fujimi Shobo's ''[[w:Dragon Age Pure|Dragon Age Pure]]'' magazine on November 29, 2006.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fujimishobo.co.jp/pure/2006/12/07_1.php |script-title=ja:学校の怪談を題材にした竜騎士07の完全オリジナル小説!! |trans_titletitle=Ryukishi07's Completely Original Novel with School Ghost Stories as the Theme!! |publisher=[[w:Fujimi Shobo|Fujimi Shobo]] |date=December 8, 2006 |accessdate=July 5, 2011 |language=Japanese |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110914232307/http://www.fujimishobo.co.jp/pure/2006/12/07_1.php |archivedate=September 14, 2011 |df= }}</ref> Two more chapters were serialized in ''Dragon Age Pure'' before it was discontinued: chapter two in volume four sold on April 20, 2007 and chapter three in volume five sold on June 20, 2007. The novel was adapted into a manga illustrated by [[w:Rei Izumi|Rei Izumi]] titled {{Nihongo|''Gakkō Yōkai Kikō: Yō''|学校妖怪紀行 ～枼～}}.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.fujimishobo.co.jp/pure/2007/07/post_121.php |script-title=ja:｢学校妖怪紀行｣コミック版がいよいよスタート!! |trans_titletitle=The Comic Edition of ''Gakkō Yōkai Kikō'' Finally Starts!! |publisher=[[w:Fujimi Shobo|Fujimi Shobo]] |date=July 4, 2007 |accessdate=July 5, 2011 |language=Japanese |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110914205517/http://www.fujimishobo.co.jp/pure/2007/07/post_121.php |archivedate=September 14, 2011 |df= }}</ref> A short preview of the manga appeared in the fifth volume of ''Dragon Age Pure'', and was discontinued after the first chapter appeared in the sixth volume of ''Dragon Age Pure'' on August 20, 2007.