these setups are eerily similar, def not coincidental shots — the second (nekodamashi 3) is there to remind us of the first (onidamashi 4). i was thinking abt it last week, how it’s possible satoko might be involved with some outsider, since the first pic is from when keiichi was admitted to okinomiya’s hospital. the banken appearing in the latest ep reinforces the idea that satoko may be getting in touch with some other tokyo faction that opposes the one supporting takano
we even saw them getting their hands on h173. episode 17 makes it look like the banken and tomitake are sided with rika (or at least not her enemy), but if that’s not the case…. could explain some advantages satoko (and/or whoever is behind her actions, aside from her own motivations) has over rika so far
some other random questions from higu gou in general:
- what made takano withdraw her plan?
- we never really saw mion scratching her neck like every other character (satoko included) who seemingly got L5'd. did she really get infected, or was just heavily manipulated? regardless, she ‘betraying’ rika’s expectations was a prelude to other characters doing the same in tataridamashi and nekodamashi.
- are the events before june 1983 in these fragments the same as in the original? in other words, did satoko get L5 like she always does in 1980? cause if that’s the case it begs the question of how satoko dealt with finding out about it in these fragments
- obviously, the main thing we have to know (which is probably gonna be explored in the next arc, focusing on satoko): what actually happened after the events in matsuribayashi? what happened to satoko and hanyuu? why was rika forced into these fragments while having her memories all messed up? who forced her into this (by killing her?)? is it just related to satoko and hanyuu’s loneliness, as well as how little thought rika’s always put into thinking about how her friends would feel after she left each world/died?
- how much do other characters (like keiichi, rena, shion etc) remember of previous fragments and how does that influence this story?
there are many others, i’ll leave it at that for now ><
