Mouryou no Hako

Absent-minded schoolgirl Yoriko Kusumoto only has eyes for Kanako Yuzuki. After planning for their summer trip, their journey comes to a premature and brutal end when Kanako is found severely wounded on train tracks and Yoriko in tears on the station's platform. Shuutarou Kiba, a detective who happened to be on the train that hit the girl, takes up the investigation. However, he discovers that the mystery behind this case is intertwined with an intricate network of deceptions involving the Yuzuki family, especially its most prominent member, Youko Yuzuki—a famous actress and Kanako's sister.

Although Kanako survives after surgery, her critical state prompts Youko to entrust a doctor, Dr. Koushirou Mimasaka, to take care of the girl in an ominous, box-shaped facility in the forest where she will receive experimental treatment. But soon after, on a night where Kiba and Yoriko visit Kanako, the convalescent suddenly vanished. Now searching for her whereabouts, the burden on Kiba dramatically grows when he learns about other gruesome discoveries: limbs of young girls in boxes.

Kiba is suggested by a colleague that the macabre findings are related not only to Kanako's disappearance but also to the truth behind her sister. As the investigation continues, the detective—enlisting the help of his partners Tatsumi Sekiguchi and Akihiko Chuuzenji—has to find a way to solve this series of crimes and find Kanako back.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Chuuzenji, Akihiko Main

Hirata, Hiroaki Japanese

Enokizu, Reijiro Main

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Sekiguchi, Tatsumi Main

Kiuchi, Hidenobu Japanese

Kiba, Shuutarou Main

Seki, Takaaki Japanese

Yuzuki, Kanako Supporting

Tomatsu, Haruka Japanese

Mysterious Man Supporting

Furuya, Toru Japanese

Yuzuki, Youko Supporting

Hisakawa, Aya Japanese

Kusumoto, Yoriko Supporting

Takahashi, Mikako Japanese

Policeman Fukumoto Supporting

Ueda, Youji Japanese

Chuuzenji, Chizuko Supporting

Minaguchi, Yuko Japanese

Tamura, Manabu Producer

Takahashi, Ryouhei Producer

Nakamura, Ryousuke Director, Storyboard

Ishizuka, Atsuko Episode Director

Reviews

Sep 15, 2009

NurseNitsuj

Recommended

Score: 8.5

“..If you build an enclosure within your heart, evil things will brew. Those things he called “mouryou.”

Built upon calamities of emotion, Madhouse effectively released a series worthy of a masterpiece. Mouryou no Hako hits a delectable balance, with extensive background in supernatural folklore, mystery, and science fiction – all tying in to a well-done and extensive detective, mystery story. This is how horror and mystery should be done!

Story: 9

At first glance, the story seems to be about two girls – one girl who has problems at home and the other, a seemingly perfect girl, who tells her that she will be the reincarnation of ... the other and vice-versa. Then there’s a disturbing part where a mysterious man has a box in his hands, and voices coming out of it. Further down the road, you will follow detective Kiba as he tries to find out what’s going on. Do not be thrown off by the first episode’s foreshadow and its yuri themes (I might also add that Anime News Network found the first episode very compelling with “heart-achingly beautiful yuri.”) It is simply the preamble of Mouryou no Haku as to what you will see. There is also an amazing string of characters (A lot I might add) that tie in to the story and reveal connections. Indeed, Mouryou no Hako can be confusing at first, but as you follow the series, everything opens up in a mythological-like story. The story offers metaphors shrouded in secrecy, your mind questioning the whole box stuff (WTF moments too), and eventually leaving you blown as it all ties together in the end.

Mouryou no Hako is indeed a multi-layered mystery/detective story. It can be complex to the point where the viewer does not understand what’s going on. Of course, this series isn’t spoon-fed to you. You actually have to think, and that’s what makes this series so great.

Art: 10 Sound: 8

The animation, quality, and design were all nicely done. CLAMP finished off the designs with a professional touch while Madhouse did the animation wonderfully. If you thought Higurashi no Naku Koro ni was disturbing (It was actually), then you haven’t seen anything…yet. The gore, limbs, abstract scenes, and other “things” were certainly something. Not just enough for one to go all squeamish, though. The movements were detailed and subtle, with the backgrounds leaving a sense of awe for the viewer. Everything looked so amazing, crisp, and detailed therefore giving this piece a solid 10.

Opening theme: Lost in Blue by Nightmare

Ending theme: Naked Love by Nightmare

The music and insert sounds were also nicely played throughout the series. I actually bought the OST for this. The soundtrack is amazingly nice to listen to. With the opening and ending by Nightmare, it adds a nice touch to this prodigious piece. I would say that this was definitely one of Madhouse’s best OP/ED’s.

Overall: 8.5

No, I can’t rate this a 9. Mouryou no Hako is an amazing series, but everything is not perfect. It falls short due to its amount of talking and occasional scene changes with different characters. This certainly isn’t for everyone and thus, may turn people off. Regardless, the series storytelling is the main selling point that makes this anime so unique and refreshing. It is truly unfortunate this anime has been underrated and highly overlooked. One thing is for sure though. There’s something about this anime that leaves a lasting nostalgia or melancholy – and one that allows a few of us to treasure this wonderful rare jewel.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

What did you think of this review?

Nice 111

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 2

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by NurseNitsuj (3)

Show all

113

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Dec 21, 2016

ktulu007

Mixed Feelings

Mouryou no Hako was first published in 1995 as a horror mystery novel. It was written by Kyogoku Natsuhiko. The same writer who wrote the story that Kousetsu Hyaku Monogatari was based off of. Cut to more than a decade later, Madhouse picked the novel up for an adaptation. Which aired from October to December of ’08. I don’t really know anything about the series beyond the genre and studio. And Madhouse has been involved in some terrible, mediocre and stellar anime so that doesn’t say much. So, let’s take a look and see how this one fares.

Story:

Someone out there is dismembering young girls. Police ... have found limbs in boxes in a variety of places. A group of old friends find themselves drawn to the case. Can they resolve it and find an abducted teenage girl, Kanako, before it’s too late for her?

Let’s start by talking about the big flaw with the series. It’s slow and not in a good, suspense building way. No, it’s slow because the narrative comes to a grinding halt so that it can spend long stretches with these blokes sitting around a table talking about spirits or it grinds to a halt to spend a while talking about clairvoyance. And what do these elements do for the story? They allow the “mystery” to be solved without any actual investigation because… bullshit. I’m going to just put this forward as a possibility. Maybe, just maybe, the suspense and mystery elements would have been significantly stronger if there had been a proper investigation instead of long scenes with our heroes sitting around a table like a bunch of bloody nobs. That isn’t the only problem with the series. Some of its attempts at horror come across as more than a little silly and a lot of its “twists” are so heavily telegraphed that you can see them coming far before the reveal.

There are some aspects of the narrative that work well. The series does have some legitimately disturbing scenes. It also starts out pretty well, establishing the mystery and looking like it’s going to get interesting. If they’d kept the momentum and kept the mystery going well, then this could have been a compelling series. But then it all gets derailed for faffing about.

Characters:

The characters in this are all right. You get a sense of personality from them and they certainly aren’t just tropes. However, the are a bit under-developed and there are certainly points where they succumb to bad horror clichés. To give an example, there’s a girl who readily goes to meet the obvious villain, in spite of him being blatantly sketchy. There are also moments where the dialogue reaches purple prose levels of stilted and trying too hard to make the language sound grandiose.

Art:

There’s a lot about the artwork in this that looks good. The backgrounds look good. The characters are nicely designed and there are a few scenes with well done horror imagery. That being said, most of the horror imagery in this is bollocks. First off, there re the limbs themselves. There’s no sense of muscle, sinew or blood. Instead, you’re left with something that looks like a cheap plastic mannequin’s limb instead of an actual limb that came off of a person. Which results in a disconnect betwixt the disturbing concept and the non-threatening mediocrity of the image. There are also multiple occasions where the series tries to scare us with boxes. Because when I think of a frightening, grotesque image, I think of a room with boxes strewn about. In all seriousness, I don’t think that’s going to scare anyone unless they have pygmachophobia.

Sound:

The acting is competent, mostly. It is brought down a bit by the overly flowery moments and by those tedious stretches of our main characters doing exposition about spirits. However, there are a lot of good actors in this. Hirata Hiroaki, Morikawa Toshiyuki & Tomatsu Haruka to name a few. This is a series where there’s enough range to the characters that they can show their abilities but not so much that you could call it a great performance for any of them. The music was composed by Murai Shusei, the same bloke who did the music for Terra Formars. And he did do a pretty nice job with it.

Ho-yay:

There is quite a bit of it at the beginning. The early stuff with Kanako and Yoriko is full of les-yay. Then Kanako gets abducted from hospital and there’s no more ho-yay.

Final Thoughts:

This is a series that had a lot of potential. There are some strong ideas behind it. Unfortunately, the execution is weak. Ultimately, the series suffers from the mystery being poorly handled, the characters being under-developed, lousy horror imagery and long, boring interludes. There’s still some good stuff in there but not enough to make this a decent series. Ultimately, it ends up being average with its execution failing utterly to live up to the potential of its ideas. My final rating is a 5/10. Next week I’ll end the year with a look at Coppelion.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

What did you think of this review?

Nice 15

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 0

Well-written 0

Creative 0

More reviews by ktulu007 (661)

Show all

15

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Mar 16, 2012

makoa69

Not Recommended

Let me write and explain as best I can why I think Mouryou no Hako is bad. And I don’t mean simply bad, I mean absolutely awful. My friend (who greatly adores this anime might I add) sat with me and had me watch the entire thing just today. If not for him, there’s no way I would have watched more than a single episode of this murder mystery. Now be warned, this review is really fricken' long, so prepare yourself. The review is also written for people who have already seen the show, so it's full of juicy spoilers. So be warned.

So because ... of how convoluted the plot is, I’m going to save that for last. First I will talk about the exterior aspects:
My first complaint is simple: the show has very little to show visually. There’s tons of events talked about in the script during many episodes that are never actually shown to the viewer. It’s actually surprising how little the show actually shows you; I’m guessing that it’s simply your job to quickly pick it up and comprehend everything via the script. You might call it a 'smart person anime’ or something akin to that, but I call it cheap. Is there any reason not to show visually what the script is talking about? I guess the makers felt it’s much more important to keep showing the three guys talking in the room, or the group of guys talking in the big room full of boxes, or the guys talking in the car, or wherever. When the show does show the viewer what it’s talking about, it’s done in a cryptic way that doesn’t really help anybody comprehend what they’re talking about. When I say this, I’m mainly thinking about the discussion about the demons.
A mini complaint I have is some visual imagery in the show. In the first or second episode, we see some disturbing scenes, those being a talking dismembered head in a box, a talking doll, and a cop who sees a lot of bloody handprints on the windows of a train. However, after those three, we never see any disturbing things again. Why were they even there? Besides the head, the imagery had no purpose and was forgotten in the grand scheme. Was it just there to make viewers think this show might actually be good? I am forced to think so.
My second complaint is the music. For a murder mystery about a demented man who severs little girls into pieces and puts the pieces in boxes, there’s a surprisingly high amount of calm peaceful music, so peaceful in fact that I had trouble staying awake to read the many many subtitles. Music is a very easy method of telling the viewer what kind of mood you’re trying to set. If you want the viewer to feel tense, then just put some scary high pace music in the background and, even if your story is garbage, the viewers will still feel the right tensity. The fact that this show has so much calm, slow music playing constantly during the incredibly dense episodes where they’re discussing demons, murders, or whatever tells me as a viewer that the stuff they’re talking about is not only unimportant in the big picture, but also that what I’m seeing now is a waste of time, filler if you will, in order to reach thirteen episodes. Now most of the time the fricken’ show doesn’t know what kind of mood it wants to set, so instead of having no music at all, it just has evening cicadas chirping away in the background, regardless whether cicadas actually would be chirping at that time of day. Now, plenty of times they do get the music right (good job, it’s not that hard), but those times are quite scarce.

Alright, now that that’s out of the way, lets get on to the plot, and the characters.
My biggest problem with this show is just how illogical the characters are. They’ll do certain things that don’t make any sense and the way the show explains it is unsatisfactory. Let’s do a quick rundown of some characters.

Let’s start with Yoriko. Compared with many other characters, she’s given quite some time to develop. We find out that she hates her mother for no reason other than that she’s possessed by a Toorimono. She then falls in love with a fellow student due to her charms, and they start saying they’re reincarnations of each other. Yoriko then pushes her friend into a train for no reason other than that she’s possessed, and then blames it on a man dressed in black. She later gets apprehended by Kubo and dies.
Now let’s try to justify her actions logically. I suppose she could hate her mother because she’s dating a man she dislikes, the show hints at that, but come on. The mother is her only family, probably the only person she ever received love from. It’s not like the mother hates Yoriko, she deeply loves her. The relationship should be similar to Honda Tohru from Fruits Basket. And yet, Yoriko wishes the mother would die. The show also hints that it’s because Yoriko is in those teen years and has all those hormones flowing. Hmmm, I don’t remember wishing my loving parents would die when I was fourteen.
Her falling for Kanoko makes enough sense. Yoriko is unpopular in school and Kanoko approaches her for seemingly no reason at all. Yoriko listens to Kanoko’s strange stories about them being reincarnations of each other, they have meals together, read magazines together, and they both have romantic moonlit dates. And then she pushes her into a train. Huh? Why would she do that? Kanoko was crying before then, and Yoriko noticed a pimple on her neck. That somehow triggers murderous intent?

These kind of things in the plot turn me away. There’s no way to explain such actions except saying that she was possessed. What a great ploy to resort to in a fricken’ murder mystery!

Now let’s talk about Shunko Kubo. He awakes in a train only to have a man promptly show him a girl’s dismembered head in a box, which then moves and speaks. He then feels a desire to have a dismembered head of his own and starts cutting up girls in an attempt to achieve it. He fails and meets up with the scientist who actually did achieve it, and agrees to have himself dismembered. He then murders that guy by biting him furiously.
Now please reread that and see if you can take any of that seriously. First off, there’s nothing really wrong with Kubo, he’s just an average novelist. Unlike the other novelist in the series, he didn’t go to war and doesn’t have any trauma. He has nothing wrong with his brain, and has no reason to think strangely. Though in order for the plot to hold any water, he has to for some reason have a massive desire for dismembered heads. So much that he would risk his entire life so he could have a head of his own. If this guy actually existed, he would have a reaction of surprise and shock to the head, and probably later convince himself he was seeing things when the head spoke. That reaction makes sense.
After that he continues to do crazy things. Why he would agree to get his own body dismembered is beyond me, and even stranger, why he then murders Mimasaka the scientist. For one, how did he manage to murder him? He was clearly sealed inside that box, and Mimasaka had no reason to open him up, he was on the run from the cops. For two, why would he want to murder him? He agreed to become a dismembered head himself, what would biting the man to death achieve? I guess the only explanation is that he was possessed by a Mouryou, or a Toorimono, or whatever.

Next up is . This guy has lived with Kanako and Yoko for fourteen years, and is in love with Kanako. So much in fact, that when he sees an opportunity to murder a scientist and claim her dismembered head for himself, he scoops it up like candy. In addition, while he’s on the run from whoever may be chasing him, he decides it’s a great idea to show a complete stranger in a train his dismembered head that he just murdered someone to attain.

Need I go on? The actions these characters take really just don’t make any sense no matter how you look at it. I mean, unless you assume he also was possessed. And if everybody was possessed, this really isn’t a murder mystery at all, and just a crazy phenomenon.

And that’s really just where the plot falls apart. You can’t have a good murder mystery if you’re going to blame so many events in the crime on ghosts, or demons, or whatever they are. And the anime knows that, so it tried it’s very best to explain those demons so that viewers can go ‘ok that makes sense’. But no, it doesn’t.

In addition to the characters not making sense, they are also very uninteresting or very dislikable. Lets look at the characters in Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni, another murder mystery show. That show sort of split into two parts; casual every day, and scary murder. They did this so that time would be spent making the audience like and care about the characters they’re learning about. If all we see is the murder part, it would be equivalent to a news report on television, which sounds like, ‘someone got killed? Aw, that’s too bad. Oh! Looks like it’ll rain tomorrow!’ Mouryou is somewhat like that news report, but slightly worse. This could have easily been fixed by showing more visual images of the characters most involved with the crime. I am talking especially about Yoko, Mimasaka, Kanoko, and Kubo. I’m guessing the reason not much is shown or explained is because nothing they showed would have explained their irrational behaviors.

This anime, for being only thirteen episodes, has a shockingly high amount of irrelevant tangents. Allow me to give a few examples. A hefty amount of time was spent talking about a famous box maker who was famous for, um, making boxes. Why he needed to even be mentioned is beyond me. Maybe because the murderer puts the ligaments inside of boxes? I thought that was because the first dismembered head he saw was inside a box. Besides, the boxes weren’t important at all. It’s similar to talking about the case of a guitar instead of the guitar itself.
Another example was the story about the clairvoyant girl, the one who poisons herself after the media bad mouthed her. Why was this story even told?. Why even talk about clairvoyance in a murder mystery? Why give one of the detectives the power of clairvoyance?

This actually brings up what I hate most about this anime. It has so many ‘because I told you so’ moments. Why does Chuuzenji know so much and why is he so clever? Because I told you so. Why is Enokizu, the hired detective, clairvoyant? Because I told you so, and so on. The ending and explanation to the plot has to be spoon fed to the viewers because there was no way to logically reach the conclusion yourself. Everything has to be told in a because I told you so manner by Chuuzenji because there was no other way to explain it.

Many people leave this anime with high spirits because the ending somehow manages to put some small amount of sense in the convoluted plot. But they seem to have forgotten the horribly dreadful ten or so episodes before it. An anime isn’t good just because it’s ending is good. It’s not ok even if one episode is bad, especially when the anime is only thirteen episodes. Each episode should be rich in mystery and constantly have me focused and trying to piece things together with the information fed to me. Instead I found myself laying down, fighting my urge to sleep, as the episodes dragged on about the heavy lectures on demons, clairvoyance, and other things that in the end had little to do with the murder itself.

Now, it’s true there’s plenty of elements of the plot that I did not pick up, and that definitely hindered by understanding and overall enjoyment of the show overall. But I feel that is certainly not my fault, but the show’s. If it was actually well written, paced, and visually presented, I would have been mentally active the entire time as well as emotionally involved. Sadly, it failed to achieve either.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

What did you think of this review?

Nice 43

Love it 0

Funny 0

Confusing 0

Informative 1

Well-written 2

Creative 0

More reviews by makoa69 (21)

Show all

46

Read more

Show less

Open

Gift

Report

Strange Things Are Happening in This Town

by OhlLonesomelMe

24 Entries · 74 Restacks

Visual Kei

by Yue_kun

34 Entries · 23 Restacks

Bishounen solving mysteries

by eblf2013

9 Entries · 3 Restacks

	Poll: Mouryou no Hako Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 ) DeathfireD - Jan 2, 2010	57 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Aug 19, 8:54 AM
	Poll: Mouryou no Hako Episode 12 Discussion Mikiyo - Jul 30, 2009	19 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Aug 19, 7:44 AM
	Poll: Mouryou no Hako Episode 11 Discussion Mikiyo - Jul 14, 2009	12 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Aug 12, 5:33 AM
	Poll: Mouryou no Hako Episode 10 Discussion Jacut - Jul 9, 2009	15 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Aug 9, 3:57 AM
	Poll: Mouryou no Hako Episode 9 Discussion hikky - Dec 24, 2008	20 replies	by RenaPsychoKiller »» Aug 8, 4:20 PM