Every Friggin Thing You Ever Wanted or Didn't Want to Know About the Medicine Seller
Crap the Medicine Seller Likes to Say and Do
ただの薬売り「ending phrase」.
tadano kusuriuri [desu/desu yo/degozaimausdjflaksjdkaetc].
Usually littered with unnecessary pauses to the point that it's been tagged as a trope. Nothing gets as dramatic as "I...am a simple...medicine seller"!
If you ask him his name, he's going to say this. If you ask him who he is, he's going to say this. If you ask him anything to do with him himself, he's going to say this.
He's just a fricken ordinary medicine seller, k? Geez, you nosy people.
真と理に因って、剣を解き放つ!
makoto to kotowari ni yotte, tsurugi wo tokihanatsu!
Said right before he goes kickass on a mononoke. The first part can be omitted. In fact, most of the second part can be omitted. He usually just says, "tokihanatsu." I suppose it could be roughly translated as, "[by/with] the truth and the reason, the sword is released" (but if you use "by," he sounds too Captain Planet for my tastes). In one episode, he includes 形/katachi as well.
「真と理・other things」お聞かせ願いたく候!
[makoto to kotowari/other things] okikasenegaitakusourou!
I don't actually know how the spacing would work on this one, seeing as the Japanese don't believe in spacing, and Korean spacing doesn't always correspond to the English romanization of Japanese. This is usually said with the archaic 候/sourou, and by phrasing, it sounds fairly polite, but the intonation of how he usually says it is a bit forceful. So rather than the "I ask [politely!] that you tell me these things," it sounds a bit more like a strong "Allow me to ask you [...]" or "Tell me the [truth and reason/etc.]!" Shinsen used, "Let me ask you that," but it sounds a bit too smug for me in some parts where he's being serious. On very rare occasions (i.e., the one time I noticed), he cuts the archaic ending off.
モノノ怪の形を為すのは人の因果と縁 [etc., etc.]
mononoke no katachi wo nasu no wa hito no inga to enishi..."
This one tends to morph a bit whenever he says it. As usual, it's a bit cryptic and high-brow, considering the equation doesn't really make that much sense, and I swear, there've been five dozen English translations for it (only one in Korean in every sub group I've seen, and I can't even translate it into English because the words are...they connote a lot more than can be summed up in one word). To be basic, he's saying that a mononoke's form comes into being because of/by the bonds between humans and their fate as interrelated with each other. (In the final arc, he threw in あやかしの器に/"ayakashi no utsuwa ni," which is "an ayakashi vessel" or something to that effect. So basically, when you have an ayakashi and the gory results of humans fucking each other's shit up, you get a mononoke.)
真とは事の有り様。理とは心の有り様。
makoto towa koto no arisama. kotowari towa kokoro no arisama."
...his way of confusingly explaining 真/makoto and 理/kotowari to people who are clueless enough as it is. I dunno, man, I'm pretty sure half the things he says are just meant to make his audience more lost than ever. In any case, this one is "The truth is the state of circumstances. The reason is the state of the heart."
THANKS FOR MAKING IT ALL CLEAR, KUSURIURI. NOW WE CAN DEFINITELY HELP YOU GET RID OF THE MONONOKE.
repeated lines
The medicine seller tends to repeat things that other people say, usually as a question thrown back at them. His way of saying, "Clarify, bitches" (or alternately, when I play him, it seems to be more like, "Think about it, bitchezzz"). It probably gets annoying to some, but too bad. Sometimes, he says it to himself, as if he's thinking, but most of the time, he just says it outright like so:
MORIYA: [taking notes] The case of Setsuko's death...
KUSURIURI: [in Moriya's face after he APPEARS OUT OF FRICKEN NOWHERE] "Case"...is it? So was it not...a suicide?
MORIYA: WTF WAT R U DOING CREEPY PERSON
standing on tables
You think I kid? Zashikiwarashi. Stands on a table. Nue. Stands on a table. Whenever you're not looking--probably standing on a table. He's usually doing this with his scales littered around and sword at hand, but not always. This also tends to turn into his stage to go, "Tell me the truth and reason!"
hand-to-chin
One of the medicine seller's most favored "The Thinker" poses is putting his hand to his chin. He does it a LOT. In fact, I have over 500MB of caps and icons and all sorts of fun things in my MoNoNoKe folder. Probably half of those are him posing like that.
holding the sword in front of his face
I DON'T KNOW WHY HE DOES THIS BUT IT REALLY BOTHERS ME. Extremely standard pose for him. See: really pink icon on this journal
It's been brought to my attention (i.e., I just noticed myself) that there's one other icon that's even pinker than the original pink icon. So I don't mean the henohenomoheshi icon. I mean the one that's badly cropped, too blurry, and sword...ed.
not answering your questions
Other than his characteristic Shatner pauses, the medicine seller has this annoying tendency to outright refuse to answer your questions. He won't say no or anything--he'll just sit there, silent. And then he'll distract you by asking a question himself or diverting the subject or something equally frustrating. Somehow, no one ever bothers to go, "ANSWER MY QUESTION DAMNIT," but even if they did, he'd probably not do any such thing. Occasionally, something interrupts the long pause instead of him changing the subject.
getting in your face
The character I can think of that does this a lot in my personal repertoire is Claire Stanfield. Claire likes it in your facespace. It's fun there, and he can taunt you better because you're scared of him.
...the medicine seller's just obnoxious. [See: Moriya in Bakeneko arc of MoNoNoKe]
talking to his sword
Now this is real special. In a number of times throughout the series, the medicine seller's mouth is moving, but there isn't any sound coming out. It's safe to assume he's having a chitchat with the sword. Usually, this happens when he's looking for where the mononoke might be (e.g., beginning of Zashikiwarashi when he's standing in front of the inn, beginning of MoNoNoKe Bakeneko when he's in the crowd boarding the train, beginning of ~ayakashi~ Bakeneko when he's in front of the Sakai household). Other times, it's even after the weird shit has started (e.g., second episode of Zashikiwarashi once Shino has been separated from the other three, first episode of Nue after the deaths have been revealed--Nakarai notices this one instead of our seeing him actually "speaking").
What's he saying? Who's he talking to? Are they rating the hot-or-not of the supporting characters? In the wise words of the medicine seller, "Who fucking knows."
doing shit WITHOUT WARNING
The medicine seller is a man of sudden movements. Dogs would not like him. This is especially true of when he uses the fuda--he'll start slapping them up wherever and whenever he feels like, regardless of who or what is in the way. Kayo really doesn't like this (as she says in Umi Bozu after he throws a line of fuda, "I'M TELLING YOU, HE'S ALWAYS LIKE THIS").
Ways He Likes to Transform Into That Other Guy
There are six arcs. Each "method" of sorts gets two arcs.
There's a time-freeze effect that we see in ~ayakashi~'s Bakeneko arc and the Nue arc. In both of these, the full line above (「形と」真と理に因って、剣を解き放つ) is said, and the sequence begins. These are also the only two with full-blown fight scenes between the medicine seller and the mononoke.
Pretty much everything goes white, and the audience sees the medicine seller and his other form in the room, back to back, arms out a la how the medicine seller is usually standing once he says, "解き放つ." The paint fades off of the medicine seller's face (frankly, his expression is HILARIOUS in my book, but I guess they were going for serious), and there's a showy bit that follows the gold lines appearing on the other form, which ends with the hands, at which point said other form clenches said hand into a...sort-of fist.
The camera then draws back to show the eye on the back of the medicine seller's kimono, which dramatically "closes."
IT'S PROBABLY SYMBOLIC BUT WE DON'T CARE RIGHT.
This one is almost immediately followed by the other form blocking the mononoke's attack with those über-fuda. His eyes aren't usually open until he's done that.
In Zashikiwarashi and Noppera-bou, the audience barely sees the other form in action. The medicine seller doesn't even say, "解き放つ."
Zashikiwarashi shows the sword closing in on the spirits, tearing up the red fabric that symbolizes the umbilical cord. When Shino tries to say something more but sees that there are no children left, we get a brief glimpse of the other form standing on top of the table in the completion of an outward swing of the sword (which we don't see). The next frame shows the medicine seller again, NOT standing on the table (SURPRISE SURPRISE), and Shino sleeping on the floor again.
Noppera-bou segues instantly from the mononoke mask screaming to a view of the sword (see, this style, we always see the sword first) and Mr. Other Form's hair flowing. He's kinda smiling all >8) too, though that's probably not an accurate depiction.
Noppera-bou is likely the most confusing of all the arcs because no one is really clear on whether Ochou is being led by the medicine seller or if part of her really IS the mononoke, and she does need a bit of exorcising. There's one single confetti piece (indicative of a purified mononoke) that settles into her hand in this scene, but that doesn't really tip us off to anything. Nonetheless, she eventually says, "Thank you. I'll be okay now," and the other form's hair stops flowing all dramatically, and the sword settles down.
This is also the infamous scene where we get to see the huge size of the sword, positioned in a terrible way that makes us all think, "PENIS."
It's just the truth, okay? If you saw this scene and didn't get a flicker of that thought, you probably don't actually know what a penis is.
Umi Bozu and the MoNoNoKe Bakeneko arcs use a much more aesthetically pleasing (admit it--it's gorgeous) sequence. Both of them take liberties in terms of how it's done, but they have their similarities, and it appears much more natural and...just pretty, okay. It's really pretty.
Once Genkei consents to being exorcised and made whole again, the medicine seller releases the sword with the standard "解き放つ," though in both of these, he abridges it to just "Release!" instead of the whole, "With the truth and the blah blah blah."
From here, nothing ritualistic happens. The other form (not awake yet) appears in front of the medicine seller rather dramatically, head hung, arms limp, hair floooowing in the wiiiind. The medicine seller's arms, which were still in "RELEASE!!11!" position, drop to his sides, and presumably, he disappears, as we can't see him once the other form starts going. We do see the gold appearing on the other form, and there's a closeup to his profile when it reaches the face. (Interestingly, he's never really ready to go until the paint ends at his face.)
With that, he sees the mononoke heading towards him to strike and does more dramatic things like turning in a smooth circle to snatch the sword out of the air and stop the attack.
A curious point in this particular episode is the fact that there's a brief freeze-frame like in the ~ayakashi~ arc and Nue arc, and we see the other form open his hand as if asking for something. Another hand reaches upwards and hands over the mirror. This, I think, is the primary point that leads people to believe that the medicine seller and Mr. Golden Man are sort of two different people--though not entirely. I'm not sure what I make of it myself--I'm convinced that the medicine seller is both people, but I don't think either side has very much support to lean on.
Despite having a really flashy, appealing transformation, the job is done quickly in this one.
Bakeneko has an even FLASHIER sequence. The medicine seller's been struck, and after he delivers some rather cryptic, THIS IS MY ETERNAL DUTY lines (因って。。。清め。。。祓うぞ。 静まれ。。。モノノ怪！/"Therefore, I will purify and destroy. Suppress yourself, mononoke!"), he releases the sword (which isn't above his head as it usually is). (By the way, that one line took me weeks to figure out. I didn't understand that it was "kiyome" rather than "kione," which meant I didn't realize it was 清め 【きよめ】, which means "purification.")
What happens here is a switch off between "What's the bakeneko up to?" and "What's the medicine seller up to?" The bakeneko is making threatening advances, as usual, and the medicine seller is unconsciously putting up barriers (maybe it's just part of THE MAGIC) while switching forms. Seeing as the medicine seller, who was totally just fine until he got careless and was smashed by the bakeneko at the last minute, was wounded, there's a bit more drama in this round. He falls backwards, totally unconscious and bloody (just around his face anyway), as the other form rises up, both kind of surrounded by a friggin LOT of gold fuda flying around.
Bakeneko feet smashing fuda barriers, etc., etc., comes back to the other form, closeup to his face to show the paint appearing, aaaand he opens his eyes. The sword's just chilling in front of him, and in the background, we see this rather freaky-looking image of Ichikawa being all BLEARGHALKDSJfaklsdalkskd, and the other form reaches for the sword, gives a dramatic pause, unsheathes it an inch, and--
Again, no fight scene. After some rather terrifying bits with Moriya being pegged by the mononoke-Setsuko going, "I can't forgive you...!" it switches to the other form as he swings the sword and shouts, "滅!/멸!/Begone!/Vanish!/Whatever you expect it to be!"
And so the credits roll.
On the note of similarities, fun facts about the bakeneko:
It's the only mononoke that manages to injure the medicine seller. The first time is much more severe. The second time, he gets smacked, and then he goes, "Oh, duh, release the sword."
It's the only mononoke the medicine seller uses that archaic command on--the term metsu is based on old Buddhist purification rites/Chinese characters, etc., etc. The Korean reading of the Chinese is the root of the term 멸망하다, which is often used as 망하다. The second one is typically used for stores and the like that go out of business (though it's not exclusively for that). Literally, the first term means "to bring to ruin."
Both arcs have the same characters--just reincarnated and mixed up. Here's a quick guide.
Tamaki [assumedly] --> Ichikawa Setsuko
Sakai Yoshiyuki --> Jyutarō Fukuda
Sakai Yoshiaki --> Kinoshita Bunpei
Sakai Mizue --> Yamaguchi Haru
Sasaoka --> Moriya Kiyoshi
Katsuyama --> Kobayashi Masao
Yahei --> Kadowaki Sakae
Kayo --> Nomoto Chiyo
Most of their personalities are tooootally different, so don't try to measure that way. Kayo/Chiyo is pretty much the only one who acts like she did before, but Chiyo is not nearly as spunky as Kayo, and this time, she actually has a hand in what happened to Setsuko (in the other two arcs she shows up, she's mostly just a bystander).
Age flips include Fukuda (who is portrayed as the younger Master Sakai) and Masao (who is a kid form of Katsuyama). Kadowaki Sakae has color in his hair (Yahei sure didn't)! I kind of think it's hard to tell whether Setsuko is Tamaki reincarnated because her hair style is totally different, and you can't seem to tell any of the long-haired ladies apart in this series, but I think it's safe to assume that that's the case.
Which, if it is, SUCKS TO BE SETSUKO, MAN. Stop friggin getting hauled into sucky lives and turning all the cats around you into demons!
Fukuda was basically the poohead in both arcs, but Moriya (Sasaoka) was the one who seriously screwed up in the MoNoNoKe arc.
Changes Over the Course of Time
Most of the time, I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with myself re: ~ayakashi~ and MoNoNoKe. Truth be told, it seems like the creators decided to polish everything up a bit when they got their spin-off. Consider--
The medicine seller himself has a slightly more...colorful personality in ~ayakashi~. Much easier to frazzle (I'm not kidding--not long after the bakeneko starts stalking around the mansion, he's got massive amounts of scowling going), much more expressive, much more...young. That's how he strikes me. However, I don't really believe he's young or old in any sense, so I also don't know whether to address this as an experience issue.
He DOES show a shift in power over time. Where in ~ayakashi~, he's very particular about how to set things up (the salt perimeter, the rows and rows and ROWS of scales, the fuda absolute everywhere), in MoNoNoKe, he's much more freeform. And even within MoNoNoKe, his general style of approach changes. Zashiki warashi shows him a bit scattered, pasting fuda in seemingly random places, scales arranged in clusters or singles.
Umi Bozu doesn't even show any setup. There's only one instance of the fuda being used, and it's to open the utsurobune. The scales are arranged in a circle, but we never see him set them up. Noppera-bou also lacks much in the way of typical setup; the scales show up of their own accord, and when the medicine seller creates what I affectionately call Ochou's Trauma Theater, he does it dramatically, having the fuda line up before forming the giant walls.
See, I don't know if anyone else reads into it like this, but the fuda are a good way of seeing how his methods change. They're messy as hell in ~ayakashi~, and they're very randomly placed in Zashiki warashi and Umi Bozu. But once you hit Noppera-bou, they're more orderly, and when we get to Nue, we might have scales everywhere still, but when he throws the fuda, they're all perfectly aligned. "What? So what?"
So what?! They're crooked and slapdash all the times before! A ton of them overlap, a ton of them are skewed, and most of the time, they're just kinda slapped up. But in Nue, when he uses them, it's much more controlled, and by the time we reach the second Bakeneko arc, they're not even used.
Yeah, I know I sound crazy.
Surprisingly, this is a decent stressbuster. I have a ton more to write though. Ton more that err. No one's really interested in, but I like organizing my thoughts on characters that I struggle to understand. (So far, my way of playing the medicine seller is basically, "OKAY, what is the LEAST explicable thing he could say in this situation?")
Knowing full well that I'll never actually get to use this icon in game, I'm taking advantage of having it by using it here except for the part where it isn't fitting at all.
And I used the traditional spelling of "mononoke" in the keywords. [face smack] DOH.
ただの薬売り「ending phrase」.
tadano kusuriuri [desu/desu yo/degozaimausdjflaksjdkaetc].
Usually littered with unnecessary pauses to the point that it's been tagged as a trope. Nothing gets as dramatic as "I...am a simple...medicine seller"!
If you ask him his name, he's going to say this. If you ask him who he is, he's going to say this. If you ask him anything to do with him himself, he's going to say this.
He's just a fricken ordinary medicine seller, k? Geez, you nosy people.
真と理に因って、剣を解き放つ!
makoto to kotowari ni yotte, tsurugi wo tokihanatsu!
Said right before he goes kickass on a mononoke. The first part can be omitted. In fact, most of the second part can be omitted. He usually just says, "tokihanatsu." I suppose it could be roughly translated as, "[by/with] the truth and the reason, the sword is released" (but if you use "by," he sounds too Captain Planet for my tastes). In one episode, he includes 形/katachi as well.
「真と理・other things」お聞かせ願いたく候!
[makoto to kotowari/other things] okikasenegaitakusourou!
I don't actually know how the spacing would work on this one, seeing as the Japanese don't believe in spacing, and Korean spacing doesn't always correspond to the English romanization of Japanese. This is usually said with the archaic 候/sourou, and by phrasing, it sounds fairly polite, but the intonation of how he usually says it is a bit forceful. So rather than the "I ask [politely!] that you tell me these things," it sounds a bit more like a strong "Allow me to ask you [...]" or "Tell me the [truth and reason/etc.]!" Shinsen used, "Let me ask you that," but it sounds a bit too smug for me in some parts where he's being serious. On very rare occasions (i.e., the one time I noticed), he cuts the archaic ending off.
モノノ怪の形を為すのは人の因果と縁 [etc., etc.]
mononoke no katachi wo nasu no wa hito no inga to enishi..."
This one tends to morph a bit whenever he says it. As usual, it's a bit cryptic and high-brow, considering the equation doesn't really make that much sense, and I swear, there've been five dozen English translations for it (only one in Korean in every sub group I've seen, and I can't even translate it into English because the words are...they connote a lot more than can be summed up in one word). To be basic, he's saying that a mononoke's form comes into being because of/by the bonds between humans and their fate as interrelated with each other. (In the final arc, he threw in あやかしの器に/"ayakashi no utsuwa ni," which is "an ayakashi vessel" or something to that effect. So basically, when you have an ayakashi and the gory results of humans fucking each other's shit up, you get a mononoke.)
真とは事の有り様。理とは心の有り様。
makoto towa koto no arisama. kotowari towa kokoro no arisama."
...his way of confusingly explaining 真/makoto and 理/kotowari to people who are clueless enough as it is. I dunno, man, I'm pretty sure half the things he says are just meant to make his audience more lost than ever. In any case, this one is "The truth is the state of circumstances. The reason is the state of the heart."
THANKS FOR MAKING IT ALL CLEAR, KUSURIURI. NOW WE CAN DEFINITELY HELP YOU GET RID OF THE MONONOKE.
repeated lines
The medicine seller tends to repeat things that other people say, usually as a question thrown back at them. His way of saying, "Clarify, bitches" (or alternately, when I play him, it seems to be more like, "Think about it, bitchezzz"). It probably gets annoying to some, but too bad. Sometimes, he says it to himself, as if he's thinking, but most of the time, he just says it outright like so:
MORIYA: [taking notes] The case of Setsuko's death...
KUSURIURI: [in Moriya's face after he APPEARS OUT OF FRICKEN NOWHERE] "Case"...is it? So was it not...a suicide?
MORIYA: WTF WAT R U DOING CREEPY PERSON
standing on tables
You think I kid? Zashikiwarashi. Stands on a table. Nue. Stands on a table. Whenever you're not looking--probably standing on a table. He's usually doing this with his scales littered around and sword at hand, but not always. This also tends to turn into his stage to go, "Tell me the truth and reason!"
hand-to-chin
One of the medicine seller's most favored "The Thinker" poses is putting his hand to his chin. He does it a LOT. In fact, I have over 500MB of caps and icons and all sorts of fun things in my MoNoNoKe folder. Probably half of those are him posing like that.
holding the sword in front of his face
I DON'T KNOW WHY HE DOES THIS BUT IT REALLY BOTHERS ME. Extremely standard pose for him. See: really pink icon on this journal
It's been brought to my attention (i.e., I just noticed myself) that there's one other icon that's even pinker than the original pink icon. So I don't mean the henohenomoheshi icon. I mean the one that's badly cropped, too blurry, and sword...ed.
not answering your questions
Other than his characteristic Shatner pauses, the medicine seller has this annoying tendency to outright refuse to answer your questions. He won't say no or anything--he'll just sit there, silent. And then he'll distract you by asking a question himself or diverting the subject or something equally frustrating. Somehow, no one ever bothers to go, "ANSWER MY QUESTION DAMNIT," but even if they did, he'd probably not do any such thing. Occasionally, something interrupts the long pause instead of him changing the subject.
getting in your face
The character I can think of that does this a lot in my personal repertoire is Claire Stanfield. Claire likes it in your facespace. It's fun there, and he can taunt you better because you're scared of him.
...the medicine seller's just obnoxious. [See: Moriya in Bakeneko arc of MoNoNoKe]
talking to his sword
Now this is real special. In a number of times throughout the series, the medicine seller's mouth is moving, but there isn't any sound coming out. It's safe to assume he's having a chitchat with the sword. Usually, this happens when he's looking for where the mononoke might be (e.g., beginning of Zashikiwarashi when he's standing in front of the inn, beginning of MoNoNoKe Bakeneko when he's in the crowd boarding the train, beginning of ~ayakashi~ Bakeneko when he's in front of the Sakai household). Other times, it's even after the weird shit has started (e.g., second episode of Zashikiwarashi once Shino has been separated from the other three, first episode of Nue after the deaths have been revealed--Nakarai notices this one instead of our seeing him actually "speaking").
What's he saying? Who's he talking to? Are they rating the hot-or-not of the supporting characters? In the wise words of the medicine seller, "Who fucking knows."
doing shit WITHOUT WARNING
The medicine seller is a man of sudden movements. Dogs would not like him. This is especially true of when he uses the fuda--he'll start slapping them up wherever and whenever he feels like, regardless of who or what is in the way. Kayo really doesn't like this (as she says in Umi Bozu after he throws a line of fuda, "I'M TELLING YOU, HE'S ALWAYS LIKE THIS").
Ways He Likes to Transform Into That Other Guy
There are six arcs. Each "method" of sorts gets two arcs.
There's a time-freeze effect that we see in ~ayakashi~'s Bakeneko arc and the Nue arc. In both of these, the full line above (「形と」真と理に因って、剣を解き放つ) is said, and the sequence begins. These are also the only two with full-blown fight scenes between the medicine seller and the mononoke.
Pretty much everything goes white, and the audience sees the medicine seller and his other form in the room, back to back, arms out a la how the medicine seller is usually standing once he says, "解き放つ." The paint fades off of the medicine seller's face (frankly, his expression is HILARIOUS in my book, but I guess they were going for serious), and there's a showy bit that follows the gold lines appearing on the other form, which ends with the hands, at which point said other form clenches said hand into a...sort-of fist.
The camera then draws back to show the eye on the back of the medicine seller's kimono, which dramatically "closes."
IT'S PROBABLY SYMBOLIC BUT WE DON'T CARE RIGHT.
This one is almost immediately followed by the other form blocking the mononoke's attack with those über-fuda. His eyes aren't usually open until he's done that.
In Zashikiwarashi and Noppera-bou, the audience barely sees the other form in action. The medicine seller doesn't even say, "解き放つ."
Zashikiwarashi shows the sword closing in on the spirits, tearing up the red fabric that symbolizes the umbilical cord. When Shino tries to say something more but sees that there are no children left, we get a brief glimpse of the other form standing on top of the table in the completion of an outward swing of the sword (which we don't see). The next frame shows the medicine seller again, NOT standing on the table (SURPRISE SURPRISE), and Shino sleeping on the floor again.
Noppera-bou segues instantly from the mononoke mask screaming to a view of the sword (see, this style, we always see the sword first) and Mr. Other Form's hair flowing. He's kinda smiling all >8) too, though that's probably not an accurate depiction.
Noppera-bou is likely the most confusing of all the arcs because no one is really clear on whether Ochou is being led by the medicine seller or if part of her really IS the mononoke, and she does need a bit of exorcising. There's one single confetti piece (indicative of a purified mononoke) that settles into her hand in this scene, but that doesn't really tip us off to anything. Nonetheless, she eventually says, "Thank you. I'll be okay now," and the other form's hair stops flowing all dramatically, and the sword settles down.
This is also the infamous scene where we get to see the huge size of the sword, positioned in a terrible way that makes us all think, "PENIS."
It's just the truth, okay? If you saw this scene and didn't get a flicker of that thought, you probably don't actually know what a penis is.
Umi Bozu and the MoNoNoKe Bakeneko arcs use a much more aesthetically pleasing (admit it--it's gorgeous) sequence. Both of them take liberties in terms of how it's done, but they have their similarities, and it appears much more natural and...just pretty, okay. It's really pretty.
Once Genkei consents to being exorcised and made whole again, the medicine seller releases the sword with the standard "解き放つ," though in both of these, he abridges it to just "Release!" instead of the whole, "With the truth and the blah blah blah."
From here, nothing ritualistic happens. The other form (not awake yet) appears in front of the medicine seller rather dramatically, head hung, arms limp, hair floooowing in the wiiiind. The medicine seller's arms, which were still in "RELEASE!!11!" position, drop to his sides, and presumably, he disappears, as we can't see him once the other form starts going. We do see the gold appearing on the other form, and there's a closeup to his profile when it reaches the face. (Interestingly, he's never really ready to go until the paint ends at his face.)
With that, he sees the mononoke heading towards him to strike and does more dramatic things like turning in a smooth circle to snatch the sword out of the air and stop the attack.
A curious point in this particular episode is the fact that there's a brief freeze-frame like in the ~ayakashi~ arc and Nue arc, and we see the other form open his hand as if asking for something. Another hand reaches upwards and hands over the mirror. This, I think, is the primary point that leads people to believe that the medicine seller and Mr. Golden Man are sort of two different people--though not entirely. I'm not sure what I make of it myself--I'm convinced that the medicine seller is both people, but I don't think either side has very much support to lean on.
Despite having a really flashy, appealing transformation, the job is done quickly in this one.
Bakeneko has an even FLASHIER sequence. The medicine seller's been struck, and after he delivers some rather cryptic, THIS IS MY ETERNAL DUTY lines (因って。。。清め。。。祓うぞ。 静まれ。。。モノノ怪！/"Therefore, I will purify and destroy. Suppress yourself, mononoke!"), he releases the sword (which isn't above his head as it usually is). (By the way, that one line took me weeks to figure out. I didn't understand that it was "kiyome" rather than "kione," which meant I didn't realize it was 清め 【きよめ】, which means "purification.")
What happens here is a switch off between "What's the bakeneko up to?" and "What's the medicine seller up to?" The bakeneko is making threatening advances, as usual, and the medicine seller is unconsciously putting up barriers (maybe it's just part of THE MAGIC) while switching forms. Seeing as the medicine seller, who was totally just fine until he got careless and was smashed by the bakeneko at the last minute, was wounded, there's a bit more drama in this round. He falls backwards, totally unconscious and bloody (just around his face anyway), as the other form rises up, both kind of surrounded by a friggin LOT of gold fuda flying around.
Bakeneko feet smashing fuda barriers, etc., etc., comes back to the other form, closeup to his face to show the paint appearing, aaaand he opens his eyes. The sword's just chilling in front of him, and in the background, we see this rather freaky-looking image of Ichikawa being all BLEARGHALKDSJfaklsdalkskd, and the other form reaches for the sword, gives a dramatic pause, unsheathes it an inch, and--
Again, no fight scene. After some rather terrifying bits with Moriya being pegged by the mononoke-Setsuko going, "I can't forgive you...!" it switches to the other form as he swings the sword and shouts, "滅!/멸!/Begone!/Vanish!/Whatever you expect it to be!"
And so the credits roll.
On the note of similarities, fun facts about the bakeneko:
It's the only mononoke that manages to injure the medicine seller. The first time is much more severe. The second time, he gets smacked, and then he goes, "Oh, duh, release the sword."
It's the only mononoke the medicine seller uses that archaic command on--the term metsu is based on old Buddhist purification rites/Chinese characters, etc., etc. The Korean reading of the Chinese is the root of the term 멸망하다, which is often used as 망하다. The second one is typically used for stores and the like that go out of business (though it's not exclusively for that). Literally, the first term means "to bring to ruin."
Both arcs have the same characters--just reincarnated and mixed up. Here's a quick guide.
Tamaki [assumedly] --> Ichikawa Setsuko
Sakai Yoshiyuki --> Jyutarō Fukuda
Sakai Yoshiaki --> Kinoshita Bunpei
Sakai Mizue --> Yamaguchi Haru
Sasaoka --> Moriya Kiyoshi
Katsuyama --> Kobayashi Masao
Yahei --> Kadowaki Sakae
Kayo --> Nomoto Chiyo
Most of their personalities are tooootally different, so don't try to measure that way. Kayo/Chiyo is pretty much the only one who acts like she did before, but Chiyo is not nearly as spunky as Kayo, and this time, she actually has a hand in what happened to Setsuko (in the other two arcs she shows up, she's mostly just a bystander).
Age flips include Fukuda (who is portrayed as the younger Master Sakai) and Masao (who is a kid form of Katsuyama). Kadowaki Sakae has color in his hair (Yahei sure didn't)! I kind of think it's hard to tell whether Setsuko is Tamaki reincarnated because her hair style is totally different, and you can't seem to tell any of the long-haired ladies apart in this series, but I think it's safe to assume that that's the case.
Which, if it is, SUCKS TO BE SETSUKO, MAN. Stop friggin getting hauled into sucky lives and turning all the cats around you into demons!
Fukuda was basically the poohead in both arcs, but Moriya (Sasaoka) was the one who seriously screwed up in the MoNoNoKe arc.
Changes Over the Course of Time
Most of the time, I'm a bit at a loss as to what to do with myself re: ~ayakashi~ and MoNoNoKe. Truth be told, it seems like the creators decided to polish everything up a bit when they got their spin-off. Consider--
The medicine seller himself has a slightly more...colorful personality in ~ayakashi~. Much easier to frazzle (I'm not kidding--not long after the bakeneko starts stalking around the mansion, he's got massive amounts of scowling going), much more expressive, much more...young. That's how he strikes me. However, I don't really believe he's young or old in any sense, so I also don't know whether to address this as an experience issue.
He DOES show a shift in power over time. Where in ~ayakashi~, he's very particular about how to set things up (the salt perimeter, the rows and rows and ROWS of scales, the fuda absolute everywhere), in MoNoNoKe, he's much more freeform. And even within MoNoNoKe, his general style of approach changes. Zashiki warashi shows him a bit scattered, pasting fuda in seemingly random places, scales arranged in clusters or singles.
Umi Bozu doesn't even show any setup. There's only one instance of the fuda being used, and it's to open the utsurobune. The scales are arranged in a circle, but we never see him set them up. Noppera-bou also lacks much in the way of typical setup; the scales show up of their own accord, and when the medicine seller creates what I affectionately call Ochou's Trauma Theater, he does it dramatically, having the fuda line up before forming the giant walls.
See, I don't know if anyone else reads into it like this, but the fuda are a good way of seeing how his methods change. They're messy as hell in ~ayakashi~, and they're very randomly placed in Zashiki warashi and Umi Bozu. But once you hit Noppera-bou, they're more orderly, and when we get to Nue, we might have scales everywhere still, but when he throws the fuda, they're all perfectly aligned. "What? So what?"
So what?! They're crooked and slapdash all the times before! A ton of them overlap, a ton of them are skewed, and most of the time, they're just kinda slapped up. But in Nue, when he uses them, it's much more controlled, and by the time we reach the second Bakeneko arc, they're not even used.
Yeah, I know I sound crazy.
Surprisingly, this is a decent stressbuster. I have a ton more to write though. Ton more that err. No one's really interested in, but I like organizing my thoughts on characters that I struggle to understand. (So far, my way of playing the medicine seller is basically, "OKAY, what is the LEAST explicable thing he could say in this situation?")
Knowing full well that I'll never actually get to use this icon in game, I'm taking advantage of having it by using it here except for the part where it isn't fitting at all.
And I used the traditional spelling of "mononoke" in the keywords. [face smack] DOH.