the beautiful world

Camille, Alice, Yune, Oscar and Claude - the main cast of Ikoku Meiro

Final 3 episodes that revolve mainly around Claude and a review - the aftertaste.

Episode 10. Phantasmagoria


Summary : Claude goes to meet an old customer of his father, who wishes a new sign for the reastaurant he is going to open in his old wine cellar. Claude isn't very excited to hear the customer expects from him his father's style; he feels compared to a man he didn't have many feelings for. We learn through his flashbacks at the train about his father's character: non-talkative and highly critic of everything Claude tried.

Back at the shop Yune doesn't want to slack off, so Oscar suggests she cleans the restroom. There they find an old slide projector and a kinetoscope which soon become the center of attention. Alice enters the shop and joins them. The girls are a bit scared about the pictures that 'came alive', but then Yune remembers the evenings with her sister, when they played with the shadow and their hands. Afterwards, Alice along with Yune have a fun time drawing dragons and cats and making them move through the kinetoscope. Later, Alan, the typographer, marches in the shop and  upon seeing the big white sheet used to show the pictures from the projector comes up with an idea. The whole gallery and passer-bys find a seat and enjoy the show.


Anime vs Manga : This episode is new material produced solely for the series.




Episode 11. Prayer


Summary : Alice invites Yune to the Grand Magazin, but Claude doesn't allow Yune to go, 'because they are the enemy of the Gallery'. Yune is perceptive, she understands this has to do with Claude's father, as well, so she doesn't insist on going. Instead they go for a picnic, where grandpa isn't careful enough and Yune gets drunk. In that situation she starts reminiscing about her sister. She prays to 'the god of Paris' for her sister's health. Claude wants to know more, so Yune narrates how she thinks she caused her sister's blindness. Yune out of kindness said to her sister that she could only at her in order not to get hurt by the people's mean glares. There came a point though that Yune got better physically and her sister started getting weaker until she couldn't see with those blue eyes of her. Oscar reassures Yune that her sister was very happy to hear those words she had said. Yune wants to learn what kind of magic Oscar uses in the end - she believed that he also made the rain to stop...


France vs Japan:

• Kotodama:  refers to the Japanese belief that mystical powers dwell in words and names. English translations include "soul of language", "spirit of language", "power of language", "power word", "magic word", and "sacred sound". The notion of kotodama presupposes that sounds can magically affect objects, and that ritual word usages can influence our environment, body, mind, and soul.
• Hanami: is the parties/pic nic under cherry blossoms around April. It's accustomed that sake is shared and drunk while Japanese eat and talk and enjoy viewing the sakura falling. More here.
• Each place and a god: this idea Yune expresses comes most probably from Shinto's nature as a religion, where a great number of gods resides in nature and elsewhere. I'm not sure about France, but here in Greece each place/village/city has a saint to 'protect' it. In that sense this custom doesn't differ much from polytheism.
• Blue eyes : Shione, Yune's sister, was born with blue eyes. Perhaps they came out of a genetic alteration, since most Japanese have black/ dark brown eyes and a possibility of a foreign ancestor isn't mentioned. This is a case of prejudice towards people who aren't like others. Not very uncommon for a society that till that point wasn't influenced much from reasoning but from myths.