Imagine a story beginning in the spring season about an aged man who was driving a bunch of young rowdy people to a cult-like place to "restart life." But, after an accident occurring due to the driver arguing with the others, the driver ends up getting lost in a mysterious village alone and without any ability to contact anyone in the outside world. The others survived the accident, but would eventually give up trying to find him and head back to the city. From there, the man explores the village, trying to gather as much resources and information as he can about the place, but notices the strange growlings every time he tries to goes too far out. As such, it becomes an ominous story where he lives in relative peace within the abandoned village, as he's unable to travel any further in fear of being attacked.
Eventually as summer comes, he begins to reflects on his life, where he thinks back to his wife and daughter whom had left him, the harsh thanklessness of his work, and his low social and economic standings, thinking he's better off living alone in this village than ever returning to the real world. However, as his anxieties lessen over time, so do the growlings in the village outskirts. Instead, they were replaced by apparitions walking around the village. Were they his hallucinations? Were they a supernatural force? Eventually, they would begin to take recognizable forms, and the man would recognize them as people from his life.
Slowly, each one reminds him of his past traumas, and after arguing with each of them, he would eventually reconcile with each of them. During this, the scenes would transition into moments throughout his life, like a stage play where he would walk from scene to scene, speaking to different people in turn from childhood to his current aged state. He would eventually figure out that they were reflections in his mind, but he didn't mind. He would have pleasant conversations with them: his wife, his bosses, and various other figures in his past. They all wronged him, and he in turn wrong them back, and although he knew this, he never really accepted his own faults. Yet, in his conversations with his versions of these people, he found that answer within himself. After he made his peace with one figure, they would disappear one after another.
Then in the autumn, his daughter was the only one left. Ironically, although he loved her the most, he never had the chance to spend much time with her, so in his eyes, he never really understood how his daughter felt about him. She died relatively early in life due to an accident caused by him, so the only thing he saw in her was his own guilt. And he was aware of this, yet he couldn't really do or say anything. For some time afterwards, it would just be the father and the daughter's apparition going through the village, tending to various tasks in silence with the backdrop of various natural and rural scenes, refecting on the time they never had. The man somewhat enjoyed this time, but it also sad for him. His real daughter was not here, but in a grave which he could not visit while in the village. He could have left a while ago once the growls stopped, but he chose to stay. The monsters - his fears - that prevented him from rejoining society had long since left him, but he still had to deal with his last personal hurdle: his guilt over his daughter. But, in order to find closure, he would need to leave the village and visit her grave. By doing so however, it would mean he would have to leave the apparition and, thus, never be able to interact with his daughter again.
So, in the winter, he finally makes peace with his daughter's apparition and leaves the village. He eventually stumbles across a road and hitchhikes back to the city. There, he does research on the village and finds that it was only an urban legend - the myth of the Lost Village - for which the young rowdy crew he was driving were trying to find. He figured no one would believe his story, and while his life was still hard, he would slowly manage himself to at least being at peace with himself. The show would end with him visiting his daughter's grave on a day where winter began giving way to spring, where he would accidentally meet his divorced wife at the graveyard. They stare at each other for a moment, awkwardly exchange greetings, and agree to go out for coffee to talk about the old days.
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I'm absurdly biased towards scenic and peaceful stories with heavy undertones, and I saw a potential for that in the driver's story in addition to a spin on the Silent Hill setup. Had this been, perhaps, an hour long OVA with a focus just on him or any other character, it might have been more interesting, if just for how it has greater depth instead of breadth in terms of how it explores its characters. Or, if the story is more about the village itself, then the show really handicapped itself by having to micromanage over 30 character within the span of 12 episodes. I don't dislike Mayoiga, but goodness gracious did it need help in the form of trimming and focusing. |