This would ordinarily go on my other weblog, but the subject matter of “Zashiki Warashi,” the first arc of the current anime Mononoke ((Not to be confused with Mononoke Hime, or Princess Mononoke)), might make it of interest to some of my readers here. Set in Edo-period Japan, the story deals with a desperate, pregnant young woman seeking shelter at a crowded inn, and the the room she is eventually shown to by the inn’s owner. The inn was earlier a brothel, and the room has a grim history. The story involves masters taking advantage of servants, prostitution and abortion, and the spirits of unborn children figure prominently in it. Precisely what does happen in the second half is hard to tell — the storytelling and the art are highly sylized, both draw on Buddhist mythology, and much is shown symbolically rather than literally — but it is a horror story with considerable power nevertheless. (Detailed and spoiler-laden discussions of these two episodes can be found here and here.)