08 Mother is Back! (MELMO)

[jeffbert]

This episode contains a plot element that I have seen not only in AMBASSADOR MAGMA anime, but INNUYASHA also. I suspect it may be based upon Japanese folklore, but have no evidence for this. Assuming I am wrong, it may originate here.



The owner of this plague is a hunchback who will be employed by a magician or as they were once called, a prestidigitator, who wants to discover Melmo's secret & decides to use trickery to do it. Not just trickery, but the cruellest hoax one could do to an orphan.


The hunchback's cellar is full of nude figures, but I skip them, lest anyone be offended.


The magician wants a figure that resembles Melmo's mama.




He then transfers this serpent's spirit into it. Though Western religions deny that animals have spirits or souls, I believe that Eastern religions such as Buddhism have no such belief.


Its spirit gone, the snake collapses.


Too glad to have her mother back, Melmo casts aside any scrutiny. But how much could we expect from a little kid, anyway?


Baby brother senses something amiss.




Anybody could make this mistake.




Her serpent's instincts almost overcome her.


But her role of mother is also a factor.


Melmo suspects something is wrong with mama, but what?


Though she cannot understand what is wrong, she knows she must flee.




Is the fake mama pursuing the kids for good or evil? :d evil:











Stay tuned! More to come!

[jeffbert]

Apparently realizing that though she was thrust into the role of Melmo's mother, she is not fit for the job. Yet, she has become quite enamored by this role; as a serpent, she knew no such love as she had developed for these children.










Seeing the children huddling in the cold, she realizes they cannot endure it long.








She will need more fuel if she hopes someone will see the smoke rising from the pit.








Is there a god who will hearken to a snake's prayer?


This is the most emotionally arousing thing I can recall seeing on TV. She has redeemed herself through self-sacrifice. Soon, rescuers will come & the kids will be safe & warm.

In one of the 1st few INNUYASHA episodes, Sesshōmaru has made a similar fake mother with which he hopes to lure Innuyasha to his doom. Yet, there too, the mother, though a created being, sacrifices herself to save the boy she came to regard as her son.

I believe it was episode #10 of AMBASSADOR MAGMA, when one of those aliens of the same type as Skunk, sacrificed herself to save Mamaru.

[Dragonrider1227]

Another classic panty shot brought to you by Tezuka ;p

[jeffbert]

Yes, indeed; but these are innocent & pure, not the naughty kind of current anime.

[Satus]

Aaaaahhhhhh, this is sad. The sacrifice is really heart-breaking. And yet somehow I also find it beautiful.

Huh, I did not know that about Western religion. Interesting.

Slightly off topic: The impersonator of Inuyasha's mother I don't think Sesshoumaru created, he just used her. In the anime she was called the Un-Mother, in an official book called Inuyasha Profiles she is called Nothing Woman, it says "An incarnation of a mother's pathos that came from losing her child, it absorbed people and demons by showing them illusions." The closest I can find matching her is Noppera-bou from Japanese legend. But this only applies to Nothing Woman, I'm not sure what folklore or legend to compare for Melmo's mother, but I'm interested in finding out.

[jeffbert]

Thanks, Satus. I have seen other instances of similar themes in other INNUYASHA & DRAGON BALL. There is a certain gourd that villain use to hold acid that will dissolve shrunken people whom the villain places inside, or, are sucked inside. The same type of gourd is used in both. Though I have only this to go on, I wonder if both draw from a common source, such as folklore. This inspires my belief that perhaps the Un-mother sacrificing herself may also derive from a similar source.