There are various forms of irony. A cruel irony is when the opposite of the desired outcome happens. Said opposite outcome is distinctly unfortunate. In this penultimate episode of Tasokare Hotel, the actions of protagonist Neko result in a devastatingly cruel irony. Let’s quickly go over what happened.
Episode 11: Handguns and Hell
Episode Rating: 8/10
After a talk with Kiriko, the creepy little monkey, Neko confronted Osoto. The two went outside the hotel to talk. It was time for Neko to deduce the true nature of Osoto, his crimes, and his motives. Neko and Osoto talked for a large portion of the episode. Long story short, Osoto only killed Neko impulsively, when in a bad mood. She was an exception. What about the other killings, though?
Most of the time, Osoto liked killing attractive women for pleasure, as well as people of high status. It made him feel less stressed to kill people from the latter group. The source of Osoto’s stress was his parents, who never respected or loved him no matter how hard he worked in school. When Neko suggested that Osoto could have just killed his parents, Osoto revealed that he was still in some ways a child, longing for his parents’ love. He wouldn’t kill them because he loved them.
Finally, it was time to talk about Atori, the final victim of Osoto. In the living world, the serial killer pushed Atori in front of a train, killing him before he was even aware of what happened. He did because of intense jealousy. Osoto’s parents loved Atori, treating him better than their own son. Osoto thought it would be fulfilling to kill Atori, but it wasn’t. Now that they were reunited in this limbo twilight realm, Osoto was targeting Atori again – but with a different plan.
Osoto wrote in his diary that he actually wanted to become Atori. That’s why killing him wasn’t satisfying. Neko correctly guessed what Osoto was planning in this world. He would cannibalize Atori as a ritualistic way of becoming one with him. He was convinced that something so impactful would stay in his memories even when he returned to the world of the living. (And he was still alive in that world, though seriously wounded.
After confirming that nothing would dissuade Osoto, Neko drew a revolver. She stole it from the Manager’s room. According to Kiriko, it was a gun that would send whoever was shot to hell. The benefit of the magical gun was that the shooter would be immune from punishment. Neko tried to shoot Osoto, but he disarmed her and beat her to the ground. He took the gun and shot the ground near Neko’s head, verifying that it was actually a normal gun.
At that moment, Atori arrived. He’d been searching for Neko, worried about her strange behavior lately. As he rushed onto the scene, he must have thought Osoto was killing Neko, so he jumped at the serial killer. The two young men wrestled for the gun, but in the scuffle, Atori accidentally shot Osoto. Kiriko also appeared at that moment, confirming that he lied about the gun.
As the gates of Hell opened, the Manager arrived on the scene. Despite Neko’s desperate cries that it was all her fault, the Manager didn’t listen. He carried Neko kicking and screaming back to the hotel. As she was carried away, Neko watched Atori being grabbed and dragged into Hell by dozens of demonic arms and hands. Kiriko laughed at the nightmarish situation, delighted to see Hell up close.
As you can see, Neko’s plan backfired into a cruelly ironic outcome. She wanted to send Osoto to Hell to avenge Atori. But instead, Atori was now in Hell. Everyone knows that if you play with fire, you could get burned – but in this case, Neko’s actions “burned” an innocent third party rather than herself. The phrase should go, “If you play with fire, you might burn those around you.” I feel bad for Neko and I don’t know how she can resolve this in one more episode.
The world of this anime features an eternal Hell, and is therefore horribly evil and arbitrary. There’s also no word from the deity in charge of the afterlife, assuming that one exists. I can hardly blame Neko for taking matters into her own hands in such an unfair world. That being said, I’m a humanist, so I still wouldn’t support Neko’s plan to eliminate Osoto, no matter how much I empathized. I look forward to the final episode next week.
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke
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