Anyway, there is a story going arou

Anyway, there is a story going around that ghosts walk among the people of a certain village and that those un-fortunate enough to be able to see them go missing and the saying is that they get carried away to the other-side by these ghosts. Mari (Ishibashi Anna) moves to such a place which is her birth-place from Tokyo because of healthy reasons and nature is supposed to help her apparently. Rie (Taketomi Seika) is one of the feared folklore ghosts mentioned.
The first person she meets is, it pains me to say it, Dick! But of course seeing as she was walking down a path and he was holding a camera and she being from Tokyo and everything of course she scurries away from the pervert. Well he isn’t but good luck to him trying to explain that to her. Not to fear though people, because I am going to clear things up for you right now! Their relationship, even if the movie both opens to them and closes to them both too (As painful as that fact is) their relationship stays ambiguous through out the whole movie! She practically spends the first half or so of the movie trying to keep the stalker away from her while strangely she seeks out Rie’s company…Um getting ahead of myself here as usual. And it seems they used to know each other when they were young but Mari has no memories of such things even if photos exists LOL. So even the childhood friend card is against them getting together.
The next person she meets is a young boy playing by the riverside bed. Turns out the boy is a ghost which kind of first sends alarm bells off for me in regards to Mari’s state of mind. This is made apparent later on when the reason for her moving to the countryside is mentioned.
Mari is a loner and wishes to be alone in turn to protect herself and also because she knows if others get close to her and find out that she can see ghosts they might hate her or be ridiculed as well. And so when she transfers to the new school, she tries to be alone and this gloominess even makes her enemies on her first day. But she is such a nice girl that she snuffs that blaze out before its smoke even turns into a naked flame by getting to the good side of the ring leader or is she the Class Rep, can’t really decide between Aneki or Iinchou! But despite their rocky start, Mari wins her over and by the end they are great friends. That’s another relationship down. I actually found myself liking Satsuki (the Aneki of course) more than I thought I would. My first impression of her was that of a bitchy character but it seems she just has a sharp personality and talks what’s on her mind. But she turned out to be such a great girl and her grand mother was also one of those characters you just can’t help but love. She is from whom we learn of the ghost stories and seems to be a part of the few blocks that make up the solidity of the story. I was also glad to see that Satsuki wasn’t one of those teacher-crushing characters. I feared for her when I saw the closeness she had with their teacher but it seemed there was nothing there and Satsuki was just genuinely a good girl helping the saving if the school.
Yeah, seems like the school was in danger of being closed for some other development plan or something and this mentioned teacher was sending out petition fliers to go against the closing. Satsuki was helping with this and it is through this struggle that she and Mari finally manage to get along and become friends eventually even though Mari wasn’t making things any easier. Yeah, it was Mari that was the thick head not Satsuki but in her defence, she is kind of sick so she can be forgiven for standing up Satsuki on their first date…Um well, you know…Any way I am talking about the school here. Closing it would be bad in so many ways but the most important one to us concerns our resident ghost.
And they first meet when Mari comes into contact with the grand hallway clock that’s still ticking on even after half a century and a couple of decades as she walks around the school inspecting everything about her new school. Mari sees a girl’s reflection in the glass of the clock and thinks of course like any normal person would, that there is someone standing behind her and smiling at her like they were lovers or something. not that Mari knows what a lover is like, she is as virginal as they come but more on that later. When she turns around though there is no one there. She turns back to the clock but the reflection is still there so she turns back around again and there she stands, in all her old school uniform glory – Okabe Rie, the school ghost! Of course despite having witnessed such things before should be aware of what she had seen, maybe she doesn’t watch movies? Any way Mari still doesn’t understand that the person she sees in not real even as Rie walks off and then disappears.
The two do not meet again for a while but even with this time passing without Mari seeing Rie again, she still doesn’t put two and two together for a 4 as we see her asking Satsuki if there is a different uniform fro the one they are wearing. Seems like she still thinks that Rie is a real student at their school. But at their first meeting Mari was not the only one that was intrigued by the other for later on, while Mari does her weird thing where she walks around the school admiring its contents, I mean who does that, really! While she does that, a song sails through the air from a piano somewhere. The song is very nostalgic for Mari and as we find out, it is because her father (one who passed away when she was young) used to play it and it seems that memory of him playing the piano with her is the only one she has of him. I guess it makes sense seeing as he died playing that very same song on the piano. No wonder Mari is traumatised.
She of course wastes no time in searching for the source but when she gets to the music room, the piano is there but there is no one to be seen. The music also stops. Spirits dampened, Mari walks off with her head down but she doesn’t get very far when there comes the music once again. When she ruses back to the room, Lo and behold, Rie is there looking all cool as she plays the piano that was vacant just less than a minute ago. Of course upon seeing her again, one can only imagine Mari’s feelings right then and there. This scene is of course the one from the trailer that leads to the thing, that is if you saw the trailer!