Kadokawa Mystery and Horror Tales, volume 1
Meinichi
The first story is a very good ghost story; very sad but still very good.
A year earlier three people moved into a house, two of them sisters, one of them (Minako) suffering from depression.
Minako, who appears to be quite weak physically.
A videotape of a past event where some guy gave Minako a necklace.
We find out Minako's boyfriend died in an accident.
Yukiko has found something odd in the garden. It turns out it's the grave of a cat. The family that lived there before them also had a sick child.
Minako starts rubbing against the bedpost like a cat.
A hand suddenly touches hers.
Minako says a little girl came over to play.
The ghost of the sick girl appears to Yukiko. Or does she?
The ghost of the girl appears again to Minako.
Talking, probably to a psychiatrist.
Minako finds a cat out in the rain.
Yukiko has her suspicions about the cat. She doesn't want it to be allowed to stay.
It turns out Yukiko was also in love with Minako's boyfriend.
On another day, the cat's gone missing and Minako has not returned from looking for it so Yukiko is out looking for both.
She finds them, but Minako has been in the rain too long and becomes ill. The cat has the same name as the buried cat in the garden.
Yukiko hears a noise in the middle of the night and goes to her sister's room. Minako says she's “going with” Kako who was the girl who died previously.
Minako and the ghost walk out the front door.
It's exactly a year later and the family has moved to Tokyo. Minako hears the sounds of the ghost girl.
The ghost is going after the father this time. Minako can see the ghost as the girl looks directly at her.
Cruel Kidnapping
A very strange sort of story, to say the least.
The segment opens with a guy begging some other guy to lend him a lot of money.
His child has been kidnapped.
He goes to some very shady characters to try and borrow the money.
He steals someone else's child.
In what is becoming a comedy of errors the parents arrive and get him to come into the house where the older guy (who was supposed to be watching the kid but was asleep) is panicking over the disappearance of the child. Toshio is also demanding 50 million yen even though the people who kidnapped his child are only demanding 30 million. Guess he wants to turn a profit on the deal.
He leaves the child at a convent.
The episode gets weirder and weirder.
He's back with the parents and the grandfather after supposedly dropping off the money to the kidnapper.
They go to pick up the baby but the nun says the baby died.
Now he's back at his home.
The death of the child is on the news.
He gets a note from the original kidnapper.
Desire to Kill
Definitely not a happy story at all.
Two women face off as another watches, this being one of the two facing off.
The woman's rumor caused this woman's marriage to end in a divorce. She slaps the woman and knocks her glasses off.
The woman's still talking about the woman who started the rumor. Apparently she's being go through other people's trash.
They have a son.
She takes the trash out late at night. Some guy with a knife grabs her and forces her back into her apartment.
She tries to give him money so he'll leave.
He tries to rape her.
The guy admits he killed his mother.
He tells the woman how his step-mother tried to seduce him. He then killed her. He had a cold and was sleeping when she got on top of him.
The woman fixes him something to eat and gives him some dry clothes to change into since he was soaking wet. A thunderstorm has knocked out the electricity.
The electricity comes back on. She gets a phone call from her husband.
She gives him some ice cream. His cold is pretty bad.
He loves herbs and she shows him some she has growing. He's able to identify everything and give her some useful advice.
Izawa, the woman who spread the rumor, comes to the door early in the morning. She supposedly wants to buy a painkiller for her husband's toothache. She spies the murderer's shoes. (She's incredibly nosey).
He gives her the money back that he took from her after they discuss more about her dream of having an herb garden.
The nosey neighbor sees the kid leave.
She calls the police and doesn't realize the kid is right there. She knows the nosey neighbor will start a rumor that could end her marriage like it did the other woman's. He stabs her and kills her.
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