Kawakami Otojirou/Route

After Mei is whisked to the Meiji era Tokyo, she finds herself hungry and Charlie leads them both to a party at an huge mansion called Rokumeikan to which of course they were obviously not invited. They both sneak in and while Charlie is eating all the food, Mei gets stopped by a policeman who asks her why she’s dressed in such revealing clothes (her present day uniform). Mei looks to Charlie for help but he’s too busy eating to notice her and Otojiro steps in, saying ‘fuck the police’. Taking that chance, Mei runs away so that she doesn’t get arrested.

Route:

After wondering around in an unfamiliar Japan, Mei sits on the side of the road, hungry and wondering if this is it for her. Until a lady stops by recognising her from earlier. The ‘lady’ calls herself Otoyakko and picks Mei up and allows her to stay with her at the geisha house she’s staying at since she has no where else to go and no memories. At first Mei thinks that Otoyakko wants to prostitute Mei out, but she explains that they’re geisha, people who sell their entertainment, not prostitutes. There, Mei is to work doing odd jobs like cleaning/pouring sake for guests to earn her keep.

Otoyakko takes Mei around Kagurazaka so show her the roads and stuff so she doesn’t get lost again and they run into Kyouka. Kyouka asks why Mei is with Otoyakko since he ran into her at Rokumeikan and Otoyakko tells him that she ‘picked’ her up, making him freak out. Otoyakko tries to get Kyouka to show Mei around but he refuses and Kyouka tells them that he hates humans and would way rather be with monsters and ghosts cuz they don’t sweat/smell or carry bacteria. Kyouka runs away after Otoyakko teases him calling him a virgin so Mei is left with her to wonder around.

That night, Otoyakko is to entertain guests so Mei goes to bed first. However….when she wakes up in the morning, she finds that Otoyakko has cut her hair and wonders whether she suffered a heartbreak or something. Until she sees her flat as a runway chest. She freaks, thinking that Otoyakko became a dude, but he wakes up and is like ‘shut up I was always a man’. Mei starts wondering why Otoyakko/Otojiro is pretending to be a woman even though he’s a man and comes to the conclusion that he’s a drag queen.



That night, Mei has her first job as an apprentice geisha. She starts getting her ass felt up by a gross man but Kyouka yells at her for not getting any service, so she narrowly escapes more harassment by running to serve him. As Mei talks to Kyouka, Otojiro interrupts and wonders why Kyouka is here even though he hates these kind of places. Turns out he was just dragged along by Kouyou Ozaki, his teacher in literary arts. As per usual, Kyouka starts arguing with Otojiro, leading Mei to ask how they met.

Otojiro explains that on the way back from buying famous anpan (red bean bread), he stopped by Akagi shrine to offer a prayer to Bishamonten where he saw Kyouka praying…or rather chanting his prayer like he was trying to curse someone while prostrating himself on the ground. Not noticing Kyouka, Otojiro ends up kicking Kyouka. As an apology, Otojiro offers him an anpan and Kyouka takes it. Then he takes out an alcohol lamp and match and proceeds to grill the bread to ‘disinfect’ it since other people have touched it. While Otojiro is sighing at him for being such a clean freak, Kyouka ends up setting the bread on fire and not knowing what to do, ends up setting his own hair on fire as well. Asking for help Kyouka ends up chasing Otojiro around while on fire.

While was walking around she runs into Kyouka and asks why he always has a bunny on his shoulder. Surprised, he realises she can see monsters, like himself. This makes Mei a Tamayori, someone who can see monsters/ghosts and Mei has no idea what this means. Otojiro comes stomping in, angry that Mei hasn’t returned before nightfall. Before Otojiro drags Mei away, Kyouka tells him that she’s also a Tamayori. Back at the geisha house, Otojiro tells Mei about Tamayori…being that they can see monsters during the nightfall.

The next night, Kyouka is back with his writing circle at the geisha house and Mei thanks him for literally saving her ass the other night from the lecher. Kyouka then asks if Mei is still staying with Otojiro, despite knowing he’s a man and she’s an unmarried woman, to which Mei says yeah. Kyouka starts badmouthing Otojiro and Mei tells him that Otojiro has no interest in her at all and asks her how she feels about this arrangement. She feels like it’s perfectly normal although it obviously isn’t for that time period.

The next day on a job, Mei bumps into an exhausted Kyouka and finds out that he finished writing the play. Mei says that Otojiro is definitely going to be happy but Kyouka won’t show him the story yet, since it’s not stable, and that if its not stable, it’ll suck you in. Confused as to what he means by that Otojiro appears. Otojiro and Kyouka both somehow end up in a fight. Kyouka runs off saying “I’M GON REMEMBA DIS” and Mei tells Otojiro it’s bad to lie. But of course he tells her that he wasn’t lying cuz he was the one who broke the lock breaking in to Kyouka’s house to steal his new play’s script.

After a day, Kyouka is back again with his friends and designates Mei as his Geisha, to piss Otojiro off for stealing his script. Mei asks him about what he meant about ‘being sucked in’ when he was talking about his script and Kyouka explains that to normal people a story is a story. To certain people, it exceeds this and if they dwell on it long enough, so much that they end up forgetting their true self. He says that Otojiro was fixated on his script even before he finished so it seems like he’s different from normal people.

Later that night, Mei can’t sleep so Otojiro has her help him practice for the play. Otojiro is acting the role of a goddess that got trapped in a lake who was in love with the god of another lake. For many hundreds of years she was trapped in it since if she leaves, the lake when end up flooding the nearby village. However, in the end due to dumb people, she ends up running from the lake and it floods the village.

When Mei sees Otojiro practice again, she notices a watery nature smell and sees a lady watching Otojiro but then disappears as she turns away. Not understanding the situation, she forgets about it.

Otojiro brings Mei to Meijiza where he’s gonna practice the play on stage. As Otojiro says the lines, Mei beings hearing a woman’s voice mix with his, until only the woman’s voice is heard. Then Otojiro becomes that woman she saw earlier. Mei then realises that he’s slowly losing himself in the play and won’t respond to her. Desperately trying to save him, she ends up singing Yuri’s lullaby and holds Otojiro. He returns back to normal but wonders why she’s holding onto him. She tells him she’ll definitely come to see the play so he can’t postpone the play.

The day before the full moon, Otojiro performs the play without any problems. Otojiro starts feeling uneasy and Mei realises that he probably knows she won’t be staying long. He tells her that he’s going to watch her fall asleep so she doesn’t disappear anywhere. He also reminds her that they promised to go to the festival for Bishamonten the next day and Mei realises she probably won’t be able to keep the promise so instead of replying she says she’s going to sleep. Not wanting to be stared at, she asks Otojiro to look away but he won’t cuz he’s still scared she’ll disappear, so instead he uses her as a dakimakura and they end up in the same futon. He ends up making out with her and telling her that he loves her and she realsies she loves him too but can’t say it since she’ll be leaving. He asks her to move out with him  but she doesn’t reply.

The next day she ends up at the festival looking for Otojiro and runs into Charlie instead. He asks her if she still wants to go back and…

Endings:

1. Going back alone
She says that its more important to return to the present but not before saying goodbye to Otojiro. She asks him why she hasn’t regained her memories and Charlie tells her she probably needs a trigger and seeing her mobile phone, she ends up remembering all the things she forgot.

She runs back to where she was meant to meet Otojiro who sees that she’s in her uniform again and realises that she’s probably going to leave. She tells him that she regained her memories back and he asks her what she’s going to do. All Mei could do was apologise while crying so he hugs her and tells her that if she’s going to cry, she should just stay in his arms forever. He tells her that no matter how many times she gets lost, he’ll always be there to pick her up and he won’t let go of her until she promises to return. Of course neither of them believe the promise will be kept so Mei doesn’t say anything.

Mei then parts with Otojiro and meets with Charlie and gets returned to the present where she resumes her life as a high school student.

2. Going back to the Present with Otojiro
Mei says that she doesn’t really know which is more important so Charlie tells her that it’s fine if she doesn’t part with the person she loves. He tells her to be happy and…Mei finds herself at the festival with Otojiro. As they walk back home… they somehow travel into the future, back at the festival where Mei first met Charlie.

A year later, Otojiro ends up being an actor in the present day. Otojiro says that for his next play, he secured a front seat for Mei and she says that it’s embarrasing but he hugs her and tells her that they’re always this close anyway so why should it be embarrassing for her to sit in the front row.



3. Staying in the Past with Otojiro
Mei finds herself at the festival with Otojiro, but this time the full moon has already passed so Mei missed her chance to return. but she regrets nothing. A year later, Mei and Otojiro are married and they’re heading to America to spread Japanese theatre around.

Kyouka sends them off and tells them that if they get bored of America, they can return but he won’t be there to welcome them back.