1) I should have been alert to the fact that all the extravagent interior designs in Mononoke may be modeled after one architectural landmark or other. It seems that the brothel in Zashiki Warashi is modeled after Megurogajoen (目黒雅叙園). The pictures below speak for themselves:
It's amazing how they make interiors self-referential in Mononoke. Bad things happened within these enclosed spaces, and these enclosed spaces give us hints as to what happened.
2) The idea of confinement in an artificially enclosed space seems to be a consistent plot device in Mononoke. The characters typically find themselves entrapped in an enclosed space where communication with the outside world is cut off, and they cannot get out until the truth is disclosed. With the exception of some flashbacks, I cannot recall any significant action taking place in open space. And even if it does take place in open space, it is i) an open space from which they cannot get out (the Sea of Ayakashi in Umibouzu), or ii) an open space in which they lose no time in erecting an enclosed space (the wedding room in Nopperabou). The point is, physical enclosure plays a pivotal role in squeezing out the truth from the characters.
This reminds me of how confinement in an artificially enclosed place works in Mushishi: All the characters who are not mushishi seem to live in the same village all their lives. Although we are not told when exactly do the stories in Mushishi take place, Ginko's outfit does suggest modernity, even though the Japan he travels around is either i) a fantasy 'Japan' without railways, or ii) Japan before the proliferation of railways.
Confinement is similarly deployed in Kino no Tabi. In this case, the world seems to consist exclusively of two classes of people: there are travelers who travel from country to country, and there is everybody else who never seem to get out of their own country at all (except when they go to a war with another country).
However you look at it, all these seem be efforts to make the world deliberately small. I may even go further to say that there seems to be a great deal of fascination with the idea of confinement in Japanese anime/manga. In Vexville - 2077 Sakoku -, Japan in the distant future is said to have shut itself off from the rest of the world. In Basara, a post-apocalyptic Japan reverts to close-country policy.
Here is something I would like to hear from you all: Are there other series that i) deploys confinement in enclosed space in a similar way, ii) fantasizes the reversion to close-country policy in Japan, or iii) somehow makes the world deliberately small? Why do you think they are so?
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