Yuu Yuu
Hakusho Videofile
"In My Life" by John
Lennon and Paul
McCartney
[A school
auditorium. A young Minamino Shuuichi (Kurama), aged
about ten, steps up
to the microphone on the bare stage and begins to
sing]
*There
are places I
remember*
[Fade
sl-o-o-o-w-ly into youko-Kurama, standing in the same pose
in the forests
of the
Makai]
*All
my life, though some have
changed:*
[Rapid
cuts between many, many places. Some are forest, some mountainsides,
some
the interiors of great halls, and some simple
huts]
*Some
for ever, not for
better,*
[The
Kamiya Dojo, with its seven inhabitants laughing and running
in and out;
dissolving into the modern Kamiya Dojo, old, deserted, and
in need of
serious
repair]
*Some
have
gone,*
[A
gentle slope dotted with bright flowers cuts to the same slope
as major
construction begins. A sign is up on the site: although the words
are in
Japanese, the picture is of one of Japan's major
filling-station
chains]
*and
some
remain.*
[The
bustle and wave-motion of a huge youkai fair. The colors are
loud, and the
noise undoubtedly just as
loud]
*All
these places have their moments With lovers and friends I
still can
recall*
[Again,
quick flashes between scenes. This time, however, Kurama
is in all of
them, interacting with other people. Some few are recognizable:
a young
Kurama with a green-haired youko woman; a heist getaway with
Kuronue;
Kurama talking to three female youko, one of whom would look
exactly like
Rebecca Ryan if not for the ears; Kurama and Yomi having an
argument; Kuronue
playfully threatening Kurama's hair with a dagger;
fox-Kurama entangled
with a normal-looking fox; a slender woman with red
hair, pointed sideways-rabbit
ears, dark patterns covering most of her
body and her large-eyed face,
and red wings springing, apparently, from
the back of her neck tossing
a bundle down to Kurama from the window she
hovers outside by means of
her head-wings; fox-Kurama cradled in the arms
of a biseinen with red hair
pulled back and crossing scars on his left
cheek; Kurama pulling a woman
with red-gold ringlets and rather
disarranged ragged clothes down
onto
him]
*Some
are dead, and some are
living*
[Kuronue
pierced by all that bamboo ; cut quickly to a graveyard,
focusing on a
marker that reads “Kamiya”; then cut to the woman from the
end of the last
line. She is rather older, and her ringlets are grey; the
remnants of
beauty are still in her face, and she holds a picture of several
happy
children]
*In
my life, I’ve loved them
all.*
[and
finally cut to fox-Kurama, lolling in a meadow. He shifts
to youko-Kurama,
a fond smile on his
face]
*But
of all these friends and
lovers*
[The
same youko-Kurama’s head before a collage of all of those
people, plus
numerous
others]
*There
is no one compares with
you*
[dissolves
rapidly to Shiori; the screen flashes from one image
of her to
another]
*And
these memories lose their
meaning*
[Back
to Kurama and the collage; this time it's Shuuichi-Kurama,
and all the
pictures in the collage are slowly draining of
color…]
*When
I think of love as something
you…*
[…dissolving
into Shiori, sitting on the kitchen floor with dinnerware
shards in her
arms, her lips forming the word
“Daijoobu?”]
*Though
I know I’ll never lose
affection*
[an
even younger Shuuichi-Kurama at kindergarten, fingerpainting
caricatures
of some of the people in the
flashbacks]
*For
people and things that went before —
*
[Shiori
puts some of the fingerpaintings up on the refrigerator
with alphabet
magnets; prominent is one of a black-haired person with rabbit-like
ears
pointing unrealistically straight out to the sides, and another of
a
smiling youko woman with squiggly lines over the left side of her face
and
a very bashed-looking left ear, little more than a stump; the pictures
are
labeled in wobbly hiragana “Baka” and
“Momiji”]
*I
know I’ll often stop and think about them —
*
[Shuuichi-Kurama
looks out the school window at the red maple leaves,
blowing in the wind;
cut to Kurama in the library at a microfilm machine,
which bears on its
screen a newspaper article titled “Miraculous Reappearance
of American
Wife” and has a fuzzy photograph of the ringlet
woman]
*In
my life, I love you
more.*
[Kurama
singing in the school auditorium again; the camera follows
the line of his
eyes to where Shiori sits in the audience, a combination
of maternal pride
and touched unworthiness on her face]
[During the
instrumental, there is a quick video recap of the events
in “Two Shots,”
ending when Kurama carries Maya into his house and waves
good-bye to Hiei
— who, as one might expect, gives no acknowledgement whatsoever.
It then
fades out and re-fades into Hiei knocking on an older Kurama’s
window.
Kurama opens the window to listen; he looks tired and
worried]
*Though
I know I’ll never lose
affection*
[As
Hiei goes on speaking, Kurama’s look of polite interest is
replaced by an
expression akin to a battered member of the Faithful discovering
the
Promised Land. He finally hops out the window after
Hiei]
*For
people and things that went before —
*
[Kurama
talking with Hiei and Gouki in a forest glade, apparently,
planning
something. Kurama’s eyes are rather bright, and then the camera
shifts to
his viewpoint. For a moment the scene mists over; the forest
becomes that
of the Makai, the figures of Gouki and Hiei become those of
Yomi and the
red-winged woman, and the arm Kurama is gesturing with becomes
that of his
youko form; then it dissolves back to
normal]
*I
know I’ll often stop and think about them —
*
[The
getaway with the Three Treasures of the Reikai. As the three
sit down and
rest in some forest, Kurama looks off in the distance. The
phantom figures
of youko-Kurama and Kuronue seem to be running in the distance,
cheerfully
insulting each
other]
*In
my life, I love you
more.*
[Kurama,
turning his back on his coconspirators and walking away;
cut to Kurama and
Yuusuke visiting Shiori in the hospital, and then to
Kurama kneeling
before the Mirror on the hospital roof as it shows
Shiori’s
face]
[Kurama
reaches out to touch the
Mirror]
*In
my
life,*
[Rapid
images flash onscreen: fox-Kurama lolling in the grass,
youko-Kurama
laughing with his acquaintances, both Kuramas devouring fried
tofu at a
quite astonishing rate, youko-Kurama wrapped around other
people
(sequentially) in what is either the precursor to or the successor
of coitus
—
]
*I love
you
more.*
[—
and Shiori, as she was in the audience, and as she sews nametags
onto a
much younger Shuuichi-Kurama’s jacket and hat, and as she sets food
on the
table, including fried
tofu.]
[The
white lightning stuff spreads from where Kurama’s hand touches
the Mirror
up his arm and to his head. As his eyes squeeze shut in pain,
Shiori’s
face as it appeared in the Mirror is faintly overlaid over
the
scene.]
[Fade
to black]
back
mail
me