User blog:AustinDR/PE Proposal: Nafumi Shintani

What is the work?

Higanbana No Saku Yoru Ni is a series of visual novels that was released by 07th Expansion (the company that gave us Higurashi and Umineko). The series revolves around an unnamed school in which children spread urban legends regarding supernatural creatures known as Youkai. Each Youkai claims ownership on a certain "mystery" pertaining to the school, but they also fight each other over dominion. The Yokai devour the souls of humans who were foolish enough into breaking their rules, and one of the key subjects of the series is bullying.

The two protagonists that appear in nearly every story are Marie Moriya/Mesomeso, and Higanbana. Marie was originally a human girl who was frequently bullied by her classmates, as well as continually molested by her homeroom teacher. She tries to stand up to her teacher, but this results in her getting strangled to death, and her body was thrown into a septic tank at an old school location. She eventually gets revenge on her teacher, and she becomes a Youkai who helps those who get bullied by their classmates, or she would appear as an enemy to a protagonist who was a bully themselves.

Anyway, let's get to the candidate:

Who is she? What has she done?

Nafumi Shintani was an art teacher who ran the art room of the school. Nafumi seemed to be a cool teacher at first, given her popularity among her young male students, but in reality, she was a sadistic child molester who enjoyed abusing her male students, because she found the idea of corrupting a young boy as "beautiful." She would drug her intended victim by spiking their cup of tea, after which she would torture her victims with items such as cigarettes, palette knives, etc. She keeps dozens of sketches of her past victims in her desk.

One of her past victims was named Yuuki Noda, but he tragically died when a heavy bust fell on his head. Several students believed that he had been cursed by a Youkai known as "Renoir of the Art Room." According to the myth, if one were to go into the art room after hours, they would be visited by Renoir who would then ask the person a series of questions. They are: 1)Do not accept a paintbrush from Renoir, 2) If Renoir were to ask you a question, you cannot lie, 3) if he were to point to a painting, you would have to answer him on who painted it. If the person were to break the rules, they were expected to be dragged into one of the paintings, resulting in death. Anyway, sometime after the incident, a young boy appears in Nafumi's art room, and she starts to strike up a conversation with the boy. He asks her if she could model him, and she obliges. However, she then gives him a cup of drug-laced tea, and after he fell asleep, she intended on using him to finish the painting that she started with Yuuki.

Before she could begin to work on the unconscious boy, she gets met by a young girl who gives her a series of questions relating to the Renoir of the Art Room urban legend. Nafumi answers every question correctly, but she started to panic on the questions that Renoir was asking regarding Yuuki's death. Renoir actually turns out to be Higanbana in disguise, after which Nafumi states that Yuuki's death was accidental on her part. It turns out that Yuuki allowed Nafumi to abuse him if it meant that she would reciprocate his feelings, but he eventually told her to stop when she tried to unbutton his shirt. This enraged her, and as he tried to run out of the room, she grabbed him by the shoulder, but he tripped, and it resulted in the heavy bust falling on his head, killing him instantly. She then laughs, stating that Yuuki was a "stupid kid" who deserved to die because he thought that he could get away from her. This causes the boy who was unconscious to suddenly regain consciousness, revealing that he was Renoir the entire time.

Renoir was enraged upon hearing that Shinatini had zero regret for indirectly causing Yuuki's death, but since it had been a long time since he was last active, he lost a huge amount of power, leaving Higanbana to fill in for him. He informs her that she did< fail one of the three rules regarding the urban legend, and that was saying that she didn't know what happened that day on Yuuki's death, thus breaking the second rule. Horrified, she tries to flee her classroom, but she was dragged into a painting known as "Ascending and Descending" in which she had to continually run up and down an endless staircase for all eternity.

Freudian Excuse? Mitigating Factors?

She has none. She always had that disturbing fascination with young boys to the point that she tried to date boys younger than her when she was in high school. She only cares about herself and with fulfilling her own lustful needs. At first, she seemed to regret being responsible for Yuuki's death, but it's shown that she's more sad on the fact that she couldn't finish her masterpiece rather than the fact that he was gone. She eventually reveals that she never loved him, and that she only saw him as a plaything that outlived its usefulness when he died.

She is also very arrogant regarding her vast knowledge of artwork, and she refers to herself as the "queen of her art room," and that her students were her worker bees who provided her with sweet honey.

Heinous standard?

The Yokai are supernatural creatures that eat the souls of humans to the point that they kill those who have broken the rules regarding the urban legends that surround them. However, the Yokai are typically depicted as being amoral figures at best, and thus are a little hard to label as being evil. It's also shown that it's possible for a yokai to befriend a human as evidenced by Renoir befriending Yuuki in "Renoir of the Art Room."

As I have mentioned before, one of the plot points regarding the series is bullying, and as such, there were a few nasty cases. For example, there was one student who harassed this girl, and he was also had the habit of killing the rabbits that he takes care of. There was also another incident in which a boy relentlessly bullied one of his female classmates, because she had pinned the blame on him regarding an issue in the classroom in order to avoid trouble. Unfortunately, his repeated bullying of her eventually caused her to commit suicide. The boy does actually feel remorse for pushing her too far, and he becomes a better person after his story arc was over.

Lastly, there's the titular Higanbana of the Infirmary Room. She is typically depicted as an anti-hero who really only helps the protagonist of a short story, because she intends on eating their souls at one point. She can also be downright cruel at points (an example would be the time that she turned that bully that I mentioned earlier into a rabbit). However, Higanbana herself doesn't count due to her genuine friendship with Marie.

A villain that is noticeably similar to Shintani is Yoshihito Kanamori, the antagonist of the Mesomeso Chapter. Both she and Kanamori are sadistic pedophiles, but what makes them different is their methods. Kanamori was only fixated on Marie (whom he eventually kills to cover his tracks), whom he filmed on private footage, whereas Shintani drugs her victims and then tortures them because she enjoys watching a young boy get corrupted and abused. As I have mentioned before, Kafumi has several victims under her belt, whereas Kanamori himself only had one. Another difference was that Shintani's killing of Yuuki was entirely accidental (though she still showed zero remorse for it), whereas Kanamori's killing of Marie was entirely intentional on his part.