Fiver said: Heavy history, for some reason i found little Marisa the biggest f.ck you to her father.
Wait, which Marisa ?
Summary in bullet point list. - Marisa lost her wife Reimu - Marisa got picked up by a human - They made a deal, shelter and food for video of stray life - Marisa decided to keep the secure life with this employment
- First story: The starving family -- A Marisa who can't find enough food for her family -- She found cookies, which any experienced stray should know is poisoned -- Starved Marisa decided to bring the cookies home, betting on the small chance it might be her luck -- Besides, they are starving, better taste happyness and then die in peace -- Unlike what yukkuri thought, the poison is not making them die in their sleep. It harden their paste and make it a slow painful death, but clean and silent for the human's convenience. -- Nobody know about this because yukkuri only observe them dead in their sleep, smiling (while they are still suffering excruciating pain inside) - Such is life for stray yukkuri. Food is not easy to come and there's no such thing as helping hand from heaven, even for a peaceful death.
- Second story: Orphan Marisa -- Marisa found the Orphan Marisa -- The Orphan Marisa has been ignored by other strays so much she thought nobody can see her. -- Orphan Marisa is happy to know someone acknowledged her presence. -- Orphan Marisa called Marisa a female, which annoys her. -- Orphan Marisa lost her parent, her mother do Please Eat Up. -- Orphan Marisa demand other yukkuri to let her take it easy. She even offered what's left of her mother's corpse. -- Marisa walks away, recording the koyukkuri's desperate struggle to chase her. - Nobody cared about orphans. All stray must live on their own. - Marisa is feeling uneasyness from getting called as female. Somewhere in her mind, she felt like eating Reimu made Reimu part of her somehow.
- Third story: Sage Patchouli. -- Park is a place where human and yukkuri often made contact with each others. It's also a place that promises abundance of food and shelter. -- Human has taken the approach to not bother yukkuri who doesn't bother them first. But Extermination is done when yukkuri population grows too big. -- Patchouli feels somewhat uneasy, Marisa felt her aura is like human. -- Patchouli starts as the normal foolish "Sage" -- Lots of her comrades dies, and finally she decided the best is to accept their death as normal. -- She tell them to abandon the orphan and the sick. Other yukkuri happily agreed because it's said by the Sage and it saves them from troubles. -- One day during extermination, a doctor found her. -- After feeling interest to Patchouli's life, he offered her life as pet, and an employment. -- Patchouli is to keep watch of the park's population and call for Extermination when the population grows too big. - Patchouli reminds Marisa, even if Marisa think she's bad, they are the same. They are siding with human instead of their kind because they don't want to live the hardship of a stray. - Marisa is more disturbed by Patchouli's answer to her interview. Stray will never have happiness.
- Fourth story: Psycho Reimu -- Marisa found a Reimu abyusing a KoMarisa. -- Unlike the usual scum's stress relief, Reimu is doing it systematically. She put KoMarisa through the slow terror of being melted. She want KoMarisa to desperately struggle in fear and destroy herself in the process. Marisa thinks this is much more similar than a cruelty human would do rather than by evil yukkuri. -- The KoMarisa is the Orphan Marisa meet (second story). KoMarisa still call Marisa her mother and tell her delusion about how Marisa found her home and food and now coming to save her. -- Marisa told Reimu she's just here to record. -- After KoMarisa is dead, Marisa carefully asked to interview Reimu. -- Unexpectedly Reimu doesn't act like the usual Deibu who would arrogantly yell and attack her. Instead this Reimu smiled calmly and told her story in detail. -- Reimu starts as a normal stray yukkuri. But life is difficult when she became adult. -- As Reimu is about to gave up on life, she saw human kicking yukkuri and thought, it might be fun. -- Reimu choose koyukkuri, especially orphans because they can't fight back and easy to trust her. -- She starts by doing violence, but then escalates to more sadistic acts. -- Reimu even invited Marisa to join her. She want to have play that need two torturer. But Marisa refused. -- Reimu used to have a little one, but the child is already dead. - Marisa thought, a yukkuri needed reason to live. Reimu choose the joy of torturing koyukkuri as a motivation to survive. - Marisa changed her view of Reimu, from a psycho into a poor yukkuri she can sympathize with. - But Reimu is already too deep in the hole. Even as she missed her own little one, her mind only think about how fun it would be to hurt her own child.
- Mister enjoyed Marisa's reportage and offered permanent employment. But there's one catch, Marisa must throw away her child. - Mister also didn't realize it at first. Marisa taught the child well to keep quiet through the day when camera is running. Then Marisa shared her food in the night and sleep together. - But it's impossible to stay quiet. Sometime KoMarisa would said things, and Mister realize it after replaying his favourite video many times. - He also realized Marisa making a secret signal to keep the child from seeing cruel things. - Mister don't kill yukkuri. He made an offer, Marisa can throw away her child, maybe to the park. Or she can go out with as many food she can take and their relationship is over. - Marisa heard camera running, Mister is recording all of the happening. - Marisa, being stray life reporter, know that going back to being a stray means life filled with hardship. - Marisa choose to send away her child. She will entrust KoMarisa to Patchouli's clan and bring her food. At least she will grow up there with higher chance of surviving than left on the street. - KoMarisa, after accompanying her father's reporting, understand the hardship of stray, so she doesn't cry again. - Instead, KoMarisa do Please Eat Up.
Nice point of the story not shown in the summary is how the author subtly hinted on Marisa's child. - The story actually start by saying Marisa taught about staying low as means to survive. - Marisa has a resistance against being referred as female. - Marisa never say she doesn't have child, she uses words like she "never gave birth" and "prefer being a father" - Marisa tapped her hat many times in front of tragedy, but this can be looked over as just her habit. - The texts slips in koyukkuri slurring, but with some typo often found in these stories, easy to think of it as just author's slip up.
Seems like the story got platinum with ribbon from readers review in the Anko site.