I was rewatching Mononoke 2007 and a thought came to me, specifically about The Medicine Seller (of Ri)'s personality.
!! Spoilers for episodes 9, 10, and 11 of Ayakashi; Samurai Horror Tales and TW for mentions of non-con!!
My dad had already seen both the movies (I made my parents watch them for my birthday), so I was showing specific arcs of the show to my dad since he agreed to watch it with me (ty Dad ^w^). Because he didn't want to watch the OG and get stuck reading subtitles for most of the episodes and missing visual details, I put it onto the Dub. Now, personally, I am not a Dub girly, but I did find myself enjoying it just because I was realizing that there was certain jokes I wasn't getting due to me not being a native Japanese speaker. All of that got me thinking about The Medicine Seller's actions and words choices, specifically his attitude towards humans.
In the show, The Medicine Seller really seems to have this, almost disdain for the living humans that are connected to the Mononoke, with the exception of a few humans he seems to like; for example, Kayo. That being said, unless you are someone like Kayo (someone who really doesn't have much to do with the creation of the Mononoke and was unfortunately caught in the crossfire), he really seems to have this barely contained dislike of humans. It's never really explained or expanded upon, but neither really is anything else about him and it's consistent enough throughout all of his appearances that it could very easily just be a personality trait of his, but I'm not 100% sure.
Since I was rewatching the 2007 Mononoke show, I figured why not revisit the place where The Medicine Seller of Ri is first introduced; the final arc of Ayakashi; Samurai Horror Tales, and it was there that I really got this thought from. I actually think that this original Bakeneko arc was what caused Ri to have such a disdain for humans.
!! There will be spoilers beyond this point !!
In this arc, the Sakai family are being haunted by a Bakeneko resulting from the grudge of a woman one of the men of the family kidnapped and kept hostage. By the end of the episodes, we learn that the woman (named Tamaki) was caged, abused, and s3xually used by multiple men in the family. While captive, Tamaki managed to find a kitten, which she nurtured secretly until she eventually starved to death and her grudge then passed to her kitten, which then became the Bakeneko.
Throughout these episodes, The Medicine Seller is quite a bit more expressive than in the 2007 show; he's more animated, he actively voices his anger and disapproval when the humans say/do/attempt to do something stupid, he reassures Kayo when she is scared, and he makes a lot more dry jokes. We watch him get hurt, we watch him mess up, we watch him get knocked out and temporarily lose. I think the biggest difference between his Ayakashi depiction and his 2007 depiction, however, is probably his face. He grins, he scowls, he expresses visible shock and pain, his nose wrinkles in distaste, etc, etc; all these things that he doesn't really do in the 2007 show.
The part where that changes, however, is after finding out the Makoto and Kotowari; the Truth and Reason. After he learns about what actually happened, why the Bakeneko came into being, that previous expressiveness kind of shuts down. We watch Kayo sink to the floor in tears and Odajima (another character who didn't actually have anything to do with Tamaki's abuse) cover his eyes as if he was going to be sick. But The Medicine Seller? He just stands there.
If you watch through the credits, there's a bit at the end where they wrap up the arc, Kayo saying she's going to go back to her parents house, Odajima not knowing where he's gonna go after, yada yada, and there's a part where The Medicine Seller has to talk with the main abuser post slaying of the Bakeneko. The Medicine Seller looks so, disgusted by the man, he really just looks like he wants out of there ASAP. His behavior then mirrors his 2007 counterpart for the rest of the final episode, a lot more unreadable and flat.
And this is where I tie back to my original thought; I think that this specific mission might be the reason he holds such a disdain for humans, specifically human men (there are very few women he dislikes or shows outward animosity to in the show). He's clearly much younger during the Ayakashi Bakeneko arc than he is in the main show, his powers aren't as refined, and he makes a few incorrect guesses and mistakes, which can absolutely explain why he's so much more expressive. That being said, The Medicine Seller of Kon is also expressive, but his powers are very strong and refined, so I think the main reason why the Medicine Seller of Ri is the way he is is because he'd seen the ugliness of humans at a much younger age than Kon; it's why he's so much less likely to deal with people's bullshit than Kon would be.
Anyways, that's it! Just a thought I had.
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