History Fridge / JunjiIto

* At the end of "Layers of Fear", Reimi is still mentally a child, or alternatively her mind is a irreparably warped amalgamation of what’s left of each layer that had been torn off beforehand. This implies that she cannot progress forward, and her future has quite literally been ripped away from her.
** While the entirety of the curse is unsettling enough, the way how the mother treats and manipulates her daughters is [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything disturbingly reminiscent of real world abuse.]] Her older daughter was neglected and ignored because her mom didn’t find her pretty enough (which she says to her face). The mother constantly babies her younger daughter, but it comes with the implication that she wasn’t able to have a normal childhood due to both the spotlight and her mom’s pushiness. Not to mention that the mother gets downright creepy and obsessive with the idea of aging her child down and redoing everything. The mother’s behavior never truly feels to be in either of her daughters’ best interests and are [[ItsAllAboutMe entirely self serving, with both of her daughters seemingly acting only as extensions for her ego and happiness,]] given that when one displeases her she immediately turns on her children. Even without the curse, this family was screwed up from the start.
*** If you were to theoretically replace the curse with something more mundane that allowed the mother to get some influence over her daughter (like drugs), you’d have a story of a controlling mother favoring the youngest child while neglecting and stringing along the other, pushing the younger one into the spotlight, and, eventually, when the younger one has had enough of the smothering, the mom decides to do something to her child that’ll make her dependent on her care, with the older sibling’s reluctant assistance; only, the results end up backfiring on the mother, who not only ends up injured, but the child she wanted to control has been disfigured beyond recognition. The story isn’t just body horror, but a tale of abuse.

* The curse in "Layers of Fear" originated from an ancient burial site, where a child's skull lies underneath many layers of rock and clay. One of the archaeologists that discovers this speculates that the layers are simply part of an ornately-constructed sarcophagus, but after we see what Nanami's mother does to her after she discovers the nesting curse, one has to wonder... are all those layers the result of someone close to the "child" doing the same thing to them?

** If you were to theoretically replace the curse with something more mundane that allowed the mother to get some influence over her daughter (like drugs), you’d have a story of a controlling mother favoring the youngest child while neglecting and stringing along the other, pushing the younger one into the spotlight, and, eventually, when the younger one has had enough of the smothering, the mom decides to do something to her child that’ll make her dependent on her care, with the older sibling’s reluctant assistance; only, the results end up backfiring on the mother, who not only ends up injured, but the child she wanted to control has been disfigured beyond recognition. The story isn’t just body horror, but a tale of abuse.

* At the end of "Layers of Fear", Reimi is still mentally a child. This implies that she cannot progress forward, and her future has quite literally been ripped away from her.

** It's later shown that the woman's "tongue" wasn't really a tongue at all, but a parasitic monster that inhabits people's mouths. Read between the lines, and it's implied that the woman was attempting to kill herself to prevent the monster from committing any more murders. [[ShootTheShaggyDog Unfortunately, all this results in is the monster making the protagonist its new host.]

** It's later shown that the woman's "tongue" wasn't really a tongue at all, but a parasitic monster that inhabits people's mouths. Read between the lines, and it's implied that the woman was attempting to kill herself to prevent the monster from committing any more murders. [[ShootTheShaggyDog Unfortunately, all this results in is the monster jumping ship to the protagonist. . .]]

** It's later shown that the woman's "tongue" wasn't really a tongue at all, but a parasitic monster that inhabits people's mouths. Read between the lines, and it's implied that the woman was attempting to kill herself to prevent the monster from committing any more murders.

* Invoked in "The Licking Woman". The protagonist meets someone who provides a chemical fhat should prove fatal. When the plan is carried out, the protagonist notices that the licking woman's spectacles are the same as the stranger's, and wonders if it was a suicidal cure.

* The disease shown in "Hell O' Dollies" is identified as '''Early Onset''' Doll's Disease. By definition, this means that it happens more commonly later in life -- and the early onset version is said to have affected 30% of the world's children. Think about that for a moment.
* In one story, we see that Soichi had a child with [[spoiler:the giant woman who ate people and apparently was a fashion model, and who Soichi offended in a previous storyline. We don't know what she did to him, since the narrator ran away at that point]]. Consider how the BadFuture was [[spoiler:AllJustADream, and then think, what could that woman have done to Soichi, to make him have a dream that he fathered a child with her?]]
* In "Mold", we're shown that when Mr. Rogi came over to ask to rent the house, Akasaka's dog constantly growled and barked. When Akasaka returned to Japan, he was told that the Rogis had let his dog escape. Given what we know about [[spoiler: Mr Rogi's experiments and what was happening to his family]], and that the dog was "suspicious" of them ... can we be so sure the dog ''did'' just run away?
* In "Hanging Blimp", there are stated to be copycat suicides and mass disappearances in the wake of Terumi Fujino's own apparent suicide. It later becomes clear that the copycat deaths may have been as-yet unreported cases of the balloons' arrival.

[[AC:FridgeBrilliance]]
* In "Splatter Film", the reveal revolves around the 'honey' actually being sap from a sentient tree that squashes whoever it catches drinking the sap. In plants, Sap is effectively the equivalent of blood in animals, circulating around the plant to transport nutrients for use and storage. Now, what other small thing drinks from a much larger thing and risks being squashed if it gets caught? ''A Mosquito, drinking the blood of a human''.

* In ''Mold'', we're shown that when Mr. Rogi came over to ask to rent the house, Akasaka's dog constantly growled and barked. When Akasaka returned to Japan, he was told that the Rogis had let his dog escape. Given what we know about [[spoiler: Mr Rogi's experiments and what was happening to his family]], and that the dog was "suspicious" of them ... can we be so sure the dog ''did'' just run away?

* In ''Splatter Film'', the reveal revolves around the 'honey' actually being sap from a sentient tree that squashes whoever it catches drinking the sap. In plants, Sap is effectively the equivalent of blood in animals, circulating around the plant to transport nutrients for use and storage. Now, what other small thing drinks from a much larger thing and risks being squashed if it gets caught? ''A Mosquito, drinking the blood of a Human''.

* In ''Splatter Film'', the reveal revolves around the 'honey' actually being sap from a living, sentient tree that squashes whoever it catches drinking the sap. In plants, Sap is effectively the equivalent of blood in animals, circulating around the plant to transport nutrients for use and storage. Now, what other small thing drinks from a much larger thing and risks being squashed if it gets caught? ''A Mosquito, drinking the blood of a Human''.

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FridgeHorror: The disease shown in "Hell O' Dollies" is identified as '''Early Onset''' Doll's Disease. By definition, this means that it happens more commonly later in life -- and the early onset version is said to have affected 30% of the world's children. Think about that for a moment.
** In one story, we see that Soichi had a child with [[spoiler:the giant woman who ate people and apparently was a fashion model, and who Soichi offended in a previous storyline. We don't know what she did to him, since the narrator ran away at that point]]. Consider how the BadFuture was [[spoiler:AllJustADream, and then think, what could that woman have done to Soichi, to make him have a dream that he fathered a child with her?]]
** In ''Mold'', we're shown that when Mr. Rogi came over to ask to rent the house, Akasaka's dog constantly growled and barked. When Akasaka returned to Japan, he was told that the Rogis had let his dog escape. Given what we know about [[spoiler: Mr Rogi's experiments and what was happening to his family]], and that the dog was "suspicious" of them ... can we be so sure the dog ''did'' just run away?

FridgeHorror: The disease shown in "Hell O' Dollies" is identified as '''Early Onset''' Doll's Disease. By definition, this means that it happens more commonly late in life -- and this version is said to have affected 30% of the world's children. Think about that for a moment.