Usokashi is in the middle of frantic preparations for its annual lantern festival when the team arrives, and there's nothing visibly wrong with it. No buildings have been smashed and no crops torn up; everyone in town even has an apple name. The vibes are just off. People are paranoid and short with each other, and rude and distrustful toward travellers. In their search for an ally, the team meets Akane, a beautiful girl a little older than them who sells apples at her family's shop and is connected to everyone in town. Kabu swoons. Akane offers to help, making introductions and filling them in on who everyone is, and the team takes to her: Kabocha is happy to have someone strategic like herself around, and Matsu sees her as observant.
The deeper they get into the town's web of relationships, the more Akane starts planting doubt in each of them. She tells Kabu she thinks the other two are buddying up and might leave because they're frustrated with him. She leads Kabocha to believe the others see her as rash, and Matsu to believe the two childhood friends see him as an outsider. Because Kabu is closest to her, she takes him aside for some one-on-one time and whispers in his ear, and her curse crawls in as a worm and takes control of him. Akane is the demon, and she has been doing this to the whole town: planting suspicion, judgement and lies, and infecting people so they're more likely to believe her. She sings about it as she sells her apples, but nobody is coming for the apples anymore. They're addicted to coming to her for information. Kabu, in a daze, doesn't even register what she's confessing to.
As the festival approaches, the hostility in town reaches an all-time high, and the team cracks with it. Kabu tries to mediate between Kabocha's rash approach and Matsu's passive one, but their trust is so frail by now that they blow up at each other and split. Wandering through town alone and frustrated, Kabu sings to himself about his role in all of it, untangling what Akane has told him from what he actually knows about his friends, and arrives at the truth: they aren't working against him, and they need to come together to beat this thing. When the team finds each other again, Kabocha spots the worm in his ear and flicks it out, and Akane's hold on him breaks.
They rush to the centre of town, where the lantern floats are gathering, and find Akane lit up in lantern light, her pale skin corrupted by dark rot running underneath as she becomes the apple demon. She holds on to a partly human form and uses her magic to send hordes of zombie-like townspeople after the heroes, all while saying whatever she knows will cut each of them deepest. The heroes don't want to hurt the townspeople, so Kabu tells Kabocha and Matsu to break as many of her holds as they can while he tries to reason with her. However cruel she gets, he keeps telling her the same thing: she doesn't need to be something she's not to be his friend.
With Akane focused on Kabu, the others free the villagers one by one. In a final lash-out, she strikes Kabu and cuts him badly, then recoils when she realises what she's done, bursts into tears and shrinks in on herself. By the time she realises her power is gone, she's just the small girl she always was, and Kabu pulls the seed out easily. She's shaken, but the town starts its lantern festival anyway, and the team knows she'll find her place when a group of girls her age rush over to greet her, as if they've suddenly remembered a deep friendship the curse had buried. She gives the team a small lantern, and in its light Kabu realises that the deep cut she gave him has already healed.
As they turn to leave town, Kabu announces that he is never falling for a pretty face again. Ume appears around the corner. Kabu shrieks.
OPEN THE BEAT SHEET ▼
- 1The team arrives in Usokashi in the middle of frantic preparations for the annual lantern festival. There's no physical destruction anywhere, but the vibes are off: people are paranoid, short with each other, and rude to travellers.
- 2Looking for an ally, they meet Akane, a beautiful girl a little older than them who sells apples at her family's shop and knows everyone in town. Kabu swoons. She offers to help with their investigation, making introductions and explaining who's who, and the team takes to her: Kabocha is happy to have someone strategic like herself, and Matsu sees her as observant.
- 3TURNING POINT — As they dig into the town's web of relationships, Akane plants doubt in each of them. She tells Kabu the other two are buddying up and might leave because they're frustrated with him. She leads Kabocha to think the others see her as rash, and Matsu to think the childhood friends see him as an outsider.
- 4TURNING POINT — Alone with Kabu, she whispers in his ear, and her curse crawls in as a worm and takes hold of him. She is the demon, planting suspicion, judgement and lies across the town and infecting people so they'll believe her.
- 5'Apple a Day': Akane sings as she sells her apples, but nobody is there for the apples. They're addicted to coming to her for information. Kabu, in a daze, doesn't even register what she's admitting to.
- 6TURNING POINT — As the festival approaches, hostility in town hits an all-time high, and the team blows up. Kabu tries to mediate between Kabocha's rash approach and Matsu's passive one, but their trust is so frail that they turn on each other and split.
- 7CRISIS — 'One Bad Apple': wandering through town on his own, Kabu sings his way through what's real and what isn't, and arrives at the truth about his friends: they aren't working against him, and they need to come together to beat this.
- 8TURNING POINT — When the team reunites, Kabocha spots the worm in Kabu's ear and flicks it out, breaking Akane's hold on him.
- 9TURNING POINT — They rush to the town square, where the lantern floats are gathering, and find Akane lit by lantern light, her pale skin corrupted by dark rot as she becomes the apple demon. She keeps a partly human form and sends hordes of zombie-like townspeople after the heroes, while saying the things she knows will cut each of them deepest.
- 10TURNING POINT — The heroes don't want to hurt the townspeople. Kabu tells Kabocha and Matsu to break as many of Akane's holds as they can while he tries to reason with her. Whatever she says to him, he keeps telling her she doesn't need to be something she's not to be his friend.
- 11With Akane focused on Kabu, the others free the villagers. In a final lash-out she strikes Kabu and cuts him badly, then recoils when she sees what she's done, bursts into tears and shrinks in on herself. With her power spent, she's just a small girl again, and Kabu pulls the seed out easily.
- 12The town resumes its lantern festival. Girls Akane's age rush to greet her, remembering a deep friendship the curse had buried. She gives the team a small lantern, and in its light Kabu realises the deep cut from the battle has already healed.
- 13CRISIS — As they turn to leave, Kabu announces he'll never fall for a pretty face again. Ume appears around the corner, and Kabu shrieks.
SUPPORTING CASTAkane▼
ART DIRECTION — Usokashi's lantern festival at night: enormous illuminated paper floats gathering in the town square. Akane stands at the centre, lit by lantern light, her pale skin cracking with dark rot underneath as she becomes the apple demon. Kabu, Kabocha and Matsu face her from three sides, the townspeople swaying behind her.
Aomori Prefecture is at the northern tip of Honshu, where winters bury the land in snow and rice farming had always struggled in the cold. The Tsugaru region looked, on paper, like a bad bet for any serious crop. Then the Meiji Restoration abolished the samurai class in the 1860s, and thousands of former warriors in the Hirosaki domain found themselves with land, time, and no purpose. The government distributed apple saplings imported from the United States and told them to farm. It worked, not because the climate was easy (it wasn't), but because Aomori's ex-samurai brought the same stubbornness they had carried as fighters. The local word for that quality is joppari. Today the prefecture produces about 60% of Japan's apple supply.
The orchard became the culture. Hirosaki's manhole covers are decorated with apples. Onsens float ripe fruit in the steaming water during harvest season. The ash from burned apple branches glazes the local pottery with its distinctive darkened finish. Dozens of varieties have been cultivated here: Fuji, Mutsu, Orin, and more, each with its own season and devoted growers. The Fuji apple, Japan's most popular, isn't named after the mountain. It was developed in 1939 in a small town called Fujisaki, and when the naming committee finally picked a name in 1962, that was the one they settled on. Most people assume the obvious thing.
Every summer, the Nebuta Festival fills Aomori's streets with enormous illuminated warrior figures built from paper and wire, carried through the city on wagons while crowds carry hand-held lanterns alongside them. The floats take months to build. From a distance they look effortless, vivid and almost weightless. In Aomori, the most beautiful things tend to be built that way: careful, slow work underneath, nothing showing on the surface.
