This story is less fairy tale and more psychological horror, but it didn't lie to us in one regard: it is indeed cruel. We got a hint of the princess' tragedy and the immensity of her curse from the continuation of the original story's ending, but it is only now that we come to fully realize what a dreadful curse beauty and adoration can be. Fascination upon contemplating the sublime, leading to a demure and understated madness, which for all its kindness is stained with red all the same. Each and every time we've stumbled into a fragment of Shinobu's backstory, the medium has changed and distorted,diverting from whatever it is we may have expected and haunting us with its unnatural beauty. There is no salvation nor morals to these tales, not ever, only regret and death, yet they keep drawing us in all the same. They are by far my favorite parts of this long and convoluted tale.

As we keep contextualizing and revealing new faces of this monster of a story, each revelation only leads to further questions. Humanizing this monster has only left it looking more inhuman than ever, and I wouldn't want it any other way.