mono

Let's take a moment to look back on the Cinephoto Club's journey.

THE TRIP THAT WILL APPEAR

NAGANO AND TOYAMA THIRD NIGHT

It was summer break.

KOFU CITY

We made a forced escape of two nights and three days

to escape Kofu's exceptionally hot and uninhabitable summer.

After overcoming many encounters and sorrows,

we headed for Togakushi in search of new memories,

or rather, refreshing coolness.

NAGANO CITY

This hill is crazy steep.

It is, but there's a little occult hot spot in the middle of it.

Have you noticed that Ms. Kako rides in weird postures sometimes?

She says her bike gets too hot if she's going too slowly.

It's so hot.

-That's it. -Huh?

We can't park on the shoulder, so I'm going to go up to the top.

Huh? I feel like I saw someone.

NANAMAGARI

The single pine tree of Nanamagari.

People who were involved with this tree suffered from various strange incidents.

The haunted single pine tree.

It's more of a stump than a tree.

Seems the top part was cut down a long time ago.

So this is the haunted tree that caused all those strange incidents.

They do say plants are living beings too.

Maybe it got angry when it was threatened with removal.

This summer, a great terror is coming.

No!

Oh, my God!

What if this tree awakened to its psychic abilities

and started retaliating with telekinesis?

The Psychic Tree.

Sounds like a bad B-movie when you say that.

But why would they leave the stump after going so far as to cut it down?

They made this barricade too.

-I guess they wanted to remove it… -What?

…but couldn't get the stump out.

Ms. Kurokuma!

You came to Nagano too.

Yes, for research.

The person I saw was Ms. Kurokuma.

Please be careful.

People sometimes experience strange phenomena

after they carelessly touch the stump.

There are many examples throughout Japan of construction projects

that work around these types of haunted trees.

A famous case was at a certain shrine in Yamanashi Prefecture.

People cut off a branch of a sacred tree that was overhanging the railroad tracks.

After a series of accidents,

they were forced to build a barricade over the tracks

to prevent the branch and foliage from getting in.

You know, when I was in elementary school,

I planted sunflowers

-in my vegetable garden. -What?

I don't know if the ground was fertile or what,

but they grew too fast and even got into the neighbor's house.

That reminds me, there's something like this in Nagoya too.

There's a gigantic tree in the middle of a three-lane national highway!

RUMBLE RUMBLE

They made a median strip and left a ceremonial rope.

It looks like it was awkwardly left there.

I'm sure it's a haunted tree.

That camphor tree is a famous tree left behind by the locals,

and it's just superstition that it's haunted.

So, it's not haunted.

I wonder what's the difference between a sacred tree and a regular tree?

I don't know. Is it the tree's age?

Sometimes a shrine's priest will make the decision.

I think they start out as ordinary trees,

but they can become commemorative trees of some kind.

However, I think that by being an object of faith

and receiving people's thoughts and feelings for a long time,

they become more special.

And when the sacred tree becomes evil, it turns into a psychic tree.

The Psychic Tree 2.

Again, it's not a B-movie.

As they say, "Let sleeping dogs lie."

Be careful, okay?

Yes.

Ms. Kurokuma?

Where did Ms. Kurokuma go?

I lost her all of a sudden too.

Ms. Kurokuma, you disappeared suddenly.

Where did you go?

What do you mean? So out of the blue.

I'm working at home all day today.

At home?

That was kind of mysterious, but anyways…

Let's set up camp here!

-Yeah! -Yeah!

Well, Togakushi is not only famous as the home of ninja,

but also as a producer of soba noodles!

So tonight, I'll make family-size instant soba from the grocery store!

-We're eating instant soba? -We're eating instant soba?

Calm down.

I thought I'll have you eat cheap, instant soba you can get anywhere

before you eat Togakushi's soba.

It'll be ready before you know it.

It's a super cheap soba

made from three parts buckwheat flour and seven parts wheat flour.

It's basically udon.

I've got tubed wasabi that's neither fresh nor authentic,

and ready-made broth that's basically soy sauce.

You're very committed.

JUST OKAY SOBA

-Thank you for the meal. -Thank you for the meal.

Yeah, it's just okay.

It's just okay.

It's like the lazy soba my mom makes in the summer.

Yeah, exactly like that.

Why do you have a stove and a pot? You said you didn't have one yesterday.

Kamikochi was pretty far from the parking lot,

so I left it in the car thinking it'll be too heavy to lug around.

You didn't want to bring up the fact that you left it in the car

out of fear that people would get mad at you, right?

Yes.

TOGAKUSHI SHRINE

An avenue of over 200 enormous cedars.

After seeing it in a photograph once,

I've always wanted to use this road to reach the shrine.

It's so cool.

What a refreshing road with the morning sun coming through the foliage.

What's this?

Aren't we starting to go slightly uphill?

Right?

It is gradually getting steeper.

We're practically climbing stairs.

We climbed a steep hill all this way.

Makes you hesitate to turn back, doesn't it?

Are they trying to kill first-timers?

We made it.

It wasn't refreshing at all, huh?

MADE IT SOMEHOW

TOGAKUSHI SHRINE

I'm looking forward to that Togakushi soba. Aren't you?

Totally. It's one of Japan's three greatest soba.

You're not just going to eat good soba today.

You'll be making it too.

SOBA INSTRUCTOR

Thank you for coming today.

-Thank you for having us. -Thank you for having us.

We've got a lot of people today, so let's split into two groups.

HIGH SCHOOL TEAM - ADULT TEAM

Ms. Haru, Ms. Kako.

We've split into two different groups, which means

it's a soba-making battle of who can make the best soba!

-All right! -All right!

-That's exactly what I wanted! -That's exactly what I wanted!

This is too dull to be a cooking battle.

WHEAT 2

First, gradually mix in the water with the buckwheat flour.

Break up the buckwheat flour

so that the water will cover all of it and leave no lumps.

This is the most difficult part.

I see the beginning is the crucial part.

Once the water is mixed well, we'll gather the buckwheat flour and start to knead it.

CHRYSANTHEMUM KNEADING

It looks like a pork bun more than a chrysanthemum.

There!

BUNNY KNEADING

That's not a thing.

Next, we'll smooth out the dough

by using the palm of our hands to knead it against the bowl.

We'll knead it about 200 times.

Once you're done kneading,

use a rolling pin to stretch out the dough bit by bit while turning the dough.

TOGAKUSHI - EDO

Here in Togakushi, we create a round shape,

but Edo-style stretches their dough into a square.

I would think a square shape would end up with less waste.

Ms. Haru, what are you doing?

It's kitty soba.

MEOW

When the dough is stretched thin, we'll fold it and cut it with a soba knife.

That knife looks like a weapon.