Ume has caught up with the team, and she has observations. About the curse, the blight and the vegetable demons, and about a few things nobody else has thought to ask, like why exactly they keep following Kinoko's directions from town to town. The question sits awkwardly for a moment. Then Kinoko's mushroom messengers turn up with directions to a town on the brink of a heated rivalry, and the team follows them.
Menpaku is anchored around a single intersection, and one family owns every corner of it. The elderly patriarch was the town's founding noodle maker and shut his beloved shop after many years; he still lives on the fourth corner. His three children each run a noodle shop suited to their personality: ramen is creative and fun, soba is methodical and precise, and udon is bold and comforting. Each of them has spent their life trying to make the best noodle possible, and the town adores all three. The family recipe calls for a secret ingredient, mikan, which grows on a single tree the family owns at the base of a cliff on the edge of town. Lately the tree has started to wither, and the families are each grabbing what they can of what's left.
There's no sign of a demon, which surprises the team, but they want to help. Ume starts a scientific investigation, comparing mikan samples with the blight samples she's been collecting, while the others talk to the siblings. They learn that the three were close once and are now bitter rivals, and their families live in such hostile separation that the grandchildren aren't allowed to play together. The patriarch is proud of his children's ambition, and admits he encouraged their competition when they were young. He regrets that it has gone this far.
When the family hears that a blight is spreading across the land, they panic. If the mikan tree dies, there isn't enough to go around, so they decide to settle it once and for all with a competition for the best noodle, their father as judge, and only the winner allowed to use mikan from then on. The team splits up to help, and Ume assigns each of them to the family whose style is least like their own, on purpose: Kabocha to udon, Matsu to ramen, and Kabu to soba. Meanwhile she tells the patriarch what her samples show. The tree doesn't have the blight; something else is draining its life. She also notices that the old man is somehow getting livelier, more invested in the competition, and more critical of every attempt his children make.
On the morning of the competition, the families wake to find the tree shrivelled and dropping its leaves. Desperate to win, they throw themselves into a frenzy of noodle making. Then the patriarch comes out of his house, pulls an old awning down over the storefront that used to be his, and enters the competition himself with his traditional noodle, sakubei. The pressure is at an all-time high when his children present their dishes, and their bickering finally sets him off. He erupts into the Mikan Demon, and the family realises he is rooted to the ground and has been sucking the life out of the tree all along.
Every time the team knocks him back, he draws more life from the tree to restore himself, and it withers further, dropping the last of its fruit to the ground. The family is scrambling to pick up the fruit when the demon slams the ground, shaking a boulder loose from the cliff, and it comes down on the tree and crushes it. The family is aghast, but nobody more than the patriarch, who realises he has driven his children to such desperate extremes that they could have been hurt. In a moment of remorse he regains a partly human form and tells them how much he regrets the way he has treated them; all he ever wanted was for them to be happy and, above all else, to be a family.
As a final act, he pumps all his remaining energy back into the roots. The ground ripples, the boulder cracks, and a new sapling pushes up through the top of it, already bearing its first fruit. The tree of the last generation is gone, he tells them; it's time for the new generation to thrive. Then he collapses, and the team extracts the seed. His family gathers around him, sure he's given everything. He coughs, sits up, and is his little old self again, and the family laughs through their tears and holds on to each other, finally able to be a family again.
OPEN THE BEAT SHEET ▼
- 1Ume, who has caught up with the team, shares what she's learned about the curse, the blight and the vegetable demons, and asks some socially awkward questions nobody has asked yet, including why they're following Kinoko's directions between towns. Then his mushroom messengers turn up again, and the team follows them anyway.
- 2Menpaku is anchored around one intersection. The patriarch, who founded the town's noodle tradition and has long since closed his shop, lives on the fourth corner. His three children run the other three: ramen, creative and fun; soba, methodical and precise; and udon, bold and comforting.
- 3The family recipe depends on mikan from a single tree at the base of a cliff on the edge of town, and the tree is withering. The siblings, once close, are bitter rivals, and their families won't even let the grandchildren play together. The patriarch admits he once encouraged the competition, and now regrets how far it's gone.
- 4The team is surprised there's no demon, but wants to help. Ume starts her own investigation, comparing mikan samples against the blight samples she's been studying.
- 5When the family hears a blight is spreading across the land, they panic. There's no longer enough mikan to go around, so they agree to settle it once and for all: a competition for the best noodle, with their father as judge, and only the winner gets to use mikan from now on.
- 6TURNING POINT — Ume assigns each hero to the family whose style is least like their own, to challenge their thinking: Kabocha to udon, Matsu to ramen, and Kabu to soba. She sings 'What Are We Missing?' and keeps working on the tree.
- 7CRISIS — Ume tells the patriarch the tree doesn't have the blight: something else is draining its life. She also notices the old man is getting livelier, more invested in the competition, and more critical of his children's attempts.
- 8TURNING POINT — On the morning of the competition, the families wake to find the mikan tree shrivelled and missing half its leaves. Desperate to win, all three are spun into a frenzy of noodle making, and the rivalry boils over in 'A Taste of Rivalry'.
- 9TURNING POINT — The patriarch pulls out an old awning to wake up the storefront that used to be his, and enters the competition himself with his traditional noodle, sakubei.
- 10As his children present their dishes, their bickering sets him off, and he erupts into the Mikan Demon. The family realises he is rooted to the ground and sucking the life out of the tree.
- 11TURNING POINT — Every time the team knocks him back he drains more life from the tree to recover, and it withers further, dropping its last fruit. As the family scrambles to save the fruit, the demon slams the ground and shakes a boulder loose from the cliff, which crushes the tree entirely.
- 12TURNING POINT — Seeing how close his children came to getting hurt, the patriarch is horrified at how far he's pushed them. He regains a partly human form and tells them how sorry he is: all he ever wanted was for them to be happy and, above all, to be a family.
- 13TURNING POINT — He pumps the last of his energy back into the roots. The ground ripples, the boulder cracks, and a new sapling pushes up through it, already bearing its first fruit. The tree of the last generation is gone, he says; it's time for the new generation to thrive. Then he collapses, and the team extracts the seed.
- 14CRISIS — His family gathers around him, sure he's dead. He coughs, sits up, and he's his little old self again. The family laughs through their tears and embraces, finally able to be a family again.
SUPPORTING CASTMugimichi-sama · The Three Siblings (Ramen, Soba, Udon)▼
ART DIRECTION — A withered Mikan tree at the base of a cliff on the edge of Menpaku, its roots cracking the ground. Mugimichi-sama, half-transformed into the Mikan Demon, is rooted to the earth beside it, drawing its life up through the soil. Behind him, three noodle shop lanterns glow in rival colours.
Morioka has three noodle traditions: wanko soba, reimen, and jaja-men, each from a completely different country. Wanko soba is Japanese: buckwheat noodles served in an endless procession of small lacquer bowls, a server refilling each one the moment it's empty while chanting encouragement, until you cover your bowl with the lid to stop. Reimen came from Korea. In 1954, Teruto Aoki, a first-generation Korean from the northern part of the peninsula, opened a restaurant in Morioka and spent years adapting his childhood memory of cold noodles using Japanese ingredients, eventually landing on translucent potato-starch noodles in cold beef broth with kimchi. It didn't get the name 'Morioka reimen' until 1986. Jaja-men came from China: before World War II, a man named Kansho Takashina ate zhajiangmian in Manchuria and spent the years after the war recreating it back home in Morioka, substituting flat udon-style noodles for the original and adjusting the meat-miso sauce to local taste. All three dishes are now fiercely local. All three were invented somewhere else.
The city is also home to the Ishiwari Zakura, a cherry tree that has been growing through a granite boulder in front of the Morioka District Court for approximately 360 years. The popular story is that the tree split the rock. The more accurate version is that lightning cracked the boulder first, and a single cherry seed found the opening and took root. Either way, the tree and the stone have been inseparable for centuries, and the crack is still widening.
