This manga has got me COOKING.
Here's what we know:
- Michi has been seeing ghosts for pretty much her entire life
- Michi had a traumatic experience after acknowledging ghosts when she was younger
- Michi became physically ill after trying to talk to Aizawa
- Michi did not become physically ill after talking with ghosts in the past
- Sayaka is able to touch, see, and communicate with ghosts without becoming physically ill
- Some ghosts can touch Sayaka
- The pentagram is associated with Aizawa's "zone" - she can't leave the "zone" the pentagram defines
- Michi saw the pentagram under Aizawa's desk and on the back of her own neck
- Sayaka is able to see the pentagram "everywhere"
- Aizawa died without anybody knowing the reason on August 20th
- Aizawa is able to physically influence things without being acknowledged, including possession
- Aizawa doesn't really try to get people's attention
- some spirits are able to be photographed
- Aizawa has an infatuation with Michi, even before Michi received the pentagram
- the pentagram can be "moved" through dreams
- Michi does not remember attending a summer festival, presumably Obon, which generally occurs in August
- Michi's interaction with ghosts has changed, presumably due to the pentagram
- That whole storage room situation??
- The pentagram looks like a scar to non-spiritual people
- Sayaka has observed an increase in ghosts for some time
- Michi presumably had more friends in middle school, but became a recluse in high school
- Michi is in her first year of high school
- Kasumi sees Aizawa as a fairy but doesn't recognize her as Aizawa
- Sayaka saw Michi and Aizawa speaking together previously
- Michi claims she never spoke with Aizawa
- Up to this point, Sayaka's drawings have been "accurate" depictions of spiritual reality
- Kasumi views Michi and Aizawa's relationship as predominately fan to idol
Analysis:
- There are supernatural phenomenon, but people perceive and interface with them differently
- Michi underwent an amnesia-inducing event during the summer festival before entering high school that may have isolated her from her old friends
- Aizawa died sometime around the summer festival
- Michi's mere presence increases the frequency of ghosts in the area, as Sayaka saw more ghosts when Michi enrolled
Here's my cooking:
Michi met and interacted with Aizawa's ghost during the festival.
Michi met Aizawa during the summer festival, either as a ghost or as a living person. But since Kasumi was chasing after Sayaka during the festival, presumably she would have seen Michi and Aizawa interacting if they were both alive, and she wouldn't talk about Michi's interest in Aizawa as if she was a mere fan.
Michi's interaction with Aizawa likely caused amnesia and Aizawa-nausea. Then, something else happened that bound Aizawa to the pentagram, turning her from a "normal", as in attention-seeking or hostile, ghost into a passive or helpful one.
It might have been the act of binding her to the pentagram that induced the amnesia and Aizawa-nausea.
Additionally, Michi's acceptance of the pentagram and her natural tendency to increase the spiritual energy around her caused the proliferation of the pentagram and an increase in Aizawa's range.
Something else: in the dream and in the storage room, we get glimpses of Michi's younger, probably pre-trauma self. Her younger self represents spiritual power, which she's suppressed since the traumatizing incident but unlocked during her dream about Aizawa to proliferate the pentagram, and to ward off ghosts, though it was ineffective on the storage room ghost.
