If the first part of In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom felt like a train wreck, the second part feels like that train careening off a cliff.  A gilded cliff strewn with decapitated heads, no less. Madhouse has really outdone themselves with the art direction of this sequence, so much so that I could scarcely restrain myself from rampant screencapping! 

The bandit has now resided in the city with the city woman for 6 months, unable to find a job due to his lack of applicable skills, and is mocked by the populace as a hillbilly.  Like the last episodes scene where the bandit sports an Ipod and chews gum, another era-inappropriate anachronism is seen when the laughing citizens photograph him with their cell-phones.

The woman is unhappy with their spartan living arrangement, and threatens to leave the bandit if he doesn’t bring nice things home for her.  She orders him to rob houses and bring her the spoils.  He kills a pair of lovers that night, and along with the gold and combs she wants, he brings the heads.  She’s utterly delighted and acts out plays with the heads, sparking a hunger for more heads.  She specifically requests a villain’s head, which his brings to her.  The desire for heads spirals out of control, and she spends her days decorating with the heads, grooming them, and acting out stories between them. 

The bandit becomes unhappy and bored with the situation, and announces that he’s going to return to the mountains.  Surprisingly, the woman decided to go with him.  As they pass through a grove of sakura (cherry blossom) trees, a blizzard of petals falling around them, the bandit suddenly sees the woman for what she is, an oni  (demon).  He strangles her, and we see her body lying among the blossoms.  The camera cuts to the boughs of the sakura, and then back to the body.  Only the body has become the bandits, and the woman is nowhere to be seen.  In the last shot, we see the bandit’s supine profile, and he appears to be smiling. 

The story is adapted from a 1947 short novel by Ango Sakaguchi, a writer who was part of the decadent movement in postwar Japan.  Ango believed that war, modernization, and the urban environment caused people to stop valuing individual lives (symbolized by the woman’s head collecting).  The bandit is a symbol of animals, nature, and traditional ways.  He is described as not having feelings (beyond animalistic urges) until he meets the woman.  But even so, he can never understand her, for she represents humans, cities, and war.  The most poignant reference to his newfound feelings appears at the end:

“He broke down and cried. ・・・Overhead hung cherry blossoms. ・・・
After some time he felt something, one thing, lukewarm. And he realized that that
thing was sadness, coming from his own heart.”

I interpret his smile at the end to the fact that he was even able to have this feeling.  I think the reason that he died when he’d killed her is because man and nature are inextricably connected within a person, and if one of these is removed, the person would be figuratively destroyed.  Thus, as a representation of nature, the bandit is literally destroyed.  If you’re interested in learning a little more about it, this essay is very enlightening: http://www.asle-japan.org/pdf/eng20-nakamura.pdf

Notice the hoof-like appearance of the bandit’s shoes in this shot:

Subs: http://www.animetake.com/aoi-bungaku-episode-6/

An orgy of screencaps behind the cut!