The Mask of Fear

[Spectral_Orion]

Anyone who got this item might notice that it frightens certain NPCs, sometimes "killing" them or at least causing them to faint. I thought it'd be interesting to point out which ones.

• Alley Demons
  
• Pirori
  
• The School's trade NPCs - the Pirori and Walking Eye collapse to the ground, and the one-eyed ghost becomes intangible.
  
• The faceless ghost in the Sewer becomes intangible.
  
• Monoko (transformed) - causes her to stay in one place, screaming; she'll move again if you take off the mask
  
  Other NPCs don't react to the Mask of Fear. It's ineffective towards the Toriningen and doesn't cause them to give up the chase. And oddly enough, Poniko doesn't react to the mask. This is interesting because I always thought Poniko didn't want Madotsuki to look at her diary (she always covers it whenever Mado tries to interact with her). And when the room goes dark, interacting with the diary takes you to Uboa's realm. Uboa will turn into the Mask of Fear.
  
  I guess this goes back to the old debate: are Poniko and Uboa one entity or separate?

[Rust]

It MIGHT be possible that Uboa is a manifestation of what Poniko is afraid of(or maybe the fear Madosuki might have towards Poniko?), possibly isolation/lonliness(as shown by the island when you get the Mask), since it "kills" most of the Npcs, I am guessing that Uboa is what Madosuki fears about Poniko, maybe the Isolated(ish) island is a representation of how Poniko ignores Madosuki and makes her go away so that she may be alone, or maybe even makes her out to be a bother?
Note that this is a guess.
Or maybe Yume Nikki is a literal Dream Diary, with the Creator putting their dreams into Game form, which is why they accepted the deal(s?), is because the game is just a Window(Mado in Japenese) to the Creators mind, and that the "Dream" about Poniko is a past experience the Creator once had?
My Answer To Your Question: Techinically, yes. Uboa is an extension of what their fear is.

[Dazeychain]

some stray observations on the Uboa trap that don't warrant their own thread

1. the pink castle is surrounded by ghosts, or at least it was when I came back with the lantern. was it like that in the original game? is Poniko dead too? what could have happened to her?

2. you can walk into the water surrounding the...uh, other fluid...to kill yourself, but there's no animation and you just respawn in the trap. kind of sinister if you think about it.

3. the monster is a lot more menacing when it's moving toward mado. i feel like that's another case of them making traumatic/sexual imagery more blatant like they did with kyuukyuu.

4. the manga is non-canon, but wrt the mask of fear it's interesting to note that it involves mado gaining an Uboa face when she becomes too violent and loses herself in the dream.

5. mado uses a slow, hesitant door opening animation when she enters Poniko's room. I could be wrong, but the only other place I remember seeing this was the school, another area associated with sexual trauma.

Anyway, my take on Poniko/Uboa is a pretty common one. Poniko is a real person who Mado tried to get close to because they seemed similar. However, Mado had an unpleasant or unwanted sexual experience with her when the lights went out. (Possibly while she was visiting for a party, considering the appearance of the pink sea/castle.)

Uboa represents the shock and fear associated with suddenly learning about this side of Poniko.

In Dream Diary, the Uboa events are triggered by reading Poniko's diary. This might imply that in the real world, Mado wasn't physically violated by Poniko but rather snuck a look at her diary and learned that Poniko's intentions for her were less than pure.

So as for the mask of fear? Dream Diary's ending presents the possibility that Mado can heal and leave her apartment again. The mask mostly works in realistic areas like the alley, school and mall and repels harmful stares. Maybe the mask represents Mado facing and accepting her trauma with Poniko and recovering to the point where she can tolerate being around strangers again?

[RokuroCarisu]

Originally posted by phantom lesbian:

Anyway, my take on Poniko/Uboa is a pretty common one. Poniko is a real person who Mado tried to get close to because they seemed similar. However, Mado had an unpleasant or unwanted sexual experience with her when the lights went out. (Possibly while she was visiting for a party, considering the appearance of the pink sea/castle.)

Uboa represents the shock and fear associated with suddenly learning about this side of Poniko.

In Dream Diary, the Uboa events are triggered by reading Poniko's diary. This might imply that in the real world, Mado wasn't physically violated by Poniko but rather snuck a look at her diary and learned that Poniko's intentions for her were less than pure.

So as for the mask of fear? Dream Diary's ending presents the possibility that Mado can heal and leave her apartment again. The mask mostly works in realistic areas like the alley, school and mall and repels harmful stares. Maybe the mask represents Mado facing and accepting her trauma with Poniko and recovering to the point where she can tolerate being around strangers again?

My honest opinion: Uboa is a shadow, cast by something in Poniko's room when the lights are off. Same as how the painting on the wall, the window and the closet start to look like creepy faces in the dark. I can relate, because may parents used to have a lamp that, when reflected in the window glass after dark, looked like an inhuman face staring in to my young self. So I think it is possible that Madotsuki saw something similar in real world Poniko's room and was haunted in her dreams by the images.

I noticed a general theme in Madotsuki's dreams: Beings with (usually) no faces that ignore her and creepy faces that watch and/or threaten her. To me, that paints a pretty clear picture of how Madotsuki sees the real world. She is afraid of faces that look at her, apparently expecting everyone who doesn't ignore her to be a monster intent on harming her. And when she puts on Uboa's mask in her dreams, she becomes such a monster herself.
She also appears to have an interest in Paracan artwork, a fear of hands, deformities and injuries, and indeed some confusion about sexuality, although nothing I found in her dreams really implies that she has an actual understanding of it, let alone experience. She appears to be weirded out by what she knows more than anything.

Keep in mind that Madotsuki is a kid, apparently between 11 and 14 years old. For her fears to be real, the monsters don't have to.

[Dazeychain]

what's your take on the mountain grabbing monster that appears in the uboa trap, then? the whole scene seems to suggest it was something more than just a fleeting scare

[RokuroCarisu]

Originally posted by phantom lesbian:

what's your take on the mountain grabbing monster that appears in the uboa trap, then? the whole scene seems to suggest it was something more than just a fleeting scare

Well, it has multiple arms, lava or blood comming out of its head, and it's huge. Arms and blood are recurring imagery in Madotsuki's dreams, and in YNDD it is portrayed with a dark, scary face against a glowing background. So to me it appears to be combination of everything Madotsuki is afraid of. The only reason I wouldn't call it her ultimate nightmare is that, unlike FACE, it doesn't "attack" her.