These are ideas for environments for when we start boarding. Of course they are not good. But for the background shoots of bamboo, I like the sillouette with segements in fine ink thing I've got going on in the second drawing. The house is horrible, but it was more for the road leading to the bamboo thicket.

How about this; after the story part with the master plays out we have him leave the scene (heading left) away from the house. Go to rough sketch 2. He's walking, bamboo stalks passing him slowly. He's happy everything going good, then all of the sudden he leaves the shot heading straight down (cut through triptic to rough sketch 3) he slides for a while on his feet down the hill, trips on a rock, and tumbles/ rolls all the way down the hill (cut to drawing of the bridge I haven't posted) he flies out of the thicket and collides with a shrine that is sitting near the bridge. The shrine is a stone representation of the river spirit. He prays apologetically to her picks up his axe and heads across the bridge and out of the scene. As he passes the shrine (back facing the river spirit) the stone representation smiles and bows slightly.

This would help ease the river spirit into the film and cause some excitement instead of just having her explode into the scene later.