蟲師 Review | Permalink

I am trying not to make spontaneous reviews of the various animes I watch over the weekends. But I have to make an exception. Sincerely, this anime deserves many honors for being an anime which, out of the blue, really tickles your soul, mind and body.

蟲師, Mushishi, Mushi-master, is a 26 episode anime series based on the manga of the same title. The manga, suprisingly, has had more than 7 volumes released, and is ongoing.

Mushi,蟲, means bug in Japanese. But in 蟲師,蟲 is a living form, close to the living, close to the dead, something close to energy. Humans aren't capable of seeing them, but they are affected by those mushi. Some humans, miraculously, can see them, but may sometimes think of them as illusions, hallucinations, etc. Yet, those little mushi are much more powerful than us. Like magic, these mushis can even bring the dead to life, make holes in mountains, make aurora-like illusions, make dreams to happen in real life, even kill people. But, like any living being, they live and serve a purpose in life, which can either be killing or helping people.

Ginko, a 蟲師, a mushi-master, travels across a XVIII or XIX century Japan, helping out people who are affected by these mushi. He may be a mushi slayer, but he just helps to control them. People find him weird, like a magician, seen things that normal people can't see. Mushi may sometimes act like humans, animals or just like matter. They can disguise themselves like humans, animals or like matter. No matter what, mushis are all around us, performing acts that can kill yet helping life to continue.

蟲師 is different from all the animes. Most animes are clichés: following the same stereotypes; just changing the plot, the hair color, the voice pitchness and the boob size. 蟲師, out of the wide blue yonder, sets on Earth like fog, slow, quiet. It just surrounds you, embraces you. It may let you go, it may capture you. Like a mushi, it may or may not be seen. I maybe had caught a glimpse of it, rolling down the green hills, slowly moving in the distance. When I came to, I was already inmersed in a world of white, humid, cold and warm. It made me sleepy, meditative. It got hold of my heart, petting it. It hugged my soul, which rolled on the floor with happiness. My body slowed down, and remained dormant on a chair. It surely makes you sleep, but its so good you just can't get away from it.

蟲師 doesn't have an official ending theme. It does, however, have a very interesting opening theme. Ally Kerr and his "The Sore Feet Song", along with a vegetation-surreal-like background, introduces the anime with a wonderful, peaceful feeling. I'll upload the song to the player for you as soon as possible.

Filled with traditional stories, myths and leyends from the Japanese culture, 蟲師 surely has a surreal aspect worth pondering about. For example: Episode 5, The Travelling Swamp.

Ginko came upon these swamps along the way to a town near the sea. He noticies that, when walking alongside a swamp and looking back, the water bodies suddenly disappear in the ground. He continues walking until he comes across another swamp. There, he finds a lady, Io, with green hair walking across the swamp, holding in both hands fish. They talk together about the bizarre nature of the swamp. The swamp travels: it moves underground and resurfaces, moving through a mountain range. Io follows it, since she became emotionally united with it.

She was offered to marry the water god, as a savage flood was attacking a town. She was thrown to the river and drowned. In her last moments of conscioussness, she saw a green thing approaching her. When she came to, she appeared in a swamp, with her haired dyed in green. The swamp had told her she should continue living, and therefore she felt that she should stay with it, follow it in its journeys.

Ginko concluded that it was a mushi. When Io and the swamp where leaving, he found out that the swamp was nothing else but a mushi that made living beings translucent and that was traveling to the sea. It was traveling to its deathbed.

Io deared so much to stay with the swamp, that she was making it company in its final journey. In the river delta, Ginko and others set up a net to rescue Io. They managed to catch a red kimono she wore when in the swamp. But her body was gone.

The next day, some fishermen caught an enormous school of fish. Within the net, they found a strange body. They discovered Io's body, still living, unstable, in a gelatinous form, translucent.

Ginko aided her, and brought her back to her former self. She was scared when she woke up, because she knew that the swamp was going to die, but she never wanted to leave its side. She recovered, and her hair turned black. Io lived her whole life near that river delta, near the sea where the swamp in which she died once perished.

While resurfacing, the swamp left behind its offspring. It knew it was time, so it got up and walked to its final place, the sea.

The anime looks as good as the manga. Many of the scenes portrayed in the manga are also shown in the anime, with great fidelity. Of course, manga is printed in black and white due to economical reasons. The anime is a festival of light and color, giving a general feeling to the series. Many interesting color and painting techniques are used. It almost tried to use chiaroscuros. The sound, also, is amazingly soothing. Most of the sound heard in the anime is naturally produced, that is, recorded audio from woods, rivers, waterfalls, mountains, etc. The music also plays an important role, as it can be an aid for the anime mood and its atmospheric feel.

It's wonderful, totally different from most of the anime I have seen and heard of. Watching it was like meditation. It made me sleepy, but it was soo good that I had to keep myself awake. It does have a strange way of showing human nature; I'll have to look more into the story to understand it better.

Ginko is a really weird but cool guy. He is like a nomad, as he attracts mushis like a magnet, for no aparent reason, and has to leave anywhere he goes as soon as possible. Io, and many other women in the series seem to have a sentimental attachment to Ginko, but it is quite improbable as it is not displayed. Even though, you can still think of Ginko as a person many people could fall in love with. But its an anime, for god sakes! Let's all go on with our lifes, please.

But, of course, when you reach the end of the anime or manga, I beg you to stand up and applaud to this contemporary masterwork.