Anime: Mushishi Zoku Shou

Not much needs to be said here. This is Mushishi. One of the most respected and revered anime to ever grace the medium. And like the rest of the series, this 47 minute special (episode 11/12 of Zoku Shou) is a treat to watch.

Story and Characters
As with the usual format, this story shows us another one of the Mushishi Ginko's encounters with Mushi, but this time, we find ourselves ANOTHER Mushishi, named Kumado. Kumado is from a clan of Mushishi who have been researching a way to deal with a certain "forbidden" Mushi. (For the sake of spoilers, I'll stop there) The story is great as always, and the characters get even more fleshed out then they normally would with the addition of 20 extra minutes.

Art/Animation and Sound
Mushishi is Studio Artland's crowning jewel from a production standpoint. It is incomparable to anything else they've ever worked on. And this special is no different. It looks downright fantastic. The designs of the characters, the designs of the Mushi, the look of the nature, the colors, everything looks beautiful. As for the sound, it's still incredible. The Mushishi soundtrack has always had a unique kind oh sound to it, and this special is no different. I'm also glad that they still kept the Opening theme of "Shiver" by Lucy Rose. It's a beautiful song, and one that I really loved listening to over the course of the Zoku Shou installment.

I feel like this film did something for me that the previous episodes of Mushishi haven't done yet, and I liked it a lot.

The writing for this series is always something special, but for this film, we get to see a side of the Mushishi profession that we haven't really gotten to see before. You get to see the extent to which this world can flourish at the farthest reaches of mushi. I also liked that this film seemed to give us the first sense of continuity that we've seen from the series to date, which is exciting.

I always find it difficult to review this series because it always boils down to me saying that the writing is crafted extremely well. In particular, for this film, I'm glad the story decided to sway into an unknown area because it is quite possible for Mushishi to feel a bit repetitive after a while. All in all, I'm ready to see how this film affects the future, if it does at all.

Mushishi will never cease to amaze me. It's an absolute treat of an anime that is the perfect kind of thing to watch whenever you just want to relax. You can watch it whenever you want, with its episodic nature, and it will always give you the same calming and soothing feel whenever you need it. It's not a show for everyone, but I definitely recommend it to everyone to try. This special gave me everything I could've wanted. And I am very glad I decided to get back to it.

Mushishi...resurrected!

Back in my days absorbed into slice of life anime, a word like "fascination" with Mushishi understated my feelings at the time. Try "enamoured." "Obsessed." It has a likeable, highly capable protagonist with such an introspective personality. It integrated the elements of mystery, fantasy, and the supernatural in far better ways than its dystopian (Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou) or complex (Ghost in the Shell) seinen contemporaries. It should also be noted that Aniplex’s responsibility for a great deal of superior anime promised a series like this success.

And yet, I am somewhat disappointed with this reboot…at least enough to squeeze a review out of me.

Cool bugs. Oh wait...more of them? AGAIN?!

Episodic and unpredictable, Mushishi thrives on the characters and their accompanying pathophysiological development with mushi. A series of this nature demands this formula, especially considering Ginko’s knowledge and capability. The very first episode of the original series pulls us in; it is not the misleading shots of ghoulish, bacteria-shaped organisms with a quirk, but rather because of the characters and their interactions with them. In respect to the first season, Zoku Shou starts off in a similar predicament. A new episode, and there are new characters, new mushi, new conflicts, and a new set of consequences.

Simply, the formula that rebooted this series is also what dried it up. I knew that each episode could be enjoyed as a story on its own, and yet the continuing pattern of unresolved questions left the series to hang and dry like a dying rose. Even following the last episode, Ginko himself remains as enigmatic as the mushi he identifies with great ease.

The same old same old - now in 2014 format.

Needless to say, with nearly a decade of improvement in animation techniques, the artwork maintained the quality of the original. Mushishi’s beautiful, postmodern approach to animation competes even with the most fluid of action-packed series. Colorful, mouth-watering brooks. Enchanting stares from teenage girls. Even the smoke rising from Ginko’s lip-glued-to-paper cigarettes looks sexy. While I’d love to offer it a perfect score, the animation had nearly a decade of room to offer even more dazzling footage, of which it did not.

Excellent musical composition, as expected.

As for my favorite subject in all of my reviews, the music and sound in general is breathtaking. Zoku Shou’s entire atmosphere benefitted from a ponderous, folk-like poem like Lucy Rose’s “Shiver” on the acoustic guitar. A series like this needs to have contemplative and mystical background music, such as the chimes and xylophones oscillating during mushi encounters. The ending themes, too, resonated well with whichever conclusions were reached. Toshio Masuda’s composition technique worked well in the ninja-ridden environment of Naruto, so I can imagine him being the perfect choice for a series as mysterious as Mushishi.

Love the premise, now I want more. Move my mind.

Overall, Zoku Shou lives up to the quality of a series like Mushishi, but only does that. I understand that many a fan would obsess about the nature of slice-of-life series or consistency with the manga (because for some reason all stories need be exactly like their manga or else they’re crap or some garbage like that), but as an avid fan myself I can only insist that the potential behind a supernatural mystery series such as Mushishi is wasted on single episode encounters, or rather as a break from pantsu shots and power ups. I am truly and deeply fond of this series and hope to see more of it, but I await the day someone at Aniplex—even if it be Urushibara herself—takes a risk to give the series what it deserves.