First Impressions – Mushishi Zoku Shou

A peaceful, masterfully-crafted episode about GETTING WASTED

In a move that no one expected, Mushishi is back for a second season after almost a decade of silence. It’s one of those masterpieces that you use to gauge the tastes of anime fans you first meet. If they like Mushishi, you know they have good taste. Not that taste is objective, but Mushishi is so damn good that it’s almost a gold standard. Guess Kara and I have good taste, huh?
Er, right, good taste. To be honest, Mushishi is one of the anime that I wouldn’t have watched without OC recommending it in the first place. (Kino no Tabi, Mononoke, Kuuchu Buranko; most of the good, abstract anime I’ve seen recently are due to her.) So I’m happy to be here tagging the first episode of the new season~.

A Wild Welcoming Party

Only the cool kids are allowed in the mushishi club

Overcooled // It’s amusing that the main character is shoved to the side for the first episode of his own show. Ginko’s there, but he’s not playing the lead role like he usually does. Instead, we follow a sake brewer’s son, Rokusuke, who knows next to nothing about mushi. It’s actually a clever move because like him, we are strangers to this magical world where fluorescent squiggles and amorphous blobs flit through the air. We aren’t mushishi – we are outsiders trying desperately to peek in on this world because it’s so fascinating. It’s through this connection that we manage to form a bond with Rokusuke and sympathize with him. He’s a simple man who just wants to know why a bunch of strange men wearing wooden knapsacks have such killer booze with them.

Since the main character is not Ginko this time around, there’s a good reason for explaining what mushi are and how the mushishi are set apart from the regular village folk. It’s a nice refresher in case you’ve forgotten everything from season 1. Not that there’s a lot to remember, since mushi are such an abstract concept. But it’s still good to have a reminder about what mushi are and how captivating they are. Ginko treats the mushi more like his average day’s work. That wouldn’t be so great for a first episode to show these amazing mushi and have Ginko practically ignore them since he’s used to being surrounded by them. The sake brewer’s honest curiosity is a better “gateway” episode to emphasize the mystique of the mushi. We’re back with season 2, and it feels great to peek in on this world once again.

Mushi 101

Yeah, I hate it when neon squiggles try and steal my stuff too.

Karakuri // Ah, yes, alcohol. What a topic to start off on. Obviously this was more than that, but it’s still entertaining drawing the parallels that everyone was excited over really good alcohol that had hallucinatory side effects. It probably doesn’t help that the mushi themselves often look like something out of a drug trip. Anyways, if you couldn’t tell, the mushi are an interesting concept, and the main focus of the anime. They’re not inherently good or evil, they’re just… there. If they help someone or completely screw them over is up to coincidence. The mushi are pretty much just part of nature, and do what their nature tells them to do whether it interferes with human life or not. Regular people can’t see them either (as also pointed out in the episode), so that’s where the people like Ginko comes into the plot, since he can see them.

With that being said, if you’re new and still wondering where this anime is going, it’s pretty much just Ginko travelling around, finding various people and solving whatever problems the mushi have caused. …If they’ve caused any. Sometimes there are episodes like this one where it’s just normal characters + Ginko observing whatever the mushi are doing.

Mushishi is off to a strong start. It’s safe to say that nothing has really changed from the original – and that’s comforting. It didn’t need to change a thing. The music, the stories, the overall quality, and that feeling of serenity that just envelopes you as you watch are all present. In an odd way, I’d consider Mushishi a kind of iyashikei/healing anime because it’s incredibly relaxing. After watching this episode, I didn’t want to watch anything else because I was worried it would disturb how calm I felt. It’s one of those shows best watched on quiet mornings with a cup of green tea warming your hands. It changes the entire atmosphere around you by drawing you in to this world filled with mushi.

Needless to say, (as you can tell by now) I’m a huge fan. It’s definitely not a show that comes out guns-ablazing, but each episode is so masterfully put together in every regard that it’s very hard to find a point of complaint. I can’t wait to see what other tales we get. The best episodes of Mushishi stay in your head forever. We’re in for a real treat this season.

It was a really good introduction episode. Both in terms of topic (Mushishi is usually pretty good for having stories about interesting concepts), but also in the way the story was told. They could have easily had a recap episode that explained the same concepts portrayed in the first season and done little else for the people who had already seen it or who hadn’t forgotten what already happened. Instead, they had all of the information there for anyone new to the series (or as a refresher), but it was told in a way that didn’t seem too repetitive. They managed to balance the storyline with the information nicely. …Though Mushishi is one of those episodic anime for the most part, so its probably gotten good at repeating information tastefully without sounding like a broken record. I honestly have no complaints. It felt like watching the sake guy learn about the entire situation he was in took forever, but I suppose it was a necessary thing in order to immerse people into the series. I’m looking forward to seeing more as the season goes on.

Hauntingly beautiful until you remember the guy’s totally wasted.

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.