Mononoke

The "Medicine Seller" is a deadly and mysterious master of the occult who travels across feudal Japan in search of malevolent spirits called "mononoke" to slay. When he locates one of these spirits, he cannot simply kill it; he must first learn its Form, its Truth, and its Reason in order to wield the mighty Exorcism Sword and fight against it. He must begin his strange exorcisms with intense psychological analysis and careful investigative work—an extremely dangerous step, as he must first confront and learn about the mononoke before he even has the means to defeat it.

The Medicine Seller's journey leads him to an old-fashioned inn where Shino, a pregnant woman, has finally found a place to rest. The owner has reluctantly placed her in the last vacant room; however, as she settles in, it quickly becomes clear that the room is infested by a lethal band of mononoke, the Zashiki Warashi. With his hunter's intuition, the Medicine Seller begins his investigation to discover the Form, the Truth, and the Reason before the Zashiki Warashi can kill again.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kusuriuri Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Man in Fox Mask Supporting

Midorikawa, Hikaru Japanese

Kayo Supporting

Yukana Japanese

Umizatou Supporting

Wakamoto, Norio Japanese

Shino Supporting

Tanaka, Rie Japanese

Ochou Supporting

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Yanagi, Genyousai Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Nomoto, Chiyo Supporting

Yukana Japanese

Oyou Supporting

Ikezawa, Haruna Japanese

Ichikawa, Setsuko Supporting

Orikasa, Fumiko Japanese

Shibata, Hiroaki Producer

Umezawa, Atsutoshi Producer, Storyboard

Takase, Atsuya Producer

Takeeda, Yoshinori Assistant Producer

Reviews

Nov 5, 2025

StarPlatinum787

Recommended

Mononoke is absolutely fantastical. Going into the series blindly felt more like a suspenseful LSD-Trip than anything else, and I love it for that.

Everything about this show, from the characters, to the mononoke, to the dialogues and writing, always manages to build suspense, but never opts to fully resolve it. It is just that. Figuring out the nature of the Mononoke, how it came to be, seeing how it behaves, and finally having the medicine man exorcise it.

By nature, the creatures, called Mononoke, have deep connections to the tales of Japanese folklore. But instead of integrating them into a story, Mononoke focusses on the ... exploration of them, and the concepts behind them, entirely.

What first seems like a risky artistic choice, only makes the characters and stories all the more appealing. I don't think that you have to have deep knowledge of Japanese folklore before watching the series; though if you do: this is clearly a must watch.

The animation, the sound design, the dialogue, everything here seems to have so much depth, that it almost feels hard to choose a single topic to talk about/ And you don't have to. For me, that feeling of having that many questions unanswered, is exactly what I love about this series.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Mar 16, 2024

LemonadeSamurai

Mixed Feelings

Mononoke is a horror themed anime anthology consisting of 5 stories split into 2 or 3 episodes each

Our main character is the medicine seller who may or may not be based off Abe no Semei the famous Onmyoji as he has a fox like appearance

Is the medicine seller human? Its never revealed who he is.

Mononoke takes place between the end of the Edo period(1600s - 1860s) and Meiji era of Japan (1860s - 1900s) as such the culture and clothing is shown thoughout.

The premise revolves around the medicine seller entering a place and finding it plagued with a Mononoke, basically a ghost. He must first ... find the form of the mononoke (what it looks like) then the truth of it (what is actually is) and finally the regret of it (how it came to be) only then can he exorcise it.

The show is not for kids. It's very dark themed with themes of abortion or suicide.

You will be shocked at how actually creepy the show is. It's very eerie and unsettling at times such as children whispering or dark horrific visions.

It's art style is the most interesting aspect of it, it uses traditional Japanese art as its inspiration along with Ukiyo-e paintings.

It's sound design is fine. Theres no music in Mononoke, the only sounds you hear are people speaking, the sound of rain or the sea usually.

The dub is alright but I prefer the sub for authenticity.

This is a very heavy artsy anime and because of that I will give it a mixed rating

I PERSONALLY loved it but I can understand how it may not be for everyone.

If you like dark, creepy anime with heavy Japanese folklore/inspiration..I think you'll like Mononoke.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 17, 2025

DeadBlue

Not Recommended

Preliminary (7/12 eps)

A psychological, mystery, and seinen show?
That's going to be great.
That was my first impression.

Fairly quickly I realized it's one of those "traveling protagonist" shows like "Katanagatari", "Majo no tabitabi" and to some extent "Ergo Proxy".
(all of which I really enjoyed)
A new place, a short story told in a few episodes. It can work really well.

Well, let's get straight into it.
I'm not gonna beat around the bush, I thought the story was told in an overly confusing style.
It's too busy pretending to be deep to give me context so I basically just sit there to watch some borderline-psychedelic events happen on the screen while puzzling it ... together and wondering why I'm supposed to care in the first place.

The characters I saw for the short time there were on screen were all forgettable and the show didn't give me a single good reason to care about them at all. Which may be alright for side characters but I didn't even care about the protagonist, which for me is a big problem.

Then there's the visuals. The artstyle is kinda interesting, +1 for effort, but I wouldn't call it beautiful or anything like that. It's very nauseating to look at sometimes.

I believe I gave it a fair chance with 7 episodes, finishing 3 of 5 stories.
It just simply couldn't make me interested.

You can hate me for this but in my opinion this show is just overly pretentious, trying to appeal to elitists by trying to look "unique" and "deep", when it really isn't.

A show does not need to be praised for it's uniqueness and shouldn't be rated highly just because of it. Unique doesn't necessarily mean interesting or entertaining.

Well, don't take my word for it, watching a few episodes and seeing if it's for you or not can still pay off.
I've enjoyed quite a few shows that had a pretty low score and hated some with a very high score.

Anyway to me personally it was about as exciting as watching paint dry.
4/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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