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"Mushishi is Ambient music in form of anime"

Mushishi is a one of a kind anime. With its focus not on the main character (Ginko), but rather on other characters and the world. This is not your usual adventure anime; as it is more of a wandering journey rather than a typical linear adventure.

Story [10/10]: Well.. this one is hard, since Mushishi is an episodic anime in which every episode delivers a different story. But every single one of these stories is beautiful and phenomenal. The main plot is pretty much that Ginko just travels around from place to place, searching for mushi.. you may ... ask what is this "mushi" thing. Well, it's hard to describe, but in a brief explanation: mushi are beings that have lots of different types. There are mushi that harm people, help people, mushi that have no influence over anything in the world. There is even a mushi that is pretty much just a rainbow.. that's it. There's a whole episode dedicated to it. You may think that that might be boring, but oh man you're so wrong.

You see, that's the whole niche of Mushishi. Being at first sight boring and uninteresting, but the boring after a while becomes so captivating and consuming that you'll just lose yourself in it. Mushishi is pretty much Ambient music in form of anime.

I absolutely adore the setting, you get this weird spiritual/druidic feeling constantly from the environment in which Ginko is traveling.


Art [9/10]: Simply fantastic. It has a very fitting color scheme to the story. It's fairly consistent and doesn't branch out of its comfort zone often. But when it does, it really shines. (This may be a little spoiler).

//SPOILER
For example; in episode 2. Where Ginko tries to fix the sight of a girl who lost it because of a mushi. The scene where the mushi just pour out of her eyes is simply beautiful and made me realise just how much I love this anime. Even the ending of this episode, with Ginko just sitting near the light stream is so simple, yet so beautiful.
END OF SPOILER//

So yeah, just to repeat myself. Mushishi's art-style is absolutely beautiful and fits the whole story and setting very well. The only negative thing is that pretty much all the characters look the same.. there is no real variety in them. But that doesn't matter since they are so brilliantly written from a story perspective.

Sound [9/10]: Since this is my first review, I'm not sure if I should talk about the sound-design or rather the soundtrack.

They are both absolutely amazing and make up for some of the most brilliant sound design in anime that I ever heard. My only complaint would be that it doesn't change that often, what I'm talking about is that you have the same themes throughout the whole anime and I dunno by the end of the anime you just get bored of the same soundtracks again and again. That wasn't a problem for me, but it may be for you. Just putting that out there.

Voice acting in this anime is decent. Ginko's VA is a really talented unknown guy, not sure why he hasn't got more roles. He's fantastic and fits the character so well. The other voice actors are sometimes good sometimes bad, but voice acting is okay. I heard the english dub is fairly good too, if you wanted to watch it dubbed.

Characters [10/10]: Oh boy, here is my favorite thing about Mushishi (along with the setting). I guess I should start with Ginko. Ginko is probably my favorite main character in anime of all time. The thing that makes him so unique and such an important character to me is that he is not there to make the story. Sure, you could say that he has the most involvement with the characters and their issues with mushi, but he seems just like he's passing through the dozens of stories and lifes of the other characters. It almost seems like YOU are Ginko. Ginko is just an observer that travels around the world and shows you all the different stories, and that's what I love the most about him. You don't get to learn a lot about him. There's just one episode of his backstory. And honestly.. that's enough for me. He remains the most mysterious and well written character in all anime to me because of that. The way he keeps distance from all the other characters, the way he doesn't ever get emotionally connected with (almost) any of the characters is just so human and real to me.

The other characters while being drawn in such a monotonous style, are some of the most memorable characters I've yet to see. I have no idea how they managed to
do that, even if you have so many different characters for every episode. I love it.


Enjoyment [9/10]: I have no idea what I should write in here. Well, you probably already know that I enjoyed the anime after reading me praise it so much. As everyone knows, enjoyment can vary from person to person and is just too subjective to write a lot of stuff about it. I enjoyed the whole relaxing vibe and the atmospheric style of the anime. Of course a person who mainly watches shounens and ecchi isn't going to enjoy this one all that much. But I'd still recommend it, atleast try the first few episodes.


Summary: Okay, so just to sum it up. Mushishi is one of my favorite anime of all time. The main things that I love about it is the artstyle, character design, and just the whole setting and atmosphere of the show. I recommend it to you if you just want some relaxing (but still well-written and not boring) anime to turn off your brain, lay down and just lose yourself in an anime that will treat YOU like the main character.

10/10