welcome to midori/green
a natural history of Mushishi
August 2009 update: Funimation has acquired the North American distribution rights to the Mushishi
live-action movie,
which goes on sale August 25th '09.
Buy it through RightStuf here.
==The Mushishi manga began translated publication in the USA through Del Rey Manga in January 2007.==
Episodes--26
Director--Hiroshi Nagahama
Scripts: Aki Itami, Yuka Yamada, Kinuko Kuwabata
Art director: Takeshi Waki (formerly of Samurai Champloo, where he showed a similar love of landscapes)
Based on the manga by Yuki Urushibara
First episode aired October 22, 1005 in Japan; final episode June 18, 2006
At the 2005 Tokyo Anime Awards Mushishi was one of the award winners for best television anime;
Takeshi Waki was awarded Best Art Direction.
I don't often get to say this: Mushishi is unique. I've never seen anything remotely like it. Delicate, subtle, quiet and beautiful,
it's both supernatural and super-natural: an adventure into the mystery of life and living things, with
deep roots in both the vast and the microscopic levels of the natural world.
Never loud in any way, its palette in calm earth tones, it can be as chilling as the best ghost story and as wondrous as the Milky Way, and gently funny and touching as well.
It's simply wonderful.
It follows the travels of one Ginko, who is by profession a Mushishi: a position "partway between entomologist and shaman", devoted to the study of the mysterious creatures called Mushi.
The name actually means "bugs", but the Mushi are not insects--nor microbes, or plants, or any other creature. They are emanations of the heart of life itself, pure organic life, close to its source.
They have more forms and powers than anyone has ever counted, and the Mushishi exist to study them and unravel the problems that can be caused when human beings cross their path. The Mushi are a
fascinating creation: never treated as cute or funny but always with deep respect and even awe, they are unknowable forces of nature, weather, life and death. Some eat clouds and cause snow; some eat sound,
and the silence caused by the lack of that sound; some enter human dreams and bring them into reality. In one of the series' loveliest, most haunting images, they form a ceaseless, glowing river under the surface of the earth,
a shining stream of pure life-energy and light--the Luminosity. To look at it for too long will take away your sight, but some have willingly paid that price, among them Ginko himself. The Mushishi are the only ones who can divine a Mushi's involvement in the human world and bring about its cure.
The official Mushishi website, "Mushi Space"(in Japanese).
The episodes by title.
A Field Guide to the Mushi.
The Art of Mushishi.