MUSHI-SHI The Next Passage

Fans waited almost nine years for this. The first Mushishi anime ended in 2006, and in April 2014 the story finally came back as Mushishi: The Next Passage (in Japanese, Zoku-Sho). The same team returned. Director Hiroshi Nagahama, the studio Artland, composer Toshio Masuda, and the main voice cast all came back. This entry is the first half of the new series, with 10 episodes that aired from April to June 2014. A second half followed in the fall. The show is based on the award-winning manga by Yuki Urushibara, which ran from 1999 to 2008.

The world looks like the Japanese countryside long ago. There are small villages, deep forests, rice fields, snowy mountains, and quiet seaside towns. People live simple lives close to nature. But in this world there are also mushi. Mushi are very basic forms of life, older and simpler than plants or animals. Most people cannot see them at all. They are not good or evil. They just live by their own nature, the way rain falls or a river flows. Still, when a mushi gets too close to people, odd things can happen. A person might lose their hearing, see strange lights, fall into a long sleep, or change in ways no doctor can explain.

The man who helps in these cases is Ginko. He is a mushi-shi, a kind of expert who studies mushi and knows how to deal with them. Ginko has white hair and one green eye, and he wears modern clothes that look out of place in old Japan. He walks from village to village with a wooden box of tools and notes on his back. He also smokes all the time. His smoke is special, because it keeps mushi away. Mushi are drawn to Ginko, so he can never stay in one place for long.

Each episode is mostly its own story. Ginko arrives in a new place, meets the people there, and learns about a problem. He listens carefully and looks for the cause. Often, there is no villain to defeat. Instead, Ginko tries to find a way for people and mushi to live side by side. Sometimes he can fix things. Sometimes he cannot, and the ending is bittersweet. The real focus is usually the villagers, with their families, losses, hopes, and choices.

The show is a calm and gentle experience. The art is soft and full of natural color, and the music is quiet and peaceful. It feels a bit like reading old folk tales by a fire. Some people call this kind of show iyashikei, which means a relaxing, healing story. At the same time, Mushishi can be eerie and sad, and it makes you think about life, death, and our place in nature.

You can enjoy this season without watching the first one, since each story stands alone. Still, fans of the 2005 series will be happy to see that nothing has been lost. Critics have praised Mushishi as one of the best anthology anime ever made.