(L) Mushishi

[karumofin]

im used to it, it happens to all my fav shows >_<
i just hope the fansubbers dont forget about mushishi, like they forgot about kino no tabi, of which the full movie version hasnt even been translated to this very day -_-

[nixie]

Sweet, Mushishi won this year's Kodansha award for General section.

[Lost]

Originally Posted by karumofin

im used to it, it happens to all my fav shows >_<
i just hope the fansubbers dont forget about mushishi, like they forgot about kino no tabi, of which the full movie version hasnt even been translated to this very day -_-

Erm.. are you refering to Life Goes On?

And don't worry, the last 6 episodes will be subbed. (")b
i'm not speaking for any groups, and of course its still up to them, but we have their word that it'll be done.

[karumofin]

Originally Posted by Lost

Erm.. are you refering to Life Goes On?

And don't worry, the last 6 episodes will be subbed. (")b
i'm not speaking for any groups, and of course its still up to them, but we have their word that it'll be done.

thats good to know...
and yeah thats the movie i meant. there were two versions of the movie: one "trailer" from some anime expo, thats half an hour long and one real movie, thats much longer. the only versions ive seen were half an hour long, so feel free to correct me if youve seen the full version ;/
( http://kino.ming-ling.net/anime-movie.html <-- there you go, this article is talking about the special 30 minutes entama version that ive seen )

[CelesAurivern]

Originally Posted by karumofin

one real movie, thats much longer.

Are you aware what content that supposed real movie contains?

[chucky]

Anyone watched episode 21 yet?

[Emil Scherbe]

I found Chinese sub is out already.

Spoiler:

Is Ginko a 匪夷所思的生物?

[Snoop']

Yeah, I was going to ask that too.
IIRC, according to the official site, ep.21 was planned on 05/21, but the usual people haven't posted anything here yet, and I can't find the raws (thought I would try a healthy raw for once) on the usual sites...

@Emil Scherbe : Ginko is a something-something-thinking-life-form ? No waaaaay...

[wao]

Yeah, strange - it's not on a certain library. I'm getting it off wheenie now, it's easier to find because a. it aired quite some time ago and b. MUshishi's kind of popular, even though now it's on BS Fuji.

I'll post about it when I get it - I wonder what the production will be like? But I already know the story, and it almost creeped me out when I first read it - hopefully it will be more impactful in its animated form. Actually, with all the noises and the movement... I imagine it would be rather creepy >_<

EDIT: Emil Scherbe, how is Ginko an unimaginably strange living being?

[Snoop']

I found a few Chinese subs, so I'll download the 100MB version, just to be able to watch it soon (and learn Chinese XDDDD). Before replacing it with C1 or ANBU's releases, of course.


BTW, I have a question : the episodes display "made in Hi Vision", so this means that it is actually aired in HD ? But my Mushishi DVDs are in the usual def... I pay to have the episodes in a lower quality than what is aired on TV ? Oh noes !

[wao]

I just watched ep 21 - very well done, the continuity and pacing were very carefully thought out and the result was pleasing. The animation was like the good eps of the previous batch of episodes - very slow, careful but smooth movement, and there were some good areas too: mostly Aki's reactions in a particular part and the Watahiko transforming. The faces looked great - except for some shots where the couple didn't have faces for a while, which is a commonly-used money-saving trick, but still, it looked very distracting... However it's all made up for how awesome Ginko looked this episode! It's not just sticking to the models but managing to bring out the essence of the design. He felt very Ginko-ish today.

The Watahiko, by the way, are voiced by Honey-sempai's seiyuu, it's a little freaky in a way For seiyuu nuts there's Tomoko Kawakami in this episode too so do check it out, there's good voice acting as usual.

A quick summary (not in the order that the episode went in) would be

Spoiler:

When going to her house after her marriage, Aya noticed a strange spot on her bridal gown. Later when she tried to have a child with her husband Yasuke, she didn't give birth to a child, but to a disgusting looking pile of green slob. This pile then proceeded to slither its way out of the house in the most terrifying fashion, scaring the midwife at the same time, and unbeknownst to the couple it had slid underneath the house.
A year later, the couple are sleeping on futon on the floor, when Yasuke hears a scratching noise coming from the floor. He goes outside and looks underneath the house to see where the noise is coming from, when he finds a small baby sitting there.
The couple adopt the baby as their own, Aya being convinced that it's their baby from a year ago. The baby is cute and healthy-looking, with the exception that its hair is a strange green.
As time passes they notice that the child's physical growth is very fast - within a year, it looks like it's 3 years old. However, inside it still thinks and acts just as if it was a baby. They name this child Watahiko (Wata means cotton, and -hiko is a common part of boy's names, e.g. Toshihiko, Toyohiko, Kazuhiko.)
And then as if that wasn't enough, another night a year later, the couple hear a cat yowling outside and when Yasuke goes out to shoo it away, he sees what hte cat was yowling at - another baby underneath the house.
This goes on for 5 years, with one baby each year and the couple adopting them (Yasuke being rather worried but Aya being blissful), until their eldest child Watahiko starts developing strange green spots on his skin and falls sick.
They call a doctor who, of course, is of no help, but then they heard about Ginko and decided to ask him to come. But when he comes, he informs them that there's nothing mushishi can do about this case, and explains to them the truth of the matter: the cause is a mushi called Watahaki (cotton + vomit) that looks like green cotton and floats around in the air. It enters the body of any pregnant human it sees, and leeches off the ovum. When it's born it comes out slimy, but then moves very quickly to places like under the house or among the rafters. After one year it sends out a "Hitotake" (person + mushroom) in the form of a baby human, to its "parents". After that it simply continues multiplying, but just to be sure, Ginko checks under the house.

As he expected, he sees a large swath of large green patches where the Watahaki is thriving. Yasuke doesn't believe him so Ginko takes out a clump of mud from there and puts it in Yasuke's hand to see what happens when it comes into contact with sunlight - it squiggles around and zooms back underneath the house, freaking Yasuke out (this bit had smooth animation).

It turns out Watahiko is actually entering his final stage as a part of Watahaki, and will eventually break down and die - upon which he will vomit out lots and lots of "seeds" of the Watahaki, which would be very dangerous, and if they let it happen it would be very irresponsible on their part. The only way to solve this, unfortunately, would be to kill Watahiko.

After much persuasion Ginko is allowed to inject poison into Watahiko, where he says that he's sorry - and it's okay if they hate him. While Watahiko's dead body is being burned, Yasuke pleads to Ginko to let him be able to rear the other children until they develop the green patches and then kill them,rather than kill them now, otherwise Aya would be very sad. Ginko warns him that the lifespan of the Watahaki could be 10 to 30 years, and they'd have to keep doing this all the time, but Yasuke says it's fine b them. Aya's been calling the other 4 kids Watahiko and taking good care of them, and it seems like it's because in a previous marriage she managed to give birth to the long-desired heir, but after 1 year the child died from some slight problem, leaving her devastated. (That was also why she left her hometown.)
Ginko says that if all of the Watahaki's "children" get killed off, it usually solves the problem and there have been no records of new problems arising after that. But he won't be able to say whether the current situation will stay the same or change. Yasuke is desparate to not kill his children, however, and begs Ginko, who replies by saying he's generally not supportive of the "kill everything you don't understand" attitude himself. So Ginko leaves his contact behind and goes off, telling Yasuke that he'll be back in 3 months but if anything goes wrong while he's away, to send him a letter.

But in less than 3 months the letter came, and Ginko arrives at their house once again. Unbeknownst to everyone, the Watahiko are secretly communicating with each other: "He's here - that guy - we'll get killed. No it's okay - nothing to worry" and then the youngest child creepily says "He's coming" to Aya.

Ginko enters the house, and Aya greets him very politely... and then proceeds to stab him in the stomach.

It seems like even after a lot of persuasion, when Yasuke even thought that he had finally convinced her, Aya was still unwilling to keep killing her children. This time it was worse than before because their fourth child was peeling chestnuts, something they only taught their second child how to do, and with a lot of effort as well. Yet this fourth child learned it simply by imitating the second child - it seemed as if it had gained some sort of knowledge.
The clincher came when the 2nd child came in, wet from the rain, and said "Father - I'm hungry." even though none of them could speak before.
And when the 2nd child started getting the symptoms and Yasuke tried to inject him with poison... it looked up at him and said "I'm scared to die - Don't kill me - Save me - I want to live" and it was impossible for Yasuke to kill it because it had become so much like a human being.

Ginko (recovering from the stab) theorizes that somehow or the other, the Watahiko (Hitotake), all from one Watahaki, managed to communicate what they observed to each other and made a group decision sort of thing - so when one learned something after a long process he just had to share it around the rest and they would know it too. It seems like the Hitotake are all connected to the Watahaki like some sort of central system.

The Watahiko start saying ot each other that they've failed and they've forgotten what they had learned, but there was one way out of it and they were oging to find it. One of them sneakily reads Ginko's books (maki) at night....

Ginko injects poison into the sick Watahiko, even though it tries the same routine again - "Don't kill me, why must you kill me" etc. Ginko replies that it's pointless and that they just have to die, to which the Watahiko says that they didn't do anything wrong, and Ginko says that well, we humans haven't done anything wrong either. But humans are stronger, hence you have to die. And the Watahiko accepts this, but...

It seems like it's time for PLan B, so the other Watahiko have poured oil around the edge of the house, and set it on fire. It turns out that this is something that they learned from reading Ginko's book and in the future, since htey've done this once they'd be able to do it more naturally the next time. They say they're doing it to protect the "seeds"....

Aya tries desparately to get to the Watahiko in the flames, but when she sees them they're encircled by fire, and after they take one last look at her they morph into a strange green mist and disappear.

Later Ginko is rummaging around the charred remains of the house when he finds something interesting. He explains to the couple that in case of a
disaster the Watahaki cuts off all the "Hitotake" and all the "roots" (the physical thing under the house that produces the Hitotake) are destroyed. The "Hitotake" would then turn into little seeds ("tane") and enter a long, deep sleep.

So Ginko opens his hand and shows Aya what he found - a "tane". It looks like a strange clenched-up green ball. Who knows when it may reawaken - it could be very well past Aya and Yasuke's lifetime. He tells them to take care of it and make sure it doesn't get into the wrong hands or anything, and then leaves.

While Ginko's walking along he's carrying a bottle with a strange liquid in it that forms a face, and it's actually another one of the Hitotake that hasn't turned into a tane yet. It asks Ginko what he gave to Aya and Yasuke, and he says he gave them a mineral. Even though it was a part of their lifestyle, now they had lost everything. So the Hitotake wonders why he did that, and comments that he (Ginko) is a very inexplicable being. And Ginko makes a -_- face () and says that the Hitotake shouldn't be saying that - and shouldn't it be going to sleep about now? [I should be going to sleep about now!!] Going by the records of previous Hitotake, it should have gone to sleep now.
But the Hitotake replies that it doesn't know - for some reason, it's not sleepy.
In fact, it asks, what about Ginko? Why doesn't Ginko kill him right now when he's got the opportunity?
Ginko replies that it's because the Hitotake still has got a life.
To which the Hitotake says, again: What an inexplicable being you are.
Ginko tells it to just go to sleep already.

....With that, I suppose I should go to sleep already too, I don't know how I found myself typing that out...

[Cal-Reflector]

Downloading chinese sub now... sigh, I've read this episode before in manga, another very tragic tale, perhaps even the most disturbing of the Ginko tales yet.

Edit: Definitely the darkest, most disturbing, possibly most "violent" episode of Mushishi so far. We get a rare look at Ginko when he enters non-pacifist mode, settling for nothing less than a "total annhilation" policy against problematic mushi, who, to Ginko's credit, in this case pose a very direct threat to the people they affect. A life-and-death struggle episode, if there ever was one in Mushishi.

[Muir Woods]

Heh heh, Emil Scherbe I think we saw the same Chinese sub, as I read that very same line at the end. I raised an amused eyebrow at that. And wao, you call that a "quick summary"? More like detailed record to me . Anyways episode 21 comments.

Spoiler for Brief episode 21 thoughts:

Let's get the first and foremost impression out of the way: Hurray, more Ginko goodness. I thought the very blunt and raw conversation between the dying Watahiko and Ginko; the "Save me. Don't kill me. I don't want to die." pleas, Ginko's defeating words and the boy's languid acceptance, was a powerful scene (I acknowledge the good voiceacting that made it work). I felt the tragedy of the unfortunate situation and conflict most strongly there. I wasn't too disturbed, intrigued as usual would be a more accurate word. Perhaps I'm already desensitized/expecting peculiarity that is the norm from Mushishi. I read the manga chapter as well, actually, more like skimmed through it, as I really have no choice since English translations are not that far there. I sort of wish I didn't know ahead of time that Ginko was going to be stabbed, as maybe then upon viewing the animated happenstance for the first time might have had a bigger impact on me. Oh well.

[jin_saotome]

I have to say Mushishi has become one of my favorite Anime of all time. At first I was kinda "yeah so what", but the style and freshness of it pulled me back. Eventually I started to wonder what a game based on Mushishi would be like.

The game would have five towns with eight major pathways connecting them. The game would be a persistant one in which the player travels game's universe helping those in need of the player's services. Once a scenario starts the gameplay becomes something like the DS game Phoenix Wright, in that the player must put together clues found in the village and in the player's Mushi database to determine the cause of problem facing the village or NPC. At that point the game becomes more like Trauma center or some other mini game in which the player fixes the problem.

At the end of the scenario the player leaves the area (If he/she chooses to) and goes to any of the other four villages. The game would have an Animal Crossing feel to it, in that a Mushi pandemic could break out in a village, whether or not the player is there. If the player spends all of their time in one area of the game the other villages will be destroyed. But every village can be restored through some cumbersome process, in hopes that the player will check in with each village every once and a while. This will keep the roam the lands feel of the game alive. Also every pathway between villages would be different. One could be a lake, another a mountian or green valley, etc.

I know this could never happen, but it's fun to dream.

[Cal-Reflector]

Originally Posted by jin_saotome

I have to say Mushishi has become one of my favorite Anime of all time. At first I was kinda "yeah so what", but the style and freshness of it pulled me back. Eventually I started to wonder what a game based on Mushishi would be like.

The game would have five towns with eight major pathways connecting them. The game would be a persistant one in which the player travels game's universe helping those in need of the player's services. Once a scenario starts the gameplay becomes something like the DS game Phoenix Wright, in that the player must put together clues found in the village and in the player's Mushi database to determine the cause of problem facing the village or NPC. At that point the game becomes more like Trauma center or some other mini game in which the player fixes the problem.

At the end of the scenario the player leaves the area (If he/she chooses to) and goes to any of the other four villages. The game would have an Animal Crossing feel to it, in that a Mushi pandemic could break out in a village, whether or not the player is there. If the player spends all of their time in one area of the game the other villages will be destroyed. But every village can be restored through some cumbersome process, in hopes that the player will check in with each village every once and a while. This will keep the roam the lands feel of the game alive. Also every pathway between villages would be different. One could be a lake, another a mountian or green valley, etc.

I know this could never happen, but it's fun to dream.

Coming to Play Station 3 near you... who knows, with the critical acclaim its received, it just might happen. Throw me in some continuation from scenarios presented in the anime and appearances by Shinra, Renzu, Suzu, and Tanyuu, and I'll plunk down the big money for that console.

[Snoop']

Don't forget Sui (ep.2) in the PS3 game !
Or actually, what about something like "Mushi - catch'em all !" : 2 versions, 250 sorts of Mushi, you make them fight and evolve in order to be the ultimate Mushi Master !


Mmh, I didn't know that Ginko reads 銀古 in Chinese... And BTW the fansubbing team (KKDM, was it ?) spelled Watahiko 渡彦, which I find odd.
And since Mushishi second season doesn't air on a public channel, there are very few blogs commenting on it... How sad. (my personal fav is this one)

Spoiler for Ep.21 thoughts:

This episode was... SCARY. Even more than ep.4 (the Pillow Lane). Seeing the Watahikos gathering silently in the house awakens the fear of the Stranger, which slumbers deep down in everyone of us. The episode music was creepy and excellent, as well as the voice acting and the animation.
Eh, I wanted to comment on much more things (Ginko's "I wanna go back" after he was stabbed, the fight for survival...), but I'm too tired. Good night y'all.

[Lost]

Originally Posted by Cal-Reflector

Coming to Play Station 3 near you... who knows, with the critical acclaim its received, it just might happen. Throw me in some continuation from scenarios presented in the anime and appearances by Shinra, Renzu, Suzu, and Tanyuu, and I'll plunk down the big money for that console.

It sounds like a game that seems more suited for the PC. Somewhat like Myst? Or TES4:Oblivion

Anyway I'm very very happy Mushishi is continuing so fast (imagine having to wait till Sep); I wonder how I'll cope when it really ends Truly a beautiful Anime. (so much so i'm getting the raws. something i've never done. never.)

And thanks wao for the episode synopsis it sounds much creepier than usual

[AisuruMirai]

Originally Posted by wao

For seiyuu nuts...

Hey, that's ME!

Originally Posted by wao

there's Tomoko Kawakami

WOW!
---------------------------------------------

Thanks for the summary, wao. I just watched the raw & will read it after I get some sleep. How very kind of you,　相変わらず。

では、
アイスル未来
---------------------------------------------

EDIT: By the way, I looked at the Ginko art & especially liked the one in the WP folder w/ this title: 1146073821208. I thought, "Hey, that looks like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou." & guess what? It was done by Ashinano Hitoshi, the author of YKK, which, in February of this year, ended its run in Afternoon, in which Mushishi is published.

[Rion]

Originally Posted by AisuruMirai

I thought, "Hey, that looks like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou." & guess what?

XD It's a little bit weird and funny to read this when you used this wallpaper for a few months about 2 years ago. Well yes, it is my favourite wallpaper of the whole collection ^^ (There were more "Afternoon mangaka drawing other Afternoon manga"-wallpaper)

[Muir Woods]

Anyone else saw the extra episode called Mushishi "Digest"? This "episode" consisted of short clips from various regular episodes of Mushishi, and interviews of some of the key people behind the Mushishi animation, along with a brief glimpse into the tangible creation of the Mushishi animation, with Ginko's voice actor, Yuto Nakano, as the narrator throughout the episode. Hiroshi Nagahama (overall director), Toshio Masuda (music), Takeshi Waki (art director), Kazuya Tanaka (sound director) were the interviews presented. I thought it was a pretty enlightening watch; to hear the creators comment on Mushishi and the aspect of their work, and to listen to Ginko's voice actor explaining the work and the world of Mushishi. I think my appreciation for Mushishi has just gone up a bit from viewing this report.