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They are kept at a distance. Coarse and mysterious, they seem to be different from the flora and fauna that are familiar to us. This group of strange-looking creatures has inflicted fear onto humans since long past, and have come to be called Mushi. Mushi-shi is an award winning manga and anime series, originally by Yuki Urushibara, animated by Artland. It follows Ginko, a Mushi master (Mushi-Shi) who studies Mushi in medieval Japan. Mushi are beings more spiritually and physically basic than the life we are familiar with, and their encounters with humanity can result in both blessings and tragedies. The anime adaptation originally aired in 2005, but we're now getting a sequel this Spring. Mushi-shi is the typically episodic tale of Ginko solving various Mushi-related mysteries in order to help people. In both the manga and anime this is accompanied with spectacular art and visuals, while the anime has some really excellent audio work. It's a very mellow series; sometimes quite light, sometimes quite dark. Much like the Mushi themselves. The atmosphere is extremely engrossing and well executed. Check out its ADTRWiki page. Manga
It was brought to North America by Del Rey, but it's currently out of print as far as I can tell; you may be able to find volumes online for rather unrealistic prices. That being said, you can get the volumes in eBook form for pretty cheap!
The anime was brought to North America by Funimation. It is available as an extremely cheap boxset, but also can be streamed for free on YouTube, Hulu, Funimation.com. You can also digitally purchase the series from Amazon. The dub is decent, but so is the original cast so it's really up to your personal taste in terms of the voice acting. I prefer the original cast personally! ADTRW Simulwatch from 2011
Funimation brought the live action film over as well, and it is mega cheap.
It was licensed and subtitled for streaming by Crunchyroll.
Still, I'm pretty pumped. The original series was very enjoyable for me, a nice mellow thing to watch and chill out with. I'm looking forward to more of that! It's being simultaneously streamed in the US via Crunchyroll While it's probably not necessary to have seen the original anime or the TV Special to give this a watch (continuity isn't a huge thing, and even the original series scrambled the order of events), I'd recommend doing so if only because they're great and why not? Please feel free to use this thread to talk about all things Mushi-shi. Zorak fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Apr 4, 2014 |
# ¿ Mar 17, 2014 03:28 |
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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 06:14 |
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I am hoping we get more episodes that swing in the other direction, personally. Maybe I'm weird, but I enjoy a good mellow tragedy, like the first season's The Pillow Pathway and Those Who Inhale the Dew.
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# ¿ Mar 17, 2014 04:29 |
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Squidster posted:I'd also like to stress that the soundtrack for this show is absolutely incredible. Yeah, I'm glad they got back Toshio Masuda back for this, his soundtrack and audio work really gave the original series a lot of its feel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjQQuXKuGJI
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# ¿ Mar 17, 2014 05:58 |
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Kanos posted:Is it ever explained why Ginko dresses in late 20th century modern clothing in an otherwise totally medieval Japanese setting, or is that merely a stylistic choice to help emphasize his connection with and study of the extraordinary? He doesn't really dress in clothing that's distinctively 20th century clothing; keep in mind a lot of that basic fashion he's wearing is 18th/19th century in origin. I believe the author has stated that Mushishi takes place during the Sakoku (when outsiders were being kept out of Japan), which lasted up until 1853. Even during that period, trade with outside powers (namely the Dutch) was still occurring, just in a very controlled and limited way. Presumably this is the origin of his microscope and what not, which was certainly around back then.
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2014 01:46 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Actually, he is dressed in 20th-century clothing. iirc, It's because Mushi-Shi was originally going to be set in modern day, but when the author re-wrote it to a feudal era he just left Ginko's outfit as-is. My point was more that given the period it's set in, his clothes isn't exactly alien to it even if he wasn't designed for it.
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# ¿ Mar 21, 2014 18:20 |
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I can never tell if those breaks help or hurt production. I guess if I can't tell the effect is overall negligible.
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# ¿ Mar 31, 2014 01:12 |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNJgBqFVoNI Mushi-Shi Season 2 OP Soundtrack is still great, and the animation quality is still good. Zorak fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Apr 4, 2014 |
# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 16:03 |
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Season 2, Episode 1 is available
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# ¿ Apr 4, 2014 17:24 |
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mikeycp posted:What are the odds of this getting a dub eventually? I got attached to the English voice cast and don't really want to switch over unless there isn't going to be another choice. Given that Funimation had licensed the previous series and doesn't seem to be associating with this one at all: extremely low.
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# ¿ Apr 5, 2014 02:23 |
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RyuujinBlueZ posted:Supposedly Aniplex of America has it licensed, though I don't know if that's just streaming or what. They seem to have gotten kind of slow about releasing dubs lately too, and for something like Mushi-Shi I could see it taking a couple years if ever. The thing is, most licensing companies only use dubbing studios that are local to them. Funimation is Texas based. I don't know where the hell Aniplex USA is located, but I'm guessing it's not Texas.
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# ¿ Apr 5, 2014 05:42 |
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Good episode. I enjoy a nice tragic Mushi-shi episode As always though, a lot of the problem here was driven by A Dumb Kid Being A Dumb Kid, really. Though the fact that its driven by the shock of his sister dying in his care is understandable. I like the detail they included about the fact that he ended up losing a bunch of fingers and toes; I was wondering with as much as they kept going on about frostbite if they'd just go "WELL THE MUSHI PROTECTED HIM and he got off scottfree for being a weirdo", but nah. Could have gone much worse for him, like the show said. It's really great how this season is basically like the original show never ended; it completely picks up the reins and keeps going with the same level of quality and writing as previous. Everything is just fantastic. Episode two in particular had some really great and good looking bits.
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# ¿ Apr 21, 2014 06:17 |
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paragon1 posted:So uh did the Mushi provide him with oxygen down there, or magically keep him alive somehow? I think the idea is that it put him in suspended animation. After all, it was lowering his body temperature abnormally, apparently it basically just shut him down for a bit.
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# ¿ Apr 21, 2014 07:52 |
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paragon1 posted:ice does not work that way. you know this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryopreservation SUPERNATURAL FANTASY CREATURES Zorak fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Apr 22, 2014 |
# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 04:20 |
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That episode ruled. The color palette (the greens and blacks that matched its theme of rot) and art was really great. It's really a great looking show. It doesn't ever have anything in the way of a lot of action typically, but it manages to always look stellar with what it does. Phobophilia posted:Ginko has his clothes and lenses, a few hunters have matchlocks. Guns existed during the period, they were used during the Warring States period. They wouldn't be common but they'd certainly be floating around. Zorak fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Apr 28, 2014 |
# ¿ Apr 28, 2014 06:06 |
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The thing that gets me is that even better than it feeling like Mushishi never went away, the new season is actually even better. The quality on these latest episodes have been insane.
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# ¿ May 2, 2014 05:45 |
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The fact that he's such a Mushi magnet that he basically causes devastation if he dwells in a location way too long sort of reinforces just how much Mushi and him are interconnected.
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# ¿ May 3, 2014 16:46 |
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Neddy Seagoon posted:I thought that was something that happened with all Mushi-shi, hence why they're all nomadic? Not really; we saw that blind girl's Mushi-shi father who only traveled because he was looking for cases but ostensibly had a home, and there was that village Mushi-shi who got a gullet full of cold fire who never left her village. If someone is a Mushi magnet, their wandering lifestyle + ability to interact with the Mushi just makes for a good Mushi-shi. Hence why Ginko was taken in by one after joining that one band for awhile. I mean, technically anyone who works on Mushi-related anythings could probably count as a Mushi-shi even, and we saw a lot of those who never left their village ever. The only one who was a Mushi magnet like Ginko that we saw was the one who became the Mountain Guardian in order to set down roots.
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# ¿ May 3, 2014 17:00 |
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Fantastic looking episode as always, though it's accomplished in part because they're very good at using interesting still shots before the threshold of where you notice it. The show is pretty drat static, just not noticeably so. The shots are always paced very well. I dunno if you can really call this week's episode not a "downer", even if the ending wasn't bad. Yeah it was about overcoming depression, but that thing that made her depressed in the first place was fairly "Oh, I wouldn't want to marry a girl like you. Haha maybe I'll be around again sometime." Dude wasn't exploitative or anything, just a jerk. Meanwhile, it's sort of interesting how Ginko responded to her despair. Ginko reflects that it is indeed sad to have no ability or will to impact the world, and that the world of the Mushi sort of embodies that. And that essentially is his world. He is a wanderer without a home, a past, and really any value in other people's lives. He wanders into people's lives occasionally and saves the day, but does he really have a life himself? The show is ultimately not about him or anything he desires or wants or feels. Beyond the first episode of the first season, we very seldom see him do something purely out of self-interest, and even then it is an extension of the craft he participates in. He's an ephemeral member of the mundane world and mundane people's lives. Just like the Mushi.
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# ¿ May 5, 2014 08:17 |
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That was a really good episode, yeah. They're really just knocking it continually out of the park this season
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# ¿ May 13, 2014 04:05 |
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aers posted:Today's Mushishi episode is a live-action talk show with the director and cast explaining some things. Crunchyroll doesn't appear to be subbing it. Just a heads up. Dumb that Crunchy is skipping it, that sounds interesting.
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# ¿ May 16, 2014 20:22 |
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aers posted:Mushishi is not airing again this week. Laaame. Is something going wrong with the production?
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# ¿ May 29, 2014 15:37 |
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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 06:14 |
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aers posted:The production delays are why 2 episodes are BD-only. Those episodes better end up online and subtitled
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# ¿ Jun 23, 2014 04:52 |