Another brilliant story. This time it focused even mre about the delicate relationship between humans and Mushi. In most episodes, the Mushi-incidents are just coincidental meetings between humans and mushi, which sortof go wrong. This time, however, we have an accident happening between people who knew very well what they were getting themselves into, and they were aware of the huge risks.
Two girls, who can see mushi, move in with an old man, to help him maintain an ingenious mail-system which makes use of certain mushi. This one lives in a silk-cocoon made by two caterpillars, instead of one. That means that these cocoons are made out of two wires, intead of one. The mushi living inside these cocoons can teleport itself from one location through another. In this case, these locations are marked with the two wires. So, that means, if you seal them, put them in nice packages and make a small opening for the messages to go in and out, you have an alternative to e-mail.
Of course, a lot can go wrong, and if you’re not careful, even humans can get teleported. At least, they they vanish and get stuck in the “timespace” between the two locations the mushi is traveling. That’s what happens in this episode. I like the way she vanished. In normal anime, there would be some kind of slow-motion scene, with lots of action, close-ups, yelling and heavy music. Mushishi, however, brings it far more naturally than I could’ve imagined.
Anyway, that person’s twin-sister carried over the old man’s business when he died, hoping to find her sister one day. Five years pass, and during that time she meets Ginko (we don’t get to see that moment, by the way). After those five years, she still hasn’t been able to forget, and she’s still hoping for a safe return. Ginko tries to talk her out of it and to give up. At this point, I thought that the “just give up”-bit might’ve been used a bit too much in Mushishi. The ending totally changed my mind.
The ending of this episode was, like almost every other Mushishi episode, brilliant. Probably even one of the best. It was so extremely adorable, accompanied by some very fitting background music. Not to mention the fact that the ending was open, though everything felt resolved.
I just finished this episode and like many of you I had several questions. So I watched afain and I think I have the answer. Aya knew she lost her sister to the Uro under the blanket. That Uro returned to the caves with Ito to be lost. The Uro however can stilll return to the world. So Ayo sent her letter to every Uro she captured from that day on. So years later she was released by a woman heating up an Uro she thought was a silk worm. So Ito returned….but why did she have Aya’s letter? Either Aya or Ginko left one in the tunnels for her to find or and old Uro was discarded and returned to the caves with the Ayas letter since It was the last letter Aya would send to Ginko before she would make him a replacement.
Hope this helps or opens more thoughts
Mushishi episode 17 Ito returning?