The series had normal episodes, and it had awesome episodes. It’s the same with the OVA. Episode 21 was perfect in every
single way. Episode 22 was amazing, despite its flaws. Episode 23 shows us a standard Mushishi-story again. It’s about a disease, which causes limbs and body-parts to become stiff and unmovable. It’s being spread through the voice of one girl. Ever since the girl found out that her voice spread the disease, she’s stopped talking. Though the disease remained. The girl has stopped talking for ten years now. It’s also one of the stories with a more happy end.
Still, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t love the episode. It’s still as calm as always, and the situation gets explained very quietly. It seems that the woman had been screaming at the top of her lungs inside a deserted cave, in order to ruin her voice. By the time this episode plays, she hasn’t quite lost it, though her voice does sound very creepy and sad. It’s probably one of the first times in anime that such a voice was added.
The great thing about this episode was the ending, though it does leave a few bugs. The girl had been isolated, as everyone thought of her as the culprit. There was one man, from another village who didn’t treat her that way. This man then fall off a cliff in the mountains, and she had no other choice than to cry for help, with her already distorted voice. That sounded too sad. It seems that to cure the disease, the woman had to scream towards the village, with the see straight behind her. She’ll probably have to scream for years in order to fully remove the disease, and her voice will most likely die before the disease does. It’s so awesome to see someone willing to give up her own voice in order to save others. Still, the way Ginko came to this conclusion bugs me. We get no clues to his plans until he reveals them. And the things that made him realize the solution don’t make any sense at all. And how come, in fourteen years, nobody has even bothered to go to the see and check what happens?!
Overall, another great Mushishi-episode. Not the best, but definitely enjoyable.
“And how come, in fourteen years, nobody has even bothered to go to the see and check what happens?!”
Yes. Exactly. They are people, and to make matters worse, they are japanese people.There’s a very fitting quote for those moments, by a contemporary russian sci-fi author Oleg Divov. I can’t conceive a good literary translation, but it goes like this: “Superior entities? Gimme a break! Every time I see an idiotic situation continuously preserved out of fear of it turning into even worse situation, I immediately see that our good old people, ordinary humans, are in charge.”
And the awesomeness of Mushishi is partly because it goes beyond usual philosophical truisms (we all just want to survive etc), which, while obviously correct, wouldn’t EVER make such an atmospheric mono no aware piece. Mushishi shows many dreadful and beautiful things about us without even putting them into words, what makes it so recognizeably bittersweet.