Mushishi – 26 – Sadly, This Anime Has Ended

Seriously. Mushishi managed to pick an AWESOME story for the final episode. It’s sad to see this anime finally go, one year after it started airing. Hoping for a second season would be rather false hope. Still, this show has been awesome. Definitely something to recommend to anyone.

The story mostly takes place during Ginko’s youth. He’s spending his time living in a certain village, while the main character of this story lives a few mountains further. He’s the son of the owner of the mountain. his father has been protecting the mountain for his entire life, as it, accompanied by a strange, coloured living fog, is full of life. If people were to mess with it, this balance would be disturbed.

That’s what happens when the episode progresses. The boy also gets befriended with the child-version of a certain traveller, which I could swear I’ve seen before. The boy is rather arrogant, being the son of an important person, though this young traveller seems to change his mind. They travel, based on the coloured fog. It’s some kind of way for the mountain to tell how it’s feeling. Then, at one point, the boy’s father dies. Even though his will said that the boy would inherit the entire mountain, his relatives all snatched it away, and made plans to destroy the mountain, for the sake of their village.

Because of this, the fog disappears, and so the young traveller has to top visiting the mountain. His grandfather, whom he travels with, also picked up a suspicious white-haired boy. This white-haired boy also gets abandoned, along with the mountain, and he join another Mushishi as a novice. Before he leaves, he explains a few things to the boy. That the group of travellers consists out of people who were kicked out of their villages because of the Mushi.

Then, we turn to the present. The buy has grown up, and the mountain didn’t do too well after the fog disappeared. Five months after what happened, a volcano erupted, destroying the mountain. The main character has tried to restore the mountain, but things aren’t going too well due to the absence of the fog. Children also are born weakly, because of the Mushi. The episode ends with Ginko and the main character meeting each other again.

I really loved this episode of Mushishi. It definitely was one of the better ones, and that has to say something. Ginko’s role in this also was a great one. He’s really just a bystander, not related to the main story at all. It also takes a time for him to remember the main character of this story, which was a very interesting detail.