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Putting my voice in for praising whoever bought the banner; I had no idea there were going to be any additional episodes made beyond the first season, but holy poo poo thank you for pointing me towards the new stuff! Mushi-shi has long been my favorite anime because of the aforementioned meditative qualities of the show. While the concept of mushi is surely grounded in Shinto beliefs, the way Ginko approaches them seems to be heavily influenced by Taoism, and that strikes a very personal chord in me. He treats mushi as nothing more than natural phenomena, to be appreciated for that singular quality. He actively discourages harmful interference with mushi and their habits while encouraging people's awareness of them to further their ability to live in harmony with them. Ginko is like a walking manifestation of wu-wei (action without action), and the koumyaku (light vein/river of light) is, in my opinion, a sort of physical or ethereal manifestation of the Tao itself. Ginko's loss of everything, including his memory; leading to his linking up with a group that follows the koumyaku around; and eventually Ginko's wandering nature, the primary purpose of which is to better understand mushi; all represents a metaphor for the Taoist sage. That is, shedding what one knows of worldly matters, learning of the Tao and its vastness and interconnectedness, and contemplating the Tao for a lifetime while teaching others how to live in harmony with the natural order of the universe. Less heady stuff: it's a pretty cool show, and beautiful to boot. I picked up all ten volumes of the manga during a trip to Japan a number of years ago with the intention of attempting to read and/or translate them, but never got around to doing it. When I lent them to my host father, he read one or two volumes and said while they weren't really his thing, they were neat stories. Specifically, and I'll never forget this, he summed them up in one word: nostalgic. I'm way out of practice at this point so there's no hope for me of reading them in the original Japanese, but I'm happy to have them on my bookshelf regardless. Here's a money-shot of them on my host-family's floor: 
Baron Fuzzlewhack fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Jun 2, 2014 |
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Jun 2, 2014 04:40
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That seems about right, yes. If you remember back in season 1, there was a mushi-shi named Mujika who took over as mountain lord/guardian of his mountain for a time, and he basically tended to the mountain's health, making sure all the creatures and humans living there kept a balance. The last episode of season 1 featured a catfish mountain lord, too. If I remember correctly, both mountains were in the path of the light vein, like the one featured in this most recent episode. I guess guardians for mountains on the path of the light vein is A Thing.
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Jul 2, 2014 00:51
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Finally caught up on and finished the season. I was so glad to have a story with a happy ending after all the melancholy from most of the second half of the season. Supposedly the movie (Bell Droplets) premiered May 16th. Any word on whether or not Crunchyroll will get it?
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Jun 11, 2015 17:56
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