Die Welt ist voller rätselhafter Wesen, Bedrohung und Wunder zugleich. Weder Tier noch Pflanze, leben sie eng im Einklang mit der Natur. Nur die wenigsten Menschen können sie sehen oder wissen um ihre Existenz. Man nennt sie: „Mushi“.
Gleich einem Fluch hat die Stimme eines jungen Mädchens eine entsetzliche Krankheit in einem kleinen, abgeschiedenen Dorf ausbrechen lassen. Doch um das Mädchen zu retten, muss sich Ginko nicht nur den Mushi, sondern auch den rachsüchtigen Dorfbewohnern entgegenstellen …
Yuki Urushibara (漆原友紀) is a Japanese manga artist from Yamaguchi Prefecture. She is best known for the series Mushishi, for which she received an Excellence Prize for manga at the 2003 Japan Media Arts Festival and the 2006 Kodansha Manga Award for general manga.
She is also known by the pen name Soyogo Shima (志摩 冬青 Shima Soyogo).
This is a beautifully drawn series of vignettes about Mushi, a primitive life-form that is much closer to the line between plant and animal than other forms of life. Not everyone can see mushi, but anyone can accidentally intersect with them – usually with problematic results. Our guide on this journey is Ginko, a Mushi-shi or Mushi-Master. Ginko moves through a world tinged with mushi – he smokes constantly, because without the smoke, mushi would swarm around him, making life for other humans miserable or even dangerous.
These stories were inspired by old superstitions and legends of Japan. There are mushi that cluster like patches of rust, slowing the people of a village like true rust freezes metal hinges. There are mushi that can hibernate for millions of years until moisture on an ink stone frees them. This volume gives us the origin of Ginko the Mushi-Master, although Ginko does not remember all his own story – mushi have stolen his past even as they give him a special future.
We see all of the mushi as Ginko makes his way through a world tinted by the presence of The Other. Ginko is a rare mushi master, convinced that it is not always necessary to kill mushi. His goal is to help humans live with mushi – and avoid the most dangerous of their breed.
This is sort of like someone writing out the riddles in Patricia McKillip’s The Riddlemaster of Hed. If you enjoy the manga, you should rent some of the anime – they did a beautiful, award-winning interpretation of the original work. Remember that manga are black & white illustrated digest-sized Japanese comic books, so you’ll be admiring line work, not colorization.
The stories are clever and unusual. I'm getting a little sick of not knowing anything about Ginko, though. His personality is incredibly flat, as if he's just serving as a source for infodumps. I'd like to know more about him. Even the history we get in the last story--there's not much of HIM there, just what happened to him. His lack of a personality is in high relief when he does something unusual, such as the final disposition of the Narazu seed, it's kind of a surprise.
Having said that, I'm still giving it four stars because the mushi themselves are so unusual and clever, and I like the artwork. Book 4 is currently on order.
A short little backstory of Ginko at the end. It's also a little sad to know that he forgot everything that happened before he became Ginko, and maybe he never got those memories back. To think that he can't also stay in a place for too long and has to wander around because of his ability to attract mushi, he's such a solitary character.
As the series goes on, at least one of the stories (in Vol. 2 & 3) seem to be horror manga, which I'm not normally fan of, but it is interesting to read all the same. I like how I got more background into the main character. I liked the story about the inkstone and the slightly creepy story "The Heavy Seed" about the extra tooth and the rice harvest. Though I must say, I think one of the most interesting parts in this series is the extra information in the back that explains why the author wrote what he did in this particular series and translation notes and why he used certain words or phrases. It's always fascinating to see how the creative process works.
Tengo que hacer una mención especial a la historia de Ginko. Ha sido desastrosa y hermosa; sobre cómo dejamos atrás a los que queremos y sobre cómo afrontamos los grandes pesares de nuestras vidas.
Avec toujours la même régularité et la même recette, Yuki Urushibara nous propose une suite d’histoires déchirantes et émouvantes sur le rapport des japonais à leur nature et à leur folklore. Une superbe réussite !
Je ne mollis pas et j’enchaîne avec ce tome 3 pour mon plus grand plaisir où je retrouve tout ce que j’ai aimé jusqu’à présent, de la poésie de l’autrice jusqu’à l’âpreté de ses histoires. C’est vraiment une plongée dans un Japon traditionnel doux-amer qui me plaît énormément. J’aime côtoyer Ginko, partir sur les routes avec lui et plonger dans les mystères de ces campagnes japonaises d’autres remplies de drôles de créatures discrètes mais aux actions ô combien visibles.
Cette fois, le dépaysement est encore plus grand puisque nous voyageons du bord de la mer jusque dans les montagnes, avec à chaque fois des légendes différentes, des créatures différentes et des mystères différents à pencher. Le seul bémol viendrait peut-être du trait de l’autrice qui fait que chaque personnage secondaire se ressemble, ce qui fait qu’on a l’impression de les avoir déjà croisés alors que ce n’est pas le cas. Troublant. Pour le reste, j’ai encore adoré le ton très poétique et mélancolique de l’histoire, sa douceur et sa dureté à la fois, son rythme lent et entêtant à la fois.
Les histoires de ce tome nous emmènent à côtoyer des gens qui ont provoqué la malédiction d’autres malgré eux ; des hommes et femmes qui ont perdu quelqu’un de cher et ne parviennent pas à tourner la page ; des élèves très attachés à leurs maître ou encore des personnes avec un beau sens du sacrifice. On se retrouve face à des personnes mises à l’écart, d’autres qui se sentent terriblement seules, certaines qui ont un attachement immodéré envers les autres et sont prêts à tout pour elles ou des gens qui ne veulent pas oublier leur passé. Les histoires évoquent petit village ostracisant, malédiction étrange, bord de mer brumeux, destins tragiques, dureté de la culture du riz et autre objet ancien traditionnel japonais comme cette pierre à encre et surtout on découvre un pan du passé du héros.
Être assez mystérieux depuis le début qui nous sert surtout d’objet transitoire avec les esprits qu’il côtoie et nous fait découvrir, il prend une matérialité certaine ici avec le récit de son passé et de la manière dont il a hérité de son titre. C’est à l’image de la série, dur et terrible, doux-amer et tragique, avec une mélancolie puissante et la thématique du maître et de la l’élève, mais aussi de la malédiction involontaire. J’ai été totalement emportée jusqu’au bout !
Sans surprise, cette balade dans le folklore japonais ancien aux côtés d’un chasseur d’esprit nonchalant continue de me charmer par sa mélancolie et sa poésie douce-amère. C’est émouvant, c’est tendre, souvent terrible mais toujours poignant. Chaque histoire a sa propre magie et celle-ci me pénètre de plus en plus. Je suis totalement sous le charme de ces pérégrinations pourtant souvent tragiques.
Looking back, again, from a few volumes on I do have to agree with a lot of other reviews on here that this volume did drag a little bit. That said, this is a very transitional volume, and finally learning more about Ginko's origins is certainly more than enough of a payoff in the end.
This volume also seems to slowly be ratcheting up its body horror quotient. It's certainly no blood and guts slasher film, or anything close, but it's getting creepier. It may be only slightly, but it does feel like there are some stakes now, and characters pushing the edges at the boundaries of prosperity, happiness or at least calm living.
Flipping back through the volume to review the art, it strikes me that the framing is (or rather, I suspect, continues to be) is part of what makes this series feel so deliciously melancholic. Hanging onto the small details, lingering.
Well, I read all chapters in one go and that's a no-no. I mean, the stories are contemplative pieces of media, but when you read all in the same time, they lose that quality and you start to get used to their marvellous, quiet bizarrness and anticipate the little plot points. Also, there is a chapter about Ginko at the end. Like, I didn't expect it at all (which is stupid, that's normal for procedural pieces of media to go personal), but enjoyed it nevertheless.
This volume has some of my favorite stories in it, and I really liked the choice of which one to end on. From the story about Ginko's past, I made some connections that I had not while watching the anime. Maybe it was due to minor differences in translation? Anyway, it was interesting. I also thoroughly enjoyed the author's notes about the series in the back of the book. Looking forward to the next volume!
(THIS REVIEW IS ORIGINALLY FROM STORYGRAPH, FROM 25TH JULY 2025.)
Personally the only story in this collection that didn't "hit" so to speak was the Fish Gaze. That's not to say it was bad at all, and I think in the future it probably pays off, but the story itself seemed to lack something. I do enjoy the author's asides at different points in the volume too.
My favourite story from this collection was either the Cry Of Rust, or the Heavy Seed.
These are still weird, but I felt like I followed them better than the previous one.
A young girl's voice attracts a mushi that makes her village sick. A man waits by the ocean to encounter a mushi he saw years before. A village whose fields are full during a famine has a secret. Children touch an inkstone that makes them sick. A young boy meets a strange woman in the woods.
Mi primer libro del año es un regalo de cumpleaños de mi papá. Estoy juntando esta colección por ser una de la historias que más me gustan y por fin encontré una que no conocía.
El pez tuerto, el último cuento del tomo, es la historia de cómo Ginko perdió su ojo y ganó su nombre. Tal vez mi memoria falle y si la había visto o haya un OVA que no conozca… pero es hermosa de una forma muy triste.
Love these stories with their combination of Paranormal Nature and Japanese Folklore tales set in an uncertain time frame that seems pre-modern. Lots of human frailties consistent with humanity! Entertaining reading!
Tapped out after this volume. Although there are a lot of interesting concepts, the short story style doesn't do much for me. I'd prefer some kind of overarching narrative to keep me engaged, but I can also see the appeal of this series.