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.