Mushishi Zoku Shou Episode 1 Review: The Old Mushishi Remains Alive And Well - Expect Many Fulfilled Promises This Spring Season!

 

Introduction: Mushishi Kicks it off With a Decent Start and Well-Focused Goal in Mind

The second season of Mushishi begins with a relaxing episode about a sake brewer who discovers the existence of Mushi. This is a reasonable story to tell as a first episode since it will ease those who haven't seen the first season into the fantasy world of Mushi. Of course, it also serves as an overview of the world of Mushi for those who have forgotten the basics. After all, it's been about 10 years since the original animated adaption. Therefore, the first episode or Mushishi Zoku Shou this season has succeeded serving its purpose and function; although it has done this in other ways as well, as explained below.

Quality in Animated Details Remains Key to the Mushishi Animated Franchise

The animation quality of the first episode is impressively fluid, especially in its smaller details. Fluidity in detail is a key animation characteristic of the Mushishi animated franchise, because the style of storytelling is that of a slow and realistically paced series of short stories. The nature of this style allows the audience to immerse themselves slowly and smoothly into the atmosphere of the fantasy world, since the pace of the storytelling (and its characters) moves at realistic speeds.

With this in mind, it is important to pay attention to the fluidity of detailed animation sequences throughout the series. The beginning episode of the second season has proven to be successful in this field.

It is certainly tempting for new non-Japanese-speaking viewers of the Mushishi animated series to stare at the subtitles instead of the animation, since the focus is on the story rather than the animation. This is only half true; While the story definitely receives a huge focus in the Mushishi animated franchise, you won't get the full effect of the series if you neglect the fluid animation.

 

The Use of Light and Color is Outstanding

The drawing/painting job shown in this first episode is simply beautiful, particularly the use of color to enhance the atmosphere of the episode. A green gradient is dominant in every scene, which ties every picture together to make fluid movements from scene to scene. The use of the green background every once in a while was a very smart move on Artland's part, because it relieves the artists' stress from having backgrounds in every single shot. Normally, one would see this as lazy, but thinking from the perspective of the actual animators, this is quite genius, since it allows the animators to focus on more important animated sequences such as the Mushi sequences as well as the walking sequence for example in the beginning of the episode. One could also argue that the use of a simplified background can also indicate a focus on the conversation between two characters seen in the shot, as shown in the screen shot above.

Of course, I would hope that the dominant color used in each episode varies as the series progresses. We will see if the color work in the future episodes holds firm.

The light and shading of the drawings in this first episode also deserve much recognition. The shading on Ginko's face makes him come to be a much more serious and thoughtful character, even more so than he was depicted to be in the first season, which is very exciting because it gives off the impression that Ginko will be even more interesting of a character this season.

Moreover, I expect many exciting light shows from the Mushi this season, because it seems overall that the drawing/lighting quality of the series has not dwindled a bit. The last scene of the episode seems to reflect this promise, since it shows a variation in Mushi all in one picture lighting up the night sky beautifully.

This last picture (shown below) which fades to black at the end of the episode is simply beautiful. Watching the first season of Mushishi as well as Mushishi Zoku Shou has and will truly be like watching a grand fireworks display under a night sky, not because of the exploding nature of the fireworks, but because of the spectacular use of color and light used to paint a blank picture. Not only that, this last picture reminds us of the primary recurring theme of the entire Mushishi franchise, which I will describe in detail soon ehough: The theme of peaceful (and sometimes violent) unison between man and Mushi.

The words in this short article cannot describe in full the ingeniousness behind this picture. 

 

The Background Art has Improved Since the First Season

Artland has clearly gone a long way especially in terms of their background art. The background art shown in this single episode is definitely the best I've seen since the recent airing of Non Non Biyori during this years Fall season. The background art contains virtually everything necessary from small details to color and depth, as shown directly above (and in the first screenshot) as well as below. Remember, the art doesn't just stop at the close-up camera shots to Ginko's face!

The Co-existence of Man and Mushi: The Old Themes of the First Season Remain Intact

The first season made if clear that Ginko held a philosophy towards Mushi which was shown to be uncommon among other Mushi-shi; The belief that humans and Mushi were not inherently good or evil - just two different forms of life that were trying to survive off of their relationship with one another. This theme is already seen to hold its place within the very first episode of this second season, which is a good sign of consistency both in theme and story.

This first episode highlighted this theme in Ginko's explanation to the sake brewer as to why  he should not let his sake, which was made by Mushi and allowed common people to see Mushi, out into the common world. This is characteristic to Ginko as a unique and original character, since he is always careful and thoughtful towards interactions between Mushi and people. With an objective mindset, Ginko usually produces the best possible solution to allow both Mushi and humans flourish next to each other, instead of against each other. This is shown beautifully by Ginko's suggestion to the sake brewer to not only refrain from selling his special sake to commoners, but to sell it to Mushi-shi instead, so that he could still make a living off of his special produce. In this way, both the Mushi and human beings live coherently with each other. Basically, Ginko always succeeds in coming up with the best possible solutions for both living beings to successfully live with each other in an interdependent relationship. It could be argued that this is the main reason why the Mushishi story has always been so exciting to follow; because Ginko's solutions to many of the problems surrounding the interaction between Mushi and humans has always been thought-provoking and surprisingly objective, resulting in the happiness of both parties.

In Conclusion: Mushishi Zoku Shou Holds many Promises for the Future - Expect Much!

With all this said, we should be expecting a ton of glory from this season of Mushishi Zoku Shou. Do not settle for less while watching this series; pay attention to the details of the animation, themes, and story, and you will be rewarded greatly while watching the future episodes of this series. There is no doubt in my mind that the future episodes will be far from disappointing; Artland had went a full 26 episodes in the first season of Mushishi without dissapointing its audience, and there is no reason why they would dissapoint its audience now, especially with all their new experience under their belt which had been accumlating for a full ten years!

Words cannot describe in this short article how much faith I have in this new season.