Collections
Series
Publication
Del Rey (2008), Paperback, 256 pages
Description
THE HUNTER'S HAND A father disappears and his son, a hunter, inherits his father's power to lure animals to their deaths, quietly and entranced. But this ability poisons the mind and the body. Can mushi master Ginko cure the son before he shares his father's fate, or will the young man turn his deadly powers on his wouldbe savior?
Language
Original language
Japanese
User reviews
LibraryThing member GrazianoRonca
Heaven’s Thread or String from the Sky
A girl was taken by a white string from the sky and disappeared. After a while the girl returns and strange things start to happen to her.
The girl: ‘I just … pulled on this thread that came out of the sky … then everything around me went black …’
A mushi called Tenpengusa nests in the sky, and ‘They’re born from the shadows … and they haunt the border between sunlight and darkness.’ (p. 29)
Ginko found the girl and they return to the village. The girl is infested by the mushi so she floats in the air. Only the man who wants to marry her tries to understand and ‘... no matter what awful thing happens during the daylight, the stars are always there unchanged.’ (p. 42)
The Chirping Shell
A man and his daughter live outside the village because he thinks the villagers are responsible of his wife’s death. A mushi and Ginko seem to fix the problem.
‘When I say the song in the shell … what’s really singing is a mushi that nests inside of shells. Some call them Yodokaridori. Others call them Sezurikai.’ (p. 62)
‘People who put the shells up to their ears to hear them … forget how to use their own voices.’ (p. 63)
The girl has lost her voice and Ginko thinks that she and her father have to go back to the village, so the girl can learn to talk again.
The Hand that Pets the Night
A man can easily capture animals with the power coming from an eye depicted on his palm. The man’s palm is infected by a mushi called Fuki. ‘ Your hand forces your prey to do whatever you want.’ (p. 106) ‘Fuki is … Koki, the source of life, that has gone to rot.’ (p. 107)
Under the Snow
‘They’re a class of being called Yukimushi. If you unravel a snowflake, sometimes you’ll find them inside.’ (p. 150)
Toki is a boy infested by mushi: he does not feel the cold and he can’t touch anything warm.
‘In a land where white snow blankets the ground for the better part of the year … there are more odd things found in the snow … than one could ever find in the water or earth.’ (p. 189)
Toki rescuing a girl has to carry her on his shoulders, so he has to bear the warmth of another body. Bearing the girl’s warm , although Toki feels it hot, he has to accept his condition and heal.
Banquet in the Farthest Field
Brewing sake, instead of yeast, a man uses a mushi called Suimitsu-to; drinking this strange sake the man see things ‘that looked like red and black hairs.’ (p. 229), but ‘those weren’t hallucinations. They’re mushi called Shojo-no-hige. Mushishi use them as guides to mushishi gatherings.’ (p. 230)
‘... when we can’t make a good batch of sake … I’d drink just a little of that leftover sake.’ (p. 237)
‘Then I’d be able to see the distinct shapes of living things …’ (p. 238)
Many episodes of this sixth volume tells about Ginko helping people who have to accept what they usually refused.
Mushi could be similar to spirits in western culture, and they have to be accepted as they are. Ginko as Mushishi can understand the meaning of mushi in the world, so he helps people to live with mushi, to avoid mushi, etc., but Ginko never kills mushi.
Mushishi episodes are set in rural Japan, during the Edo and Meiji eras (1600 / 1800).
A girl was taken by a white string from the sky and disappeared. After a while the girl returns and strange things start to happen to her.
The girl: ‘I just … pulled on this thread that came out of the sky … then everything around me went black …’
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(p. 24)A mushi called Tenpengusa nests in the sky, and ‘They’re born from the shadows … and they haunt the border between sunlight and darkness.’ (p. 29)
Ginko found the girl and they return to the village. The girl is infested by the mushi so she floats in the air. Only the man who wants to marry her tries to understand and ‘... no matter what awful thing happens during the daylight, the stars are always there unchanged.’ (p. 42)
The Chirping Shell
A man and his daughter live outside the village because he thinks the villagers are responsible of his wife’s death. A mushi and Ginko seem to fix the problem.
‘When I say the song in the shell … what’s really singing is a mushi that nests inside of shells. Some call them Yodokaridori. Others call them Sezurikai.’ (p. 62)
‘People who put the shells up to their ears to hear them … forget how to use their own voices.’ (p. 63)
The girl has lost her voice and Ginko thinks that she and her father have to go back to the village, so the girl can learn to talk again.
The Hand that Pets the Night
A man can easily capture animals with the power coming from an eye depicted on his palm. The man’s palm is infected by a mushi called Fuki. ‘ Your hand forces your prey to do whatever you want.’ (p. 106) ‘Fuki is … Koki, the source of life, that has gone to rot.’ (p. 107)
Under the Snow
‘They’re a class of being called Yukimushi. If you unravel a snowflake, sometimes you’ll find them inside.’ (p. 150)
Toki is a boy infested by mushi: he does not feel the cold and he can’t touch anything warm.
‘In a land where white snow blankets the ground for the better part of the year … there are more odd things found in the snow … than one could ever find in the water or earth.’ (p. 189)
Toki rescuing a girl has to carry her on his shoulders, so he has to bear the warmth of another body. Bearing the girl’s warm , although Toki feels it hot, he has to accept his condition and heal.
Banquet in the Farthest Field
Brewing sake, instead of yeast, a man uses a mushi called Suimitsu-to; drinking this strange sake the man see things ‘that looked like red and black hairs.’ (p. 229), but ‘those weren’t hallucinations. They’re mushi called Shojo-no-hige. Mushishi use them as guides to mushishi gatherings.’ (p. 230)
‘... when we can’t make a good batch of sake … I’d drink just a little of that leftover sake.’ (p. 237)
‘Then I’d be able to see the distinct shapes of living things …’ (p. 238)
Many episodes of this sixth volume tells about Ginko helping people who have to accept what they usually refused.
Mushi could be similar to spirits in western culture, and they have to be accepted as they are. Ginko as Mushishi can understand the meaning of mushi in the world, so he helps people to live with mushi, to avoid mushi, etc., but Ginko never kills mushi.
Mushishi episodes are set in rural Japan, during the Edo and Meiji eras (1600 / 1800).
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LibraryThing member timothyl33
This volume includes stories that was written after the anime finished airing so for many of us it comes as something totally new that was missing in the previous volumes. As usual, Mushishi is a mix of wonderment and tragedy as man comes into contact with nature it hardly understands or sees. I
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would love it if the anime were to continue with these new chapters... Show Less
LibraryThing member PhoenixTerran
I discovered Yuki Urushibara's award-winning manga series Mushishi more by chance than anything else, but it quickly became a favorite and I made a point to collect the manga as it was being released in English. I'm very glad that I did–replacing my copies would cost a fair amount since Mushishi
Mushi are creatures which are invisible to most and which few people truly understand. But even so, they are an integral part of the natural world, said to be very similar to the original form of life. Mushi's influences on humans, though not necessarily intentional or malicious, can be both good or bad depending on the circumstances. Some people, like Ginko, have made a profession out of studying mushi. These mushishi gather and share invaluable knowledge about mushi and about the world. By closely observing mushi and their environment, mushishi are able to recognize signs of impending disaster, explain what would seem to be the unexplainable, and identify when and where balance to the natural order must be restored to avoid dire consequences. The work of mushishi is inherently dangerous as they are frequently dealing with the unknown, but their perseverance can also be extremely rewarding, allowing them to some extent to leverage and even control the abilities of mushi for their own purposes.
Mushishi, Volume 6 collects five chapters of the series. Except for the presence of Ginko and mushi, none of them are directly related to one another, however three of the stories deal in some fashion with the powerful phenomenon known as kōki. Whereas mushi could be considered primordial, kōki is an even purer and more basic form of life from which the varied multitude of mushi originate. Kōki is portrayed as a river of light, the glowing liquid proving to have both harmful and healing effects depending on how it is used. Mushi are intensely attracted to these rivers and will seek them out. In "Heaven's Thread" this becomes a problem for humans living near the light flow–mushi that prey on other mushi sometimes catch a person instead. Humans can also be infected by decaying kōki, as is seen in "The Hand That Pets the Night," negatively impacting families for multiple generations while also benefiting them. The third story in Mushishi, Volume 6 delving into kōki is "Banquet in the Farthest Field" in which a sake brewer unknowingly attempts to replicate the taste of the liquor of life with unintended consequences.
The other two stories collected in Mushishi, Volume 6, while still unrelated, both explore the loss of a loved one. Mushi's involvement in "The Chirping Shell" is actually fairly minimal as the chapter focuses on a man coming to terms with the tragic death of his wife and learning to forgive in the face of an even greater imminent tragedy of which the mushi are an omen. "Under the Snow" is likewise about a young man in denial who is grieving the loss of the life of his little sister. In this story snow-like mushi literally suck the heat from his body, but they also serve as a metaphor–because of his sister's death Toki has become numb to the people and the world around him. Many of the stories in Mushishi can be read on multiple levels like this, which is one of the reasons that I love the manga so much and find it so enjoyable to read and reread. The series frequently feels like a collection of folktales and stories of the supernatural, but at its heart Mushishi is very often about an individual's personal struggle when confronted by something in their life beyond their control or understanding.
Experiments in Manga
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is currently out-of-print and increasingly difficult to find. Fortunately, Kodansha Comics released the entire series digitally in 2014. Mushishi, Volume 6 was first released in print in English in 2008 by the now defunct Del Rey Manga. In Japan the volume was initially published in 2005, the same year that the series' first anime adaptation began airing. (The Mushishi anime is also a personal favorite and I re-watch it frequently.) In addition to being popular enough to warrant multiple adaptations in a variety of different media over the course of its publication, Mushishi was also a recipient of a Japan Media Arts Award and a Kodansha Manga Award.Mushi are creatures which are invisible to most and which few people truly understand. But even so, they are an integral part of the natural world, said to be very similar to the original form of life. Mushi's influences on humans, though not necessarily intentional or malicious, can be both good or bad depending on the circumstances. Some people, like Ginko, have made a profession out of studying mushi. These mushishi gather and share invaluable knowledge about mushi and about the world. By closely observing mushi and their environment, mushishi are able to recognize signs of impending disaster, explain what would seem to be the unexplainable, and identify when and where balance to the natural order must be restored to avoid dire consequences. The work of mushishi is inherently dangerous as they are frequently dealing with the unknown, but their perseverance can also be extremely rewarding, allowing them to some extent to leverage and even control the abilities of mushi for their own purposes.
Mushishi, Volume 6 collects five chapters of the series. Except for the presence of Ginko and mushi, none of them are directly related to one another, however three of the stories deal in some fashion with the powerful phenomenon known as kōki. Whereas mushi could be considered primordial, kōki is an even purer and more basic form of life from which the varied multitude of mushi originate. Kōki is portrayed as a river of light, the glowing liquid proving to have both harmful and healing effects depending on how it is used. Mushi are intensely attracted to these rivers and will seek them out. In "Heaven's Thread" this becomes a problem for humans living near the light flow–mushi that prey on other mushi sometimes catch a person instead. Humans can also be infected by decaying kōki, as is seen in "The Hand That Pets the Night," negatively impacting families for multiple generations while also benefiting them. The third story in Mushishi, Volume 6 delving into kōki is "Banquet in the Farthest Field" in which a sake brewer unknowingly attempts to replicate the taste of the liquor of life with unintended consequences.
The other two stories collected in Mushishi, Volume 6, while still unrelated, both explore the loss of a loved one. Mushi's involvement in "The Chirping Shell" is actually fairly minimal as the chapter focuses on a man coming to terms with the tragic death of his wife and learning to forgive in the face of an even greater imminent tragedy of which the mushi are an omen. "Under the Snow" is likewise about a young man in denial who is grieving the loss of the life of his little sister. In this story snow-like mushi literally suck the heat from his body, but they also serve as a metaphor–because of his sister's death Toki has become numb to the people and the world around him. Many of the stories in Mushishi can be read on multiple levels like this, which is one of the reasons that I love the manga so much and find it so enjoyable to read and reread. The series frequently feels like a collection of folktales and stories of the supernatural, but at its heart Mushishi is very often about an individual's personal struggle when confronted by something in their life beyond their control or understanding.
Experiments in Manga
Show Less