The fifth volume of Mushi-Shi presents four more tales of the mysterious creatures known as Mushi and their interaction with our world.  The program, while being low keyed and sedate, is actually one of the more interesting shows to be released of late.  It paints an interesting world that is very much like ours, but with an added sense of mystery and wonder.  It's a story driven show, but the tight story telling and unique plots make it a joy to watch.

Series background:

Mushi are the most pure creatures that exist.  Not base and vulgar like humans or animals, Mushi are beings that are in touch with the essence of life.  Invisible to normal people, these creatures are all around us, though humans rarely interact with them.  One person who is able to see these creatures is Ginko, a Mushi-Shi or Mushi Master.  He travels the countryside carrying only a mysterious wooden box on his back and collects Mushi artifacts (items that are created in our world through interactions with Mushi) and helps people who have been infected with malicious or unwanted Mushi.  Though his travels he encounters many odd and bizarre situations things that only a Mushi-Shi would be able to understand.

This volume:

In the first episode a young lady who has been hired to take care of a new born child is out stargazing with the baby's much older brother when she sees a star trailing a string.  Touching the string, she's pulled up into the air until she's out of sight.  The next thing she knows she's walking through the forest following a man.  The man turns out to be Ginko, and the lady has encountered a Mushi that has transformed her body so that she's invisible to ordinary people.  Ginko can see her, and gives her some medicine that helps her condition greatly, but doesn't cure her.  When she returns to her village, she discovers that she's continually getting lighter, so much so that a stiff wind can blow her over.  There's only one thing that can keep her cemented in out world, but the price might be too high to pay.

The next story fills in more of Ginko's world and the other Mushi Masters who inhabit it.  When a baby is born with a black, stiff leg, it's a sign that she's going to be the next Mushi scribe.  Under the tutelage of a Mushi Master, the girl learns to read and write, and starts to write down all of the stories concerning Mushi that the various Masters tell her.  If a Mushi Master relates their exploits, they get chance to look at the archives, thousands of scrolls of information about the mysterious creatures.  The young lady does this job out of a feeling of responsibility, but there's another reason too, one that's much more personal.

Ginko is faced with a tough task in when he encounters a rare type of Mushi.  On her wedding day a young lady was traveling through the forest when a green dollop fell onto her dress.  She didn't notice it, but when her first child was born a little while later, it wasn't human, just a formless mass of green goo.  The goo scurried out of the room and under the house where, six months later, they couple discovered a green tinted baby.  Convinced it was their child, they raised it as their own, and every six months another child would be discovered under the house.  When the oldest child gets sick however Ginko realizes exactly what it is and tells the parents that their children aren't human, and that they have to die.

The final story is the type of unique story that makes this show so enjoyable.  When a young lady's mother becomes terminally ill, she and her father take her mother out to a large hole that's under the sea and dump her in.  On the next full moon, a series of small orange balls floats to the surface and is collected by the husband.  When the young lady swallows one, she gets pregnant, as everyone knew she would, but her child is no ordinary baby:  it's her mother, born again and with her whole life ahead of her.  This odd practice has been going on for years and years, and Ginko wants to find out just what's going on any how this could be happening.

As I mentioned in my reviews of the earlier volumes, this show is very different from most of the anime out there.  If I had to pick one word to describe it, that word would be serene.  It is a quite and gentle show.  It's like a walk in the forest on a cool day; enjoyable, refreshing, and oddly tranquil.  That's not to say that there's no action or that the series plods along, because that's not the case.  Every episode has a mystery that Ginko has to unravel, but the mysteries themselves are often just as fascinating as the solutions.

One of the aspects that make this show such a breath of fresh air is that it isn't about Ginko hunting Mushi.  He doesn't try to kill or destroy the Mushi since, even when they are hurting a person or village, they aren't malicious.  The Mushi are just following their nature, like a cat that chases a mouse.  Ginko is just trying to arrange things so that two sets of beings (Mushi and Humans) can live together in a non-confrontational or hurtful manner.  This is quiet different from most anime where non-human entities are routinely killed on sight.

This disc comes in a clear keepcase with a reversible cover and a nicely illustrated slip cover.

Audio:

Viewers have the choice of watching the show with either the original Japanese soundtrack or an English dub, both in stereo.  As I often do, I alternated tracks and found them both to be very satisfactory.  Neither track shows any trace of distortion or background noise.  The English actors do a very good job of matching both the lip movements and the feeling of the scenes in the dub track too.  A nice sounding set of episodes.

Video:

The 1.78:1 anamorphically enhanced video looks pretty good with only minor problems.  The show takes place mainly outdoors and there are a lot of greens and blues in the color palate that they use.  These colors are reproduced wonderfully.  They are vibrant and strong and really make the show a joy to watch.  The blacks are solid and the lines are tight.  On the digital side there is a touch of aliasing here and there, but it is a small amount especially when compared to most anime.  There are a couple of scenes where banding is a slight problem, but again this isn't major.  The only other defect that's worth noting is some mosquito noise in a few of the dark scenes.  Overall this disc looks really nice.

Extras:

This disc doesn't have a lot of extras, but what's included is pretty good.  The highlight is the eighth interview with director Hiroshi Nagahama.  In this installment he talks about the coloring and the palate used for the show.  There's also a clean opening and closing animation, and a series of trailers.

Included with the disc itself is a beautifully illustrated postcards and a nice 8-page booklet that has character sketches as well as quotes from the people in the show.  It's a very nice booklet and I'm glad they included it.

Final Thoughts:

The fifth volume of Mushi-Shi is just as strong as the earlier installments.  Though there are only four episodes this time around, the shows are very good, delving into Ginko's world and fleshing out just what his universe is like.  In these tales he encounters more unique and wondrous Mushi and tries to help the people he meets, though things don't always turn out as well as he hopes.  Highly Recommended.