Mushishi Vol 3

Rating T+ Genre manga Publisher Del Rey External Links Official Mushishi Website

Yuki Urushibara continues his series Mushishi, which is the winner of the Kodansha Manga of the Year Award. Mushishi definitely proves itself to be worthy of Manga of the Year. The plot was so well put together that I would definitely want to keep up with the series. This particular story did not shed unnecessary blood, nor did anyone raise a finger to go to war. The mood of Mushishi was calm and non violent; it focused more on taking care a disaster than on fighting.

The story is set in a rural area in Japan where life forms known as mushi can be found. An individual that can see these strange beings are called Mushishi. Mu Shi Shi is Japanese for mushi master. The main character, Ginko, is a Mushishi that inspects or investigates anything related to the mushi. Ginko is known for traveling throughout the town and helping people that have been infected by the mushi.

In the opening chapter, The Cry of Rust, Ginko discovers a village that has been infected with a form of mushi, which happens to be rust. The plague has covered the city as well as the people. As they become covered in rust, their limbs become weak. In another chapter, a merchant waits for his wife to return after the mushi caused her boat to vanish. Before the vanishing the merchant explains to Ginko that he and his wife had a quarrel and wanted to separate their boats as they were looking for food – soon he discovered that his boat was the only one in sight. The merchant struggles with the fact that his wife will never return. I don’t want to give all of the chapters away but the one that I found the most gripping was the last chapter. Although it was somewhat ambiguous, Urushibara made the right decision to leave the reader in suspense. Yoki, a lost boy, hallucinates and sees a mushi that is in the form of a woman with one eye.

Yoki and the strange woman walk around the woods as she shows him how different her world is without her family since the mushi took over her body. She slowly disintegrates into thin air, and she vanishes without ever telling Yoki her name.

One thing that should be known about Mushishi is that there are five chapters that revolve around the mushi, which is rust that corrupts anything it contacts, but none of the chapters are related. The good thing is that if you have not been faithful to the first two volumes, then you’re in luck, because you haven’t really missed any key details. It is easy to follow along once the description is read on the back of the book.

Aside from the phenomenal storyline that each chapter holds, the art was amazing. Everything, from the facial expressions of each character to the shading of the scenes, makes it seem three-dimensional. I also enjoyed how sound effects were added to every other scene. If you want to feel like you are a fly on the wall in a science-fiction story, don’t be afraid to get infected with Mushishi.