Mushishi Zoku Shou: One of the best anime (2005) received its long-deserved second season in 2014. Rather than declining, the second season is better than the first.
The basics remain the same: in a quasi-medieval Japan, biology meets dreamy folklore in the form of mushi, not quite bacteria or animals but not quite spirits either, and a wandering man solves problems relating to them. But where the first season focused more on individuals and their relationships to the mushi (and modifications by, sufferings due to, etc), season two examines a variety of relationships between humans, particularly families. Despite the episodic structure, the drama is still intelligent and moving—a son seeks to surpass his father; a man punishes himself and his daughter, a brother cannot forgive himself for a past omission; a mother sacrifices and slowly becomes the milk her baby needs; a family passes on a grim obsession through the generation at the expense of outsiders; a woman with the disastrous power to bring rain travels to villages in need, postponing getting married until the rain ceases, while another boy endures lightning strikes for the mother who does not love him; a neglected and despised son nearly kills his pseudo-family, but ultimately lets his anger disperse and can move on; a clan devotes itself to fighting an existential risk, even at the cost of its childrens’ souls; a man and his wife, to live together and save each other, become time-travellers who choose to become trapped in loops; an ancient tree sacrifices all for the villagers it nurtured.
The endings are not always happy nor predictable; some are deeply tragic (“Mud Grass” and “Tree of Eternity”) or just creepy (“The Hand That Caresses the Night”, “Floral Delusion”, “Path of Thorns”). Very few episodes are failures (Out of the 21 episodes, I could indict only “Mirror Lake” and “Hidden Cove” as being boringly bland, and “Thread of Light” as being mediocre.) The world expands as Ginko travels to locales beyond the stereotypical thick forest of season 1, and we gain glimpses of the network of mushishi Ginko is one of (and his own notoriety in that small circle) and of the mountain lords. The plots as well enlarge and additional elements of fantasy and SF are mixed in (particularly in “Path of Thorns” again, “Fragrant Darkness”, and “Lingering Crimson”), particularly Japanese folklore (“Azure Waters” implies the kappa are an exaggeration of a particular mushi infection, and “Lightning’s End” refers to the raijū).
The backgrounds are no longer quite so impressive as they were back during the original Mushishi and the animation has some visible flaws (you’ll notice a lot of blank undrawn faces), but the mushi seem to benefit from CGI upgrades since 2005. The music is appropriate, and Ally Kerr supplies a very appropriate OP song.
Easily the best new anime I’ve watched in 2015.
Barakamon: slice-of-life bildungsroman about a young-adult calligrapher rusticated for hot-headedness to a southern Japanese island (not Okinawa, feels more like one of the smaller Ryukyu Islands) where he learns Life Lessons taught to him by the locals and particularly an elementary-age girl a la Yotsuba&!. Animated in the current clean standard style, with some effort on the backgrounds. Calligraphy as the topic is a definite change of pace and earns Barakamon pluses in my book, though most of the calligraphy merely looks messy to my untutored eyes and is hard to appreciate (the exception being the hoshi/”star” calligraphy of episode 9, a black-white figure-ground inversion writing which would be gimmicky if it didn’t so perfectly make the pictorial & semantic aspects mirror each other). A good watch but I find it hard to love because it’s heavy-handed in showing the protagonist learning his Life Lessons and relies too heavily on the cheerful child trope.
Rather than declining, the second season is better than the first.
I’m currently watching this and I thought it was marginally less good than the first season so far, but I’m only up to episode 6 so it may get better (especially if, as you say, new environments are explored).
I’m not sure how much you’ll be impressed by the rest if you weren’t by episodes 1 & 6; maybe you simply had a higher opinion of season 1 than I did. Maybe you could check back in when you finish and see how your opinion changed.
Ep 1 was really good, but ep 6, while having a good concept, was hurt a lot by having everything be explained by villainous monologues, and by general illogical behaviour of the villain (even given the situation). It lacked the elegance of the best episodes. And before that was the Mirror Lake episode that you also didn’t like, so maybe it’s just a brief slump.
Mushishi Zoku Shou: One of the best anime (2005) received its long-deserved second season in 2014. Rather than declining, the second season is better than the first.
The basics remain the same: in a quasi-medieval Japan, biology meets dreamy folklore in the form of mushi, not quite bacteria or animals but not quite spirits either, and a wandering man solves problems relating to them. But where the first season focused more on individuals and their relationships to the mushi (and modifications by, sufferings due to, etc), season two examines a variety of relationships between humans, particularly families. Despite the episodic structure, the drama is still intelligent and moving—a son seeks to surpass his father; a man punishes himself and his daughter, a brother cannot forgive himself for a past omission; a mother sacrifices and slowly becomes the milk her baby needs; a family passes on a grim obsession through the generation at the expense of outsiders; a woman with the disastrous power to bring rain travels to villages in need, postponing getting married until the rain ceases, while another boy endures lightning strikes for the mother who does not love him; a neglected and despised son nearly kills his pseudo-family, but ultimately lets his anger disperse and can move on; a clan devotes itself to fighting an existential risk, even at the cost of its childrens’ souls; a man and his wife, to live together and save each other, become time-travellers who choose to become trapped in loops; an ancient tree sacrifices all for the villagers it nurtured.
The endings are not always happy nor predictable; some are deeply tragic (“Mud Grass” and “Tree of Eternity”) or just creepy (“The Hand That Caresses the Night”, “Floral Delusion”, “Path of Thorns”). Very few episodes are failures (Out of the 21 episodes, I could indict only “Mirror Lake” and “Hidden Cove” as being boringly bland, and “Thread of Light” as being mediocre.) The world expands as Ginko travels to locales beyond the stereotypical thick forest of season 1, and we gain glimpses of the network of mushishi Ginko is one of (and his own notoriety in that small circle) and of the mountain lords. The plots as well enlarge and additional elements of fantasy and SF are mixed in (particularly in “Path of Thorns” again, “Fragrant Darkness”, and “Lingering Crimson”), particularly Japanese folklore (“Azure Waters” implies the kappa are an exaggeration of a particular mushi infection, and “Lightning’s End” refers to the raijū).
The backgrounds are no longer quite so impressive as they were back during the original Mushishi and the animation has some visible flaws (you’ll notice a lot of blank undrawn faces), but the mushi seem to benefit from CGI upgrades since 2005. The music is appropriate, and Ally Kerr supplies a very appropriate OP song.
Easily the best new anime I’ve watched in 2015.
Barakamon: slice-of-life bildungsroman about a young-adult calligrapher rusticated for hot-headedness to a southern Japanese island (not Okinawa, feels more like one of the smaller Ryukyu Islands) where he learns Life Lessons taught to him by the locals and particularly an elementary-age girl a la Yotsuba&!. Animated in the current clean standard style, with some effort on the backgrounds. Calligraphy as the topic is a definite change of pace and earns Barakamon pluses in my book, though most of the calligraphy merely looks messy to my untutored eyes and is hard to appreciate (the exception being the hoshi/”star” calligraphy of episode 9, a black-white figure-ground inversion writing which would be gimmicky if it didn’t so perfectly make the pictorial & semantic aspects mirror each other). A good watch but I find it hard to love because it’s heavy-handed in showing the protagonist learning his Life Lessons and relies too heavily on the cheerful child trope.
I’m currently watching this and I thought it was marginally less good than the first season so far, but I’m only up to episode 6 so it may get better (especially if, as you say, new environments are explored).
I’m not sure how much you’ll be impressed by the rest if you weren’t by episodes 1 & 6; maybe you simply had a higher opinion of season 1 than I did. Maybe you could check back in when you finish and see how your opinion changed.
Ep 1 was really good, but ep 6, while having a good concept, was hurt a lot by having everything be explained by villainous monologues, and by general illogical behaviour of the villain (even given the situation). It lacked the elegance of the best episodes. And before that was the Mirror Lake episode that you also didn’t like, so maybe it’s just a brief slump.