/lit/ - Literature

>>9859691
Here it is:

>Mushi-shi is heavily focused on traditional Japanese cultural themes and perspectives.

All art is colored by the cultural backdrop on which it is created, but Mushi-shi is not only aware of its place in time and culture - it takes that as a central part of it's themes.

"Mushi" are a creative play on a common topic in anime - the yokai and kami of Shinto folk mythology. Originality is no mean feat in this sphere, as these myths are a common subject of anime, and perspectives which attempt to fuse them with modern taxonomy or microbiology are exceedingly rare.

Aside from that, in Japanese culture, the frailty and transitory nature of life and beauty are extremely important. The high place these ideas hold is apparent in everything from Japanese philosophy to poetry, art, film, and even the importance cherry blossoms hold in Japanese culture.

At the same time, the idea of man simply being a part of nature - of a much larger universe, and ultimately unimportant - is completely ingrained in the way the Japanese see themselves and everything else.

Among other things, these views give many of the great works of Japanese art a sense of poignancy.

Mushi-shi takes the sorrow and awe born of the awareness of your impermanence and smallness as it's baseline.

Not only that, but the Buddhist revelation that "life is suffering," plays a key role.

Just as in our lives, it is from their place in nature that the suffering of Mushi-shi's characters arises. As it states early on in the show, for Urushibara, humans are just one form of life on the spectrum of nature.

Another one of Mushi-shi's strong points, is the way it deals with a different theme in almost every episode. Each story deals with a concept - fear v. desire, memory, time, societal duty v. individuality, private self v. public self, perception v. reality, fate, etc.

Many of these are the themes of well-known Japanese folk tales in re-imagined states.

Mushi-shi is a revolt and an ode. It is about old clashing with new, and finding oneself in the context of history and ancestry.

This is even visible through the clothing Ginko wears, which are far more modern, than anything worn by any other character in the show.

Like the modern Japanese, Ginko is wandering through history - he has no place and yet he has every place. Urushibara is eluding to the task of modern Japan to find itself in the context of it's history.

The point is, Mushi-shi is not a "comfy magical realism cartoon with pretty animation," or a "quite bland" attempt to make a philosophic anime.

It is Urushibara's artistic attempt to create a set of modern Japanese folktales which juxtapose modernity with antiquity while examining concepts culturally relevant to modern Japan and preserving the historic and philosophic roots of Japanese storytelling.