Ginko is a wandering Mushishi, his job taking him all over Japan to help people deal with Mushi who have made their lives difficult. Mushi are organisms that are not quite living not quite dead but exist somewhere in between. These are the stories of Ginko and the people and Mushi he meets in his travels.
Mushishi is a classic, underrated for sure but a classic nevertheless. Urushibara has crafted a quietly eerie (thanks very much to Sean from Swords Sorcery for that wonderful description) tale that even for all of the tragedy that seems to strike is still very cozy.
On the surface this looks like your average yokai story, however, while you could compare Mushi to yokai they are much more that that. Ginko even describes them as life itself at one point and I find that to be an apt description. While they can and do cause very real harm to the humans that come in contact with them in many cases they also bring life. Because of this they are almost universally killed by Mushishi and yet Ginko opts to take a less violent path, trying to find ways in which the Mushi and humanity can co-exist and thats beautiful.
I genuinely can't recommend this one enough and to be fair whether or not you choose to read this or watch the anime you are in for a treat!
As always thanks to NetGalley and Kodansha for the eArc!
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