I should be in New York by now, attending NYCC. I’ll be hanging by the BentoComics table mostly! I’ll be back in Sydney at the end of October!
Step 1: The second last of these Japanese kits I bought, this green tea roll cake appear to have an extra slopping of cream on top. Why not?
Step 2: Hurray for pre-cut felt! This kit especially, because of the "cream" bits that are long and straight.
Step 3: Sew the roll cake together. Thank god for the pre-cut pieces - cutting spirals are always a horrible chore.
Step 4: Finished with the roll cake. Start with the little bits and pieces that go on top of the roll cake.
Step 5: Glue the cream bits on, and what a mess I made of the glue (again). It's not glued on very well, so a few of the cream bits can fall off. Am hoping that by sewing the top bits on, it'll help keep the cream bits on the roll cake.
I’m heading off to New York Comic-Con this weekend, mostly for touristy reasons (since I’ve never been to NYCC before). As of now I haven’t packed much yet, so I’m panicking while trying to get things done at the last minute. At NYCC, I plan to just mostly hang around the BentoComics table, as well as try and cram some sight-seeing into the 10 days I’ll be in America.
After the last recommendation of Mononoke, it’s inevitable that I will continue my journey into the weird-Japanese-supernatural genre. So this week, I recommend the manga and anime series Mushishi.
Mushishi (Yuki Urushibara) 10 volumes, plus a 26-episode TV series
Mushishi is available in English from Del Rey, where I first heard of the series. I admit that I didn’t know what it was about when I first read it, and it took me two tries before I was able to get into it. Part of it is because it’s a series that has a pseudo-scientific fantasy universe, that is quite unlike anything I’ve encountered before. This series is strange and complex in a way that is difficult to describe.
Plot
In the world of Mushishi, there are creatures known as mushi that are ubiquitous, but just another life form like humans, animals and plants. These mushi can have supernatural powers, and when they become “off-balance” they can infect humans or geographical areas, and cause a lot of problems. Mushi are described as being closer to the essence of life, and more basic and pure than other living life forms. Most people are oblivious to their existence, while a select few can see and interact with them.
The story follows Gingko, who is one such person. He is known as a Mushi-shi – people who travel from place to place, dealing with problems that mushi can cause. Because mushi are just another life form who sometimes have symbiotic relationships with humans, they’re not evil, and aren’t trying to be. The series is episodic, with no over-arching plot, and follows Gingko from place to place as he encounters different kinds of mushi, and subscribes different methods of dealing with them.
Why I Recommend this Story
When people talk about unusual takes on the Japanese supernatural, they may mention the psychedelic anime series Mononoke (which I recommended 2 weeks ago). In the next breath, they would then say that Mononoke is like Mushishi. Ask them to explain that further, and they will be at a loss for words. Heck, I can’t explain how Mushishi is in any way like Mononoke. Both stories are unique and original in the way they imagine their universes, and perhaps the best way to describe them is that in the Forest of Genres, they’re relatives in a obscure, distant branch of the “Japanese Supernatural” Family Tree.
At least Mononoke is about an exorcist who exorcises monsters. I’m not sure what to call Gingko in Mushishi – he’s definitely not an exorcist, though some parts of his job may qualify as exorcism. There are no monsters in the traditional sense in Mushishi, though there are these creatures called mushi that are the cause of a lot of strange problems. Gingko goes from place to place, helping people who may be having problems with the mushi (sometimes they’re not), and then perhaps solving their problems (though sometimes he doesn’t). Since “mushi” is the Japanese word for “insects”, perhaps I can call him a cross between a pest-control agent and a biologist with a special streak of curiosity for the insect kingdom.
As a Mushi-shi, Gingko certainly seems more curious than most towards the mushi. While this is never addressed directly, other Mushi-shi seems to treat their jobs just as pest-exterminators, and that’s it. Gingko at least seems to take a scientific interest in the mushi, though considering the way he sometimes wanders into situations that didn’t ask him to become involved, he may just be a person who takes an interest in everything he encounters. I’m not sure. This series don’t make things clear-cut in the way some people expect their stories to be clear-cut. Situations are given, things happen, decisions both good and bad are made by the people in the story, and readers are left to ponder the results. Also, because humans need to co-exist with mushi irregardless, those looking for bombastic action scenes aren’t going to find any. There’s no good and evil in this story. There are just people, and mushi that act up for a variety of reasons.
No over-arching plot, and no special objectives to for Gingko to achieve either. And very few recurring characters except for Gingko and one or two of his friends. The art, while lush and beautiful in depicting nature, backgrounds and “the weird”, seems to be pretty forgettable when it comes to people. Urushibara doesn’t seem to be good at character designs – a lot of the characters have faces so similar it can be hard to tell who is who sometimes. So does this make the series boring? Some people complain that it’s boring after a while. Those expecting a pay-off, or a climatic boss-fight scene won’t get anything close to that. So why read this series?
One word: Originality. You won’t find anything else like Mushishi out there. This is a fully-formed universe, with its own eco-system, its own classifications of different mushi, and its own unusual methods of “curing” the “illnesses”. Heck, in one story, a character’s problem is solved just by moving to a coastal area – the mushi affecting her are dissolved by sea air, so all she has to do is to live by the sea. The stories often play out in the way a medical or scientific thriller would, except there’s no actual science involved. There is instead a humanistic approach to the characters and their issues in the stories, and it often deals with universal themes such as love, loss, the capacity people have to fool themselves, and the value of life. Perhaps a better comparison is not Mononoke, but Osamu Tezuka’s manga Black Jack; about a maverick surgeon who doesn’t so much heal patients, as helping patients heal themselves.
I’m not sure I did a good job in selling Mushishi, but then this story isn’t for the average person. Its strongest appeal is in its lack of predictability, and its sense of discovery – what mushi will we encounter next? What strange symptoms does it cause in people? What unusual methods will be used to get rid of them? To some people, it’s the most interesting thing in the world. To other people, they don’t see the point of it. If you want to have a crack at Mushishi, have a think about which camp you fall into. It will certainly affect your enjoyment of the series.
* I should mention that a lot of the stories in Mushishi are alternate re-tellings of Japanese myths and monsters. If you have prior knowledge of this, it will be more interesting and enjoyable than if you don’t.
Step 1: For once, this isn't Japanese. It seems to be from a British company, and it even comes with a nice tin box. For the inexplicably cheap price of $14 at Townhall's Kinokuniya. I snapped it up, ofcourse.
Step 2: Open the contents, and just enough material is there to make three of the dolls. The design of the dolls is quite simple too.
Step 3: Cut out all the materials, and mix and match the hoods with the colourful bottom parts. I decided on this combination.
Step 4: Sew the faces on, and the top and bottom halves together. It's time to sew both of the front and back parts to make the doll.
Step 5: Stuff the dolls with stuffing, and then sew the wavy elastic band around them for a finishing touch. I added a few more things to it than was given in the kit.
I decided to gift the dolls to three couples I know, so I embroidered some names on them. Good use of cute dollies! Yay to Claire and Pedro, Ben and Nam, and Kath and Paul:
Okay, I’m officially getting to work on the next book “Small Shen” (with Kylie Chan) in November, but I’ll hopefully be doing some work before October (where I head off to NYCC). I’ll talk more about that in a week’s time.
This week I recommend Mononoke. No, not Studio Ghibli’s Mononoke Hime. As worthy as that is of a recommendation, this is a completely different story, and a 12-episode TV series rather than a single movie. This series is obscure but highly underrated, and while it shares half of the more famous movie’s title, it’s simply titled Mononoke, nothing more.
Mononoke (2007 – Toei Animation) 12 Episodes + 1 Short Story
Mononoke is an unusual TV series, not least because of its visual look. It began life as the third tale in a series of short Japanese horror stories, called Ayakashi. The first tale was famous Japanese horror tale Yotsuya Kaidan (Strange Tale of Yotsuya), the second was Tenshu Monogatari (Tale of the Goddess), and the last was Bakeneko (Monster Cat). Bakeneko was the one which introduced the enigmatic main character of Mononoke, a nameless, wandering medicine-seller who appears to do sidelines in exorcisms. Being the most interesting of the three tales, both due to its story and its art direction, audiences quickly demanded a new TV series based on the medicine-seller, and that was Mononoke.
Plot
“Mononoke” is a term for Japanese demons, and unlike conventional demons, the Mononoke in this series are often supernatural phenomenon created by people who died in unhappy circumstances, or who otherwise have grievances. The creatures take physical form, and is fully capable of doing real harm.
Enter the mysterious albino-elf character with face-paint and a snazzy fashion sense. This nameless, wandering merchant claims to sell medicine, but it’s really a cover for exorcisms he performs on the Mononoke he encounters in each episode. Despite having an impressive demon-busting form and an exorcism sword, the power of the medicine-seller is very limited. Since Mononoke usually have some kind of human origin (often psychological), it’s impossible to exorcise them until you discover the source of the phenomenon, and the reasons for their manifestation. For the medicine-seller, this involves finding the Katachi (shape), the Makoto (truth), and the Kotowari (reason) of the Mononoke.
Unlike conventional demon-busting shows (which tend to be action-oriented), this show is like a detective story with psychological puzzles at its core, all viewed through a Japanese supernatural lens.
Why I Recommend this Story Mononoke is a gem. In both writing and art direction. Even if you’ve only seen a few screen caps of the series, you will probably already notice the bold, experimental style. The series looks like someone crossed traditional Japanese art with psychedelic art, adding a dash of Art Nouveau, Gustav Klimt, and surrealism along the way. I probably haven’t listed the wide range of art styles that this series sampled from, to create its unique look. Either way, it was a dream to look at, and its difference to the “conventional” anime look should be celebrated. For once, the experiment not only didn’t fail, but was a dramatic success.
All the more reason to marvel at the way this artistic style came to be. From what I can tell, the original series Ayakashi was a low-budget thing, and no one really had high expectations of Bakeneko, especially since top-billing went to Yotsuya Kaidan (famed illustrator Yoshitaka Amano was working on the character designs for that). I’m guessing the animators on Bakeneko thought, whatever, we can try something new with this since no one cares. Instead, Yotsuya Kaidan was a dull disappointment, and none of the lovely character designs by Amano translated well into anime. Conversely, Bakeneko was the triumph, and it was way more interesting to watch and look at than the other two stories.
The stories were also complex and engaging. You won’t expect a demon-busting story to be so cerebral and psychological, but these are – and many are also intensely internal. In every episode, there’s a number of other characters involved apart from the medicine-seller, and discovering their labyrinth psychological turmoil is part of the series – and the medicine-seller’s – job. Mind you, this is a horror series after all, and some of the stories get pretty grotesque in plumbing the depths of the human condition. The art can sometimes reflect the ugliness of the situation, but it’s never exploitative or truly disgusting. The writing also has a literary quality to it – by that, I mean it seems free of a lot of cliches and archetypes that an industry (in this case, the anime industry) often builds up over time. Like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, I wonder if the writer comes from outside the anime/manga industry (in my mind, that is always a plus).
Perhaps the one “criticism” I have of Mononoke is the story-telling. It’s opaque, a tad jerky, filled with strange camera angles and is often straight-up trippy. But then, given the art-style and the subject matter, I shouldn’t have expected any other kind of story-telling that would have worked with the stories and the art. Mononoke is an unusual, strange take on a tired genre, and to use traditional methods of story-telling would have been a death-knell for the “feel” it was trying to evoke. It’s not, after all, a story for someone looking for something mainstream. No one I know had any trouble following the story, but its unapologetic weirdness will probably put off a lot of people who want something more… conventional. Average. Typical. If you want a more “normal” demon-busting story, stay the heck away from Mononoke – it’ll blow your mind in ways you’re not prepared for.
Lastly, the story is very, very heavily Japanese in origin, meaning that if you’re not familiar with some aspects of Edo-era Japanese culture, you may miss out on a few things. You don’t need much to understand the series, but someone with background knowledge will get more out of it. The story also ends at 12 episodes, which is a crying shame. In some ways I’m grateful that no one wants to run the series into the ground to milk more money, but I also wish more industry people will take notice of its artistic triumphs and act accordingly.
