Tweekums This Japanese film tells the story of Ginko; he is a 'Mushishi' or 'bug-hunter'… these aren't normal bugs but supernatural creatures that can affect the population. As Ginko travels he cures people who have been affected. One day he learns that Tamyu; a woman who records historic details of the bugs has been affected. He heads to help her, travelling with another man who is hoping to catch a rainbow; somethings others mock him for but Ginko understands that what he is after isn't an ordinary rainbow.Intertwined with this story is the story of a Yoki, a young boy who is looked after by a mushishi named Nui after the death of his mother. Nui cautions Yoki to stay away from a pond where strange one-eyed fish live. She tells him that her study of the bugs in the pond caused her to lose an eye and her hair turn white. It later emerges that what this story is very much linked to Genko's story.The first thing that must be said about this film is that it looks absolutely stunning with magnificent rural Japanese scenery and seamless CGI special effects that look great. The story is told at a gentle pace, some might say it is slow, but that didn't bother me. I liked how the two stories are told and ultimately shown to be linked. At times the story does get a bit confusing but not overly so and the ending is more open than some viewers would like. Director Katsuhiro Otomo did a fine job capturing the story and his cast are equally good at bringing the characters to life. Overall I certainly enjoyed this, I can't comment on how it compares to the anime as I've not watched that.These comments are based on watching the film in Japanese with English subtitles.

Mushino This film manages to capture or evoke roughly the same kind of gentle and mysterious feel about nature and Mushi when I was watching the anime.Is it absolutely necessary for one to have watched the anime or read the manga? After reading the comments here and also reflecting upon my own feelings, I guess the best answer I can come up with is: give this movie a try if you are someone who likes to be closer to nature and life itself.Despite the slow pace of the movie, you will not be totally disappointed if you are hoping for at least a slightly more engaging story plot to emerge somewhere. You see, after about an hour or more into show, you will find yourself worrying for the protagonist and waiting to find out if he will find his way out of his predicament.Honestly, I wish to give this movie a higher rating. However, for the benefit of the those who haven't watched the anime or read the manga, I hope 7 will be a fair point of reference for them.

ebiros2 Mushi-shi starts out good with plot that's intriguing, but the story goes nowhere and ends incomplete. There are several good characters that show up all having potential to enhance the story, but they just fizzle out and do nothing spectacular.The scenery is beautiful, and the movie is worth the watch if you like nature. Jo Odagiri does good job as the title character.Is this movie worth a watch ? Story wise, I didn't think so. Visuals is beautiful at the start but as the movie progresses, both the story, and the visual loses luster. It's as though the director got tired and didn't have the stamina to continue the good work that was started.

ephemereality As most people would know by now, Mushishi is based off the manga with the same name, telling the story of traveler Ginko, a mushishi, or bug master. Because Ginko rarely stays in the same place for long, the manga is episodic in nature and unfortunately this is very hard to capture on the big screen that is better suited for grander stories with proper closures. The result is thus so-so at best, with the general feeling that when Mushishi really works it is fantastic, but most of the time it simply doesn't. A big problem why is because the episodic storytelling was attempted to be captured onto the big screen and the result is that we have four different plots but none of them truly relate to each other, making the movie itself feeling rather disconnected.The first half almost seems to serve as a very weak introduction into the world of mushi, telling the story of how Ginko arrives in a remote mountain village during a snowstorm helping to cure the villagers from the parasitic mushi called Ah and Um. The general problem with this story is that it almost feels like it is there to take up space, but it does not engage the viewers like the original story did in the anime/manga, nor does it serve to fill any future purpose within the movie. In fact, I feel that if this portion of the movie had been removed and more focus has been put to flesh out the story about Ginko's background in particular, Mushishi could possibly had been brilliant. Now however, what we get is that we meet several characters a time but none of them aside from Ginko are not given much screen time thus making it impossible for the viewers to get to know them. Further, the small slice of life tidbits that are so common in the manga/anime are often not there at all, which unfortunately hurts the movie even more since these tidbits make up a large portion why Mushishi in fact is so enjoyable.The result is that Mushishi in general feels very disconnected and there is no unity, and even though the pacing is slow the storytelling yet seems rushed because so much information is constantly left out. Would I not have read the manga and seen the anime beforehand, I am not entirely sure whether I could have understood a larger portion of the story at all.However, Mushishi is not all bad. There are some positive aspects, especially the visuals. It is a very beautiful movie and the story between young Ginko and Nui is still captivating and engaging, as the movie attempts to push the story further than it was in the original manga wrapping it in mystery. It is sad this story wasn't fleshed out more instead of introducing side plots that really do not add anything. The acting also seems to be just as much as a roller-coaster as the story itself, where it is sometimes brilliant and sometimes really bad. While it is probably easier to accept Ginko if one had not read/seen Mushishi before, for people who have, he will most likely however feel very out of character in many situations, but in a few, it is completely spot on.All in all, it is not a terrible manga adaptation, but it could definitely have been better. In general, it feels what Mushishi lacked was focus. It needed a focused story and it needed focused acting. Most of the time it delivered neither. Unfortunately, Mushishi is not something I would recommend others to watch unless they would already be die-hard fans of the original manga, but even then, I am sure they are to be disappointed. Mushishi has so much story and lore to work with, so it is sad to see this is the result. I definitely expected more than this. I also wished they had kept Toshio Matsuda's soundtrack they used for the anime. I felt it more strongly captivated the constant feeling of astonishment the world of Mushishi is able to induce.