History Manga / Mushishi

** The Isaza, a wandering tribe who study ''mushi'' and aid the ''mushishi'', are also eternal wanderers. Ginko tagged along with them for a while when he was younger, and still meets up with them briefly from time to time.

* BerserkButton: Ginko doesn't really do "berserk" exactly, but seeing anyone give in to despair or attempt suicide ''really'' upsets him. He flips out in [[spoiler: "The Sleeping Mountain"]] due to this. People losing their humanity or becoming Mushi seem to unnerve him as well, probably because that subject is a bit CloseToHome.

* MundaneUtility: Nui uses weak ''mushi'' in place of lamps. Also there is a ''mushi'' that inhabits enclosed spaces in areas close to the lifestream, mostly silkworm cocoons, linking them together through a [[TeleportersAndTransporters labyrinthine networtwork of extra dimensional silk tunnels.]] If you open their container you are sucked in and lost, probably forever. The ''mushishi'' use them as pre-modern email. And then there's the girl who uses the illumination from the lifestream to see her bouncing ball in the dark, and...yeah. And yet it averts Mons.

* CelibateHero: A strange case. Since Ginko can never settle down without drawing too many Mushi in, he doesn't exactly have the chance for romance. Not that it stops the ladies from hitting on him, but he stands firm.

** [[spoiler: DrivenToSuicide]]: The DownerEnding of [[spoiler: episode 4]] resulted in the VictimOfTheWeek doing this, according to the epilogue.

* LockedIntoStrangeness: One of the possible effects of ''mushi''. See the girl in episode 5 (green hair) and [[spoiler:Ginko and Nui (white hair)]].

* PeekABangs: Ginko's haircut covers one eye.

* SealedEvilInACan: One girl actually has a dangerous Mushi locked away [[spoiler: in her leg which prevents her from walking on it.]]

* PowerPerversionPotential: Episode 22. [[spoiler: The ''ushinoume'' produces not just one, but hundreds of embryos from the person whose lifetime it eats. Couldn't a dying person make dozens of clones of his/herself?]]

* ColdFlames: One variety of mushi called the "kagebi" featured feeds off human body heat by appearing to its victims as an open flame. If a person huddles close to it for warmth, it slowly saps their heat from them until they freeze to death. Bizarrely enough, the flame of a kagebi can be used to cook food or boil water... which, when ingested, freezes the body from the inside, giving the unlucky victim a case of internal frostbite.

** In the very last episode of the anime (which takes place mostly about ten or so years before most of the rest of the story) one boy tells another boy a garbled story he heard about a young Ginko,mentioning his strange eye and hair color. The other boy speculates as to whether Ginko is a foreigner, in a way that makes it seem like people are aware of foreigners but they are extremely uncommon

* ColdFlames: One variety of mushi featured feeds off human body heat by appearing to its victims as an open flame. If a person huddles close to it for warmth, it slowly saps their heat from them until they freeze to death.

* AmnesiaDanger: Sayo, the forgetful mother from one of the episodes, [[spoiler:has fallen victim to a ''mushi'' that slowly eats away all of her memories -- including her ability to recognize basic bodily functions. It is a permanent and irreversible process reminiscent of both the rarely explored anterograde amnesia ''and'' retrograde amnesia; should the memories run out, the host will probably be killed.]]

* AmnesiaDanger: Sayo, the forgetful mother from one of the episodes, [[spoiler:has fallen victim to a ''mushi'' that slowly eats away ''all'' of her memories -- including her ability to recognize basic bodily functions. It is a permanent and irreversible process reminiscent of both the rarely explored anterograde amnesia ''and'' retrograde amnesia; should the memories run out, the host will probably be killed.]]

* AndIMustScream: [[spoiler: A woman who was kept alive ''for several generations'' thanks to a combination of a mushi infection and male members of the same family falling in love with her and grafting her head onto different bodies.]]

* AsleepForDays: A boy falls asleep every winter for the entire winter after visiting a place that is miraculously full of life due to a mushi's influence. Then, something goes wrong and he is asleep for over a year. Ginkgo investigates the false spring and they both end up in a coma. Thankfully, they wake up the next spring.
** Ginkgo sleeps for days several more times in the manga, including chapter 37 in which he is put into a long hibernation by the local mountain god.

** For those [[ShmuckBait curious]], [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJHp2kHux5M here's a link]]. Happens from 20 minutes onwards. [[SarcasmMode Have fun]].

* BigScrewedUpFamily: "Lost in the Flowers": [[spoiler: Generations of a family keep a strange woman, found as a baby in an ancient cherry tree, alive and healthy for over three hundred years by "grafting" her head onto different bodies.]]

* BigScrewedUpFamily: "Lost in the Flowers": [[spoiler: Generations of a family keep a strange woman alive for over three hundred years by "grafting" her head onto different bodies.]]

* MayflyDecemberRomance: Between a landscaper and a family friend, Saho (although it appears very much to be one-sided). [[spoiler: It does not appear to be a MayflyDecemberRomance at first, however Ginko quickly deduces that the girl Saho has lived for hundreds of years thanks in part to the landscaper's family]]

** [[spoiler: DrivenToSuicide]]: The DownerEnding of [[spoiler: episode 4]] resulted in the CharacterOfTheDay doing this, according to the epilogue.

** In the very last episode of the anime (which takes place mostly about ten or so years before most of the rest of the story) one boy tells another boy a garbled story he heard about a young Ginko,mentioning his strange eye and hair color. The other boy speculatees as to whether Ginko is a foreigner, in a way that makes it seem like people are aware of foreigners but they are extremely uncommon

* MundaneUtility: Nui uses weak Mushi in place of lamps. Also there is Mushi that inhabits enclosed spaces in areas close to the lifestream, mostly silkworm cocoons, linking them together through a [[TeleportersAndTransporters labyrinthine networtwork of extra dimensional silk tunnels.]] If you open their container you are sucked in and lost, probably forever. The ''mushishi'' use them as pre-modern email. And then there's the girl who uses the illumination from the lifestream to see her bouncing ball in the dark, and...yeah. And yet it averts Mons.

* TheObiWan: Nui, to Ginko.

* AnachronismStew: The exact setting and time period is kept deliberately vague, but it resembles feudal (or possibly mid-to-late 19th century) Japan, in mostly rural areas. There are some odd artifacts, though, such as Ginko using scientific equipment far in advance of what was generally available at the time (like a wooden microscope!), not to mention his very Western-style clothing.
** And no one seems to comment on his foreign clothing (not to mention strange eye and hair color) either, which is very odd considering how odd it should make him look to them. Then again, just like the scientific equipment it probably is the Mushishi equivalent of a wizards hat and robes.

* DangerousForbiddenTechnique: Aside from the myriad horrible uses a Mushishi could put his knowledge to should he be inspired, there are the techniques that manipulate the Lifestream itself. Anyone who can do so has the power to become immortal, or create a seed that will ensure a truly bountiful harvest...at the low, low cost of someone's life. Doing so risks disrupting the balance of nature, and The Heavy Seed revolves around Ginko dealing with the legacy of such an abuse.

* GuiltFreeExterminationWar: Some Mushishi less enlightened than Ginko have this view about all ''mushi'', seeing them as pests or threats to be exterminated. In "Drowning in a Sea of Letters", Ginko comforts a girl binding a mushi trapped inside her with stories of harmless and/or beneficial ''mushi''.

* MundaneUtility: Nui uses weak Mushi in place of lamps. Also there is Mushi that inhabits enclosed spaces in areas close to the lifestream, mostly silkworm cocoons, linking them together through a [[TeleportersAndTransporters labyrinthine networtwork of extra dimensional silk tunnels.]] If you open their container you are sucked in and lost, probably forever. Mushishi use them as pre-modern email. And then there's the girl who uses the illumination from the lifestream to see her bouncing ball in the dark, and...yeah. And yet it averts Mons.

* OurSoulsAreDifferent: A boy from a ''Mushishi'' family couldn't see ''mushi'' and underwent a process that replaced his soul with one, making him [[SealedGoodInACan "the can"]] in order to help the girl who's SealedEvilInACan. As an adult he's usually TheStoic, but occasionally the ''mushi''-soul leaves and he becomes TheSpock.

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: Ginko has silver-blond hair and is walking around in Western-style clothes in something that can be described as a feudal Japanese rural area. And no one ever questions this.
** Not to mention his odd eye colour, odd skin tone (he's not impossibly pale, but more so than any of the other men in the show) and his [[spoiler:one missing eye (he has a glass one, which did exist, but glass eyes still tend to be fairly noticeable.)]] Might have something to do with the fact that he usually introduces himself as a Mushishi; people EXPECT him to be a bit odd. Some of the ''mushi'' might qualify too, with people surprisingly blasé about, say, an island with people who demonstrably reincarnate every time they die. It's implied that there's far more mythology up and walking around in this world than in a normal Japanese setting -- even people who can't see the phenomena first-hand seem to have little trouble believing in it.
** There was ''one'' boy (the little EyeScream girl's friend) who had Western clothes in the manga (he even had a toy airplane!), but he got Japanese clothes in the anime after the artist {{retcon}}ned the setting away from modern times as it was in the original one shot chapter.

* WalkingTheEarth: Ginko is forced to do this due to the amount of ''mushi'' he attracts. There are other mushishi who do the same, though not all.
** The Isaza, a wandering tribe who study ''mushi'' and aid the mushishi, are also eternal wanderers. Ginko tagged along with them for a while when he was younger, and still meets up with them briefly from time to time.

** And no one seems to comment on his foreign clothing either, which is very odd considering how odd it should make him look to them. Then again, just like the scientific equipment it probably is the Mushishi equivalent of a wizards hat and robes.

* ArtInitiatesLife: The boy from Episode 1 has this power.

* KillItWithFire: In Episode 21, [[spoiler: the Watahachi parasite does it to ''itself'' in order to force itself into hibernation rather than be killed by Ginko]].

** In Episode 23, Yahagi thinks doing this to the mushi will solve the problem. [[spoiler: It only happens to escalate into a problem that kills several villagers and threatens her own life.]]

* WhiteHairedPrettyGirl: Nui.

Also, a LiveActionAdaptation [[TheMovie Movie]] was made by KatsuhiroOtomo (''{{Akira}}''), which won many independent film awards.

* EyepatchOfPower: Ginko's haircut covers one eye.

* PeekABangs: Ginko