"I'm just a simple medicine seller."
Not to be confused with
Princess Mononoke, the Miyazaki film.
A spin-off of the horror anime
Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales, though unlike
Ayakashi the Mononoke pursued have merged with the strong emotions of humans, making them even more dangerous and hard to combat.
The story follows
a nameless medicine seller in his travels and the various people — and monsters — he ends up encountering. To slay the Mononoke he must find the Shape (true form), Truth (the reason for the Mononoke's existence), and Reason (what it hopes to accomplish) in order to defeat it. The series is divided into five arcs.
The style of the anime is done in the
Unmoving Plaid style of
Gankutsuou, and though it may take some getting used to, the way the series utilizes it is absolutely chilling in certain cases. Highly recommended, though be prepared for a
Mind Screw of
Neon Genesis Evangelion proportions and lots of unanswered questions.
Contains Examples of:
- Animal Stereotypes / Cunning Like A Fox: Thanks to his face paint, ears, and fangs, Kusuriuri is a spitting image of a traditional Japanese representation of a fox spirit.
- Anime First
- Beware The Nice Ones: If someone is initially presented as wise, patient, or kind, odds are they're actually behind the whole thing.
- Bishonen: The ladies love The Medicine Seller.
- BFS: The Medicine Seller's sword looks so... stunted in its little case, but just wait until he gets his shape, truth and reason!
- Bland Name Product: Zeiko watches in the Bakeneko arc.
- Body Horror
- Brother Sister Incest: A major motivation for Genkei, and was the reason for the creation of the Mononoke in the Umi Bozu arc.
- Call Back: A girl that worked for the family haunted by the bakeneko in Ayakashi is a main character in the Umi Bozu arc. What seem to be reincarnations of her and that entire family also show up in the last arc, mainly for the purpose of planting Epileptic Trees.
- Catch Phrase: "Tada no kusuriuri desu yo," or "I'm just a simple medicine seller."
- Closed Circle
- Covert Pervert: The Medicine Seller carries porn, as well as rather interesting medicines. Kayo was indeed very interested.
- Cute Little Fangs: The Medicine Seller, very subtly.
- Dark Skinned Blond: The Medicine Seller turns into this after unsheathing his sword.
- Dead All Along: Every human exclusive to the Nue arc.
- Deliberately Monochrome: Much of the Nue arc, only slipping into color to highlight certain important things. And after he takes down the Mononoke, although it's a little hard to tell if that's real or not.
- Deranged Animation: Oh yes.
- Dramatic Pause: The... Medicine... Seller... loves... this trope.
- Everyone Calls Him Barkeep: Well, what else are you going to call him?
- Faceless Masses: Done very stylishly.
- Facial Markings: And they change when he draws his sword.
- Fetus Terrible: In the Zashiki-Warashi arc.
- Ghostly Goals: The Bakeneko.
- Gonk: Several characters in several arcs, with two in the Bakeneko arc who look surprisingly similar.
- Henohenomoheji: In a Crowning Moment Of Awesome for the Medicine Seller in the Noppera-Bo arc.
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: A good part of the series if you're not careful.
- Humans Are Bastards
- Kabuki Sounds: Used to punctuate the eye catches and endings.
- Karmic Death
- Large Ham: The minstrel that appears in the Umi-Bozu arc.
- Luminescent Blush: Standard female reaction to The Medicine Seller's appearance.
- Malaproper: The Medicine Seller ends up mangling a Japanese idiom in the Noppera-Bo arc (or more properly, mixing two idioms together regarding fish).
- Marked Change
- Mask Power: The Fox-Man in the Noppera-Bo arc, though it's implied that he was really an illusion created by the Medicine Seller to help free Chou. Maybe. Masks also play an important symbolic role throughout the arc.
- Mind Screw: And how!
- Mukokuseki: Mostly averted, with the obvious exception of The Medicine Seller. However, Shino and Genkei both have blond hair and blue eyes; Genkei's pass without comment, but the innkeeper's servant seems shocked to see that Shino's hair color after she removes her head scarf, suggesting that she might really be a foreigner. There's also the fact that said inn is run by two black people...
- Musical Assassin: With a shamisen!
- Noblewomans Laugh: Lady Ruri in the Nue arc.
- Omniscient Morality License: The Medicine Seller even says that his job is just to defeat the Mononoke, and he has no obligation to save the people involved. Given the series' Grey And Grey Morality this makes sense.
- Pale Skinned Brunette
- Power Limiter: The Sword of Exorcism can't be drawn until the Medicine Seller solves the mystery. (See Rule Of Three below.)
- The Rashomon: Absolutely no one tells the truth the first time they're asked for their story.
- Red String Of Fate: A variation involving a red cloth between and unborn child and their parents. A much more traditional example appears in the OP, with a red string tied to the pinky finger.
- Reincarnation: Implied in the Bakeneko arc, where it appears that the characters are reincarnations of the original Ayakashi Bakeneko victims.
- Rule Of Three: The Medicine Seller needs the Mononoke's Shape, Truth, and Reason in order to purify it.
- Scenery Porn
- Situational Sword: See above.
- Spell My Name With An S: Officially, it's Mo No No Ke.
- The Stinger: Right when you think you've more or less got an arc figured out, its stinger will show up and confuse you to hell and back.
- The Stoic: The medicine seller's emotional range is, at most, "somewhat bemused" and "fighting a Mononoke". He showed much more emotion in the original Ayakashi arc.
- Story Arc: Five—the Zashiki-Warashi, Umi Bozu, Noppera-Bo, Nue, and Bakeneko.
- Surreal Horror
- Theme Tune Cameo: The radio plays the instrumental mix of the opening theme in Setsuko's room while she's writing in the Bakeneko arc.
- This Is Unforgivable: The Bakeneko's only first-hand dialogue.
- Time Skip: The Bakeneko arc takes place in the 1920s while the rest appears to be set in the Edo Period, but the Medicine Seller himself hasn't changed at all (besides having some new jewelry). There are arguably small hints in each arc that time skips forward about 50 years in between each of them.
- Tomato In The Mirror: In the case of both Genkei and Chou, they're actually the Mononoke and don't realize it.
- Transformation Sequence: The most AWESOME transformation sequence ever animated, hands down.
- Unreliable Narrator: Everyone.
- Unusual Ears: The Medicine Seller.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Again, the Medicine Seller.
- Particularly in the Bakeneko arc, when in addition to being a guy with pale hair and red markings all over his face in the middle of a Japanese cast, he's also dressed a good 100 years out of date.
- Walking The Earth: The Medicine Seller's purpose is to wander the earth eternally, killing Mononoke; in fact, the series ends with an arc set in the 1920s (where the rest of the series is at least set before the Meiji restoration); the enemy is a Bakeneko, and the characters all seem to be reincarnations of the characters from the original Ayakashi arc where the enemy was a Bakeneko. Funny the little coincidences, eh?
