History Manga / Mushishi

* PeekABangs:
** Ginko's haircut covers one eye. [[spoiler:Or rather, the empty socket.]]
** After [[spoiler:Ginko gives up his glass eye to her]], Sui in "The Light Of The Eyelid" sports this hairstyle as well.

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* TheVirus: One of the ''mushi'' Ginko encounters has the ability to [[spoiler:enter soon-to-be-pregnant women and replace their unborn fetus with a copy of itself, which spawns clones that the fetus' unwitting parents raise to maturity]].

** In "Journey to the Field of Fire", Nohagi thinks doing this to the unknown plant-based ''mushi'' will solve their weed infestation problem. [[spoiler:While it does stop the weeds from covering the whole mountain and getting to her village, it only happens to escalate into a bigger problem that kills seven villagers and threatens her own life. Ultimately fire ''is'' the solution, but not in the way that anyone intended; the flames from the ''kagebi'' would be used to burn the Hidane seeds, thus preventing them from maturing and spreading.]]

** [[spoiler:The unfortunate couple who had to watch their Hitotake "children" burn down their house to get rid of all traces of the ''mushi'' were told by Ginko that a ball of mud was its "core", and that they could probably get the "children" back if they wait for it to open up in a few decades. In reality, after destroying the source of the Hitotake, it and its vestiges would likely die in a day; the couple had already been through so much (including the wife previously being divorced for being barren and then three years of dealing with the "children" rapidly growing and then dying) that telling them this wouldn't do them any good.]]

* AcquiredSituationalNarcissism: Kai, the focus character of "The Coat That Holds a Mountain", eventually becomes a renowned illustrator over the course of ten years. Throughout his rising popularity, he originally was very homesick and treasured a homemade overcoat his elder sister gave to him as a parting gift (even using it as the basis for the cloth painting that earned him a real apprenticeship), but as he grew he started turning away from his hometown. The worst case was when he received a letter from his sister, but thinking it was just another one of his commission requests or fan letters he burns it without even reading it. [[spoiler:It was actually a letter detailing how their home got caught in a landslide, and he didn't realize this until he returned well after three years when he lost all motivation to paint.]]

* ColdFlames: One variety of ''mushi'' featured, called the "kagebi," 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. [[spoiler:ingesting the ''flames'' of the kagebi, however, can kill the hidane that's nested in the unlucky host's body.]]

** In "Sunrise Serpent," Sayo's condition leaves her restless and unable to sleep for more than a few seconds at a time, but after [[spoiler:she learns [[SecretOtherFamily what was really keeping her missing husband away from home,]]]] the shock is so much that she runs until she collapses from exhaustion, sleeping for several days.

* DarkSecret:[[spoiler:One mushishi family made it their life's work to take their heirs without the ability to see ''mushi'' and give them the artificial ability to look at them by playing God--essentially, making a kouki-born dragon like mushi and emptying out the soul of the heir to make them its host.]]