YMMV / Mononoke

• Anvilicious: The Zashiki-Warashi arc may not have been intended to be an anti-abortion Author Tract, but it sure is effective! Although the conflict arose from the fact that the abortions were done violently and without the mothers' consent, the anime does present the Mononoke as sentient fetuses wanting to be born. It's not clear whether the Mononoke arose from the aborted babies or the mothers, but keep in mind that it was based on Feudal folktales, which tend to look down on abortion or anything other than heteronormative family units. The Medicine Seller himself reacting more to the Inn Keeper's callousness of forcing abortions and storing the babies in the walls than the abortions themselves, Shino's circumstances and the violence of the act itself seems to point more to it being anti- forced abortion than fully anti-abortion though its generally pretty vague.
• Awesome Art: Colourful + surreal + extremely stylized = beautiful
• Awesome Music: The OP, Kagen no Tsuki is one of the most unique anime OP's out there, with its distinctive tango feel.
• Complete Monster:
  • Lord Yoshiyuki from the "Bakeneko" Pilot arc. See here for more details.
  • Episodes 8-9—Nue arc: The Zue Mononoke is in truth a narcissistic Ayakashi possessing a rotten piece of wood known as the Toudaiji, and is the only of its kind completely lacking in sympathetic qualities or tragedy. Developing into a Mononoke from people's blind admiration of it, it drove two of Lady Ruri's original suitors to murder her and another suitor in obsession before killing the three suitors, and trapped them in a "Groundhog Day" Loop. Not content with this, it killed hundreds of others, before attempting to lure the Medicine Peddler himself, forcing him to brutally "kill" the suitors to free them. When snapped in half and burned, the graveyard of its victims is revealed to stretch dozens of yards around the house property.
• Crack Pairing: The Medicine Man x his own mononoke-slaying alter-ego has an entire Live Journal community devoted to it. Crack or Squick, take your pick!
• Fan Nickname: The Medicine Man's other half — which like him is never explicitly named in the series — has gained the nickname "Hyper" in Japan (presumably short for "Hyper Mode").
• Magnificent Bastard: The Medicine Peddler is a mysterious humanoid entity that slays the eponymous “Mononoke”, spirits created from negative human emotions. Armed with a medicine cabinet containing talismans and scales, he keeps Mononoke at bay as he determines their “shape, reason and truth” through investigation, psychological analysis and interrogation before unsheathing his sword and slaying them. Strictly committed to killing them despite their capacity for emotions, he nevertheless will show compassion for many of them. Not above manipulating humans caught in the web of the Mononoke, The Medicine Peddler makes a young woman he believed to have killed her in-laws relive her trauma to reveal she had become a Mononoke as a result of constant abuse, inflicts gruesome “deaths'' on long-dead spirits in an incense parlor game by exploiting their mental weaknesses to make them realize they were trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop by a Mononoke, and pressures passengers on a train, including a young boy, into revealing their linked connection in a Mononoke’s origin to escape from its Pocket Dimension despite knowing this would cause them to suffer a Fate Worse than Death. Resourceful and charismatic, the Medicine Seller is the greatest fear of the Mononoke, and forces accountability for the people who created them through their cruelty.
• Nightmare Fuel: A good part of the series if you're not careful.
• Tear Jerker: Loads. Every single arc has at least one if not more. Finding out the zashiki-warashi just wanted a mother to love it, Oyo's confession and subsequent self-sacrifice, Cho's mental breakdown.
• This Is Your Premise on Drugs: Mushishi on crack. Lots of it. And then a few dozen tabs of acid.

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