I'm thankful for anime!
Am at work, and as things are (for the moment-- knock on wood) quiet, I have decided to prepare a top 10 list of my favourite/most memorable anime episodes. Not series: episodes. Each of the episodes listed has a special quality that sets it apart. Not only are they episodes that I have gone back to over and over again, but they have an emotional resonance for me, affecting my life in singular and profound ways.
Although anime as a medium is not always the most serious artform in the world, at its best it has the ability to move me as much, if not more, than my favourite books. I've been a fan of this form of media ever since I was a child, even outside of my appreciation for various series that Japan has produced. There is a kind of visual artistry that can be achieved with animation techniques that is separate from anything seen in live action film (or, for that matter, strict CGI); I would not say that hand-drawn animation is superior to other visual media, but in terms of my own personal taste, it is what I tend to be drawn to. It evokes something of my own heart's longing that I also get from books, but with an added dimension of visual artistry that makes me ache with happiness.
So, here are my top 10, in reverse order from least to greatest. Assume spoilers.
10. Hikaru no Go, episode 60, Farewell Hikaru
Strangely enough, although I'm not sure HnG would rank as one of my top 10 series of all time, it's the only series that gets two episodes on this ranking. Visually, the series is adequate but not spectacular, and although the characters are all quite memorable, none would rank as top 10 characters for me either. But the storyline that starts here is something so profound and moving, and one I've never seen done with quite this level of sensitivity and grace.
Basically, Hikaru is on his quest to become a good enough Go player that he might beat his top rival, Akira. This quest was spurred on by his seemingly accidental awakening of Sai, a ghost who inhabited his grandfather's antique Go board, a restless spirit who is on the grandest quest of all (in Go terms, anyway): to learn the Divine Move. The legend is that the god of Go was lonely, having no one to match his skills, and so he set the task to humans to raise a player who might challenge him in an even fight, thus producing the most spectacular rivalry in all of creation. Sai becomes Hikaru's constant companion, an insubstantial presense that only Hikaru can detect, let alone communicate with.
In the time of the series, which is set pretty much in modern-day Japan, the player considered to be closest to the Divine Hand is Akira's father, Toya Koya. Almost from the start of the series, it is Sai's ambition to play Toya Koya in an even fight, but of course this is not easy, considering that he is an insubstantial ghost, and that Hikaru has ambitions of his own that would be ruined if Sai were to "play for him," always suggesting moves but never letting Hikaru make moves of his own.
A couple episodes before the one I list, Sai had been able to achieve his ambition, playing Toya Koya in a game that Hikaru arranged, on the internet. Oh, the marvellous internet, enabling ghosts everywhere to have a plausible existence in mundane human reality. Near the end of the game (which Hikaru of course observes intimately, since he is the one entering Sai's moves into the computer), things are very tight, and it is hard to predict who will win. But at a critical moment, Hikaru noticed something, a move beyond anything Sai had ever achieved before, and suggested it. Sai was astonished, beyond astonished, because in all things he was still a much better player than Hikaru, even though Hikaru was quickly growing as a Go player. But it was at this moment that Sai came to a moment of nirvana-like revelation, realizing that his hundreds of years existing as a ghost were all in preparation for this one moment; not so that HE could learn the Divine Move, but that he could "raise up" Hikaru and give him the training and drive to continue with Go, to get one step closer to the Divine Move.
It is at that moment that Sai realizes that his time on earth was about to end. But it is two episodes later when he finally dissipates, and the moment when it happens is one of the most emotionally affecting things I've ever seen in any series. It comes near the end of an episode filled with seemingly mundane things, but we in the audience feel Sai's urgency, because he wants to say so much to Hikaru before he goes forever, but is not really sure how to do it... especially since Hikaru thinks that Sai is worrying over nothing, and is irritated with Sai's seemingly whiny mopeyness in the face of what should have been his most triumphant moment. Throughout the episode, Hikaru just does not get what is going on, but at the end Sai convinces him to play a game of Go, which they do.
It is set in Hikaru's room, just a regular day. Probably summer, because the windows are open and Hikaru has one of those traditional wind chimes set up. Hikaru is extremely sleepy, having stayed up very late the day before, and starts fallin asleep in the middle of the game, just when Sai loses his ability to communicate directly to Hikaru. But Sai still has a few moments, and without Hikaru hearing him, he thanks him for everything, and says "it was fun..." before fading into nothingness.
The realism in this scene is so affecting, but what makes it so much more so in follow-up viewings is knowing what happens after... how frantically Hikaru searches for Sai, how regretful he is for what he sees to have been his arrogance and flaws, the sheer enormity of his grief. It is extremely realistic and heart wrenching, a perfect illustration for how people deal with death, and in the end of the series we realize that Sai is never coming back, and that perhaps Hikaru will never be able to speak to him again, definitely not in life, but perhaps not in death as well. Knowing how it ends, this episode just guts me, because of the sense of lost connection, of things unsaid. The wall between even people who share deep intimacy, the way that misunderstandings can turn into permanent regrets. Because Sai was happy with his time with Hikaru; but Hikaru will never know this, never know how fondly Sai was thinkin of his at the very end.
Just writing it out makes me all tearful!
9. Honey and Clover II, episode 12, "...I'm here"
Honey and Clover is a series that follows a group of college-aged friends through their years in art school, along with a few of the teachers at that school who are closely connected to them. It is often classified as a "slice of life" series, because of its realism and focus on everyday moments and human emotions. It can also properly be called a "shojo" series ("shojo" being either anime or manga that are designed to appeal to girls), because of the high complexity of the relationships portrayed, as well as the focus on emotionally affecting philosphical moments.
It's rare for series like this to end powerfully; most are trite, and usually the best you can hope for will be a satisfying resolution to all of the various emotional entanglements. Whether or not things end happily, you have a sense that things are how they are supposed to be, and can bid farewell to the various characters with a sense of having successfully seen them through their problems and requisite growth as people.
Honey and Clover is different; it supercedes all of these elements, probably by a factor of 100. But it also has that rare quality of being powerful and true. I was extremely sad to see it end, because I did not want to say goodbye to the characters, and yet the ending was perfect, a complete summation of events with an unaffected naturalness that gives you the sense that "this is how it is supposed to be," while at the same time taking you somewhere you would never have expected.
The main question of the series is this: "is there any meaning to a love that is unrequited, and are things that disappear the same as things that never existed in the first place?" Appropriately, this is specifically wondered by the main character, Takemoto, who we have followed through the the entire progression of his feelings for Hagu, an elf of a girl who is full of neuroses but who also posesses a powerful, almost scary talent for art. He developed a crush on her at first sight, and became close to her as a friend, all while dealing with his own struggles as a poor, no-more-than-mediocre student of architecture who has yet to have found his place in the world. At the end of the first series, he confesses his love for her, and if things had ended right there it could have been a "happily ever after" ending, full of possibilities with the suggestion that everything will all work out for him.
But in the second series, we see this is not to be. Hagu never responds to his confession of love, and begins to avoid him, and we realize without either of them saying anything that she has implicitly rejected his love. This becomes an issue for her as well, because it really pains her to hurt someone who she considers to be a dear friend, but in the end this is probably the most trivial of her own issues, and I get the feeling that she puts it to the side fairly quickly in the face of other events. Takemoto, on the other hand, has to deal with the fallout; having confessed, he has changed his friendship with Hagu, perhaps ruined it. And although this has technically "freed" him, he is left still very empty and lonely inside. And he has to learn how to be okay with that.
The final scene of the anime, with Takemoto leaving Tokyo (I...er, think it is set in Tokyo? This seems like one of those fundamental details I should just know, but... don't), and Hagu catches up to him and gives him a pile of... I dunno, bread? On each slice of bread she has imprinted the image of a clover, something he knows carries a lot of meaning for her. It represents all of her best wishes for happiness, and brings back the memory of one perfect day with the group of them, he and Hagu as well as all of their friends, go searching on the side of hill for a four leaf clover. At this moment, the extremely melancoly "Inaka no Seikatsu" by SPITZ is playing, and it is an extremely fitting ending, as Takemoto realizes: Yes. A love that has not been answered DOES have meaning.
Many other important things happen in this episode, too, regarding other characters, and are of only slightly less emotional resonance. Shuu's resolve to care for Hagu has been answered; Morita's concerns for his brother have been assuaged. Yamada and Mayama also are beginning to find their places. There is a lot I could say about every single one of these relationships, but in the end this is Takemoto's story, and it was his departure I felt most keenly at the end. Without ending up with anyone, he went very far emotionally, coming to terms with himself and finding peace with who he is.
8. Rozen Maiden Ouverture, episode 2, Vanity
This is a two-episode prequel special that aired after the first two seasons of Rozen Maiden were complete, and tells the story of how Suiginito first became a Rozen Maiden, as well as the story of her relationship with Shinku. The Rozen Maidens are a series of very detailed, beautiful ball-jointed dolls created by a master craftsman with the surname Rozen, whom the dolls all call "Father." Rozen has created them to be superb, but they all lack the spark to become Alice, a theoretical ultimate doll, and to this end all of the dolls fight each other in order to obtain each other's spirits (their "roza mysticas"), which they hope will bring them closer to becoming complete, perfect dolls worthy of Rozen's love.
There is much in this set up that could be relentlessly awful, predictable, and sleezy, but somehow the series manages to evoke more of the Pinnochio and less of the lolicon. On technical merits, this is not as strong a series as Princess Tutu, another series that I feel takes that fairy tale mythology and weaves it into a new, modern story of wonder. Nor is it in general as emotionally affecting; the journey of Ahiru as she follows her own wishes to an end that she could never have predicted is more carefully considered, and the ending is as perfect as any one could wish. But this one episode of Rozen Maiden, standing alone, is superior to any one episode of Princess Tutu. And because they are similar series in some ways, this alone is an astonishing accomplishment.
Suigintou is the first doll made by Rozen as an Alice candidate, but she was never finished, and set aside incomplete. However, through the sheer force of her love for "Father," she manages to come to Shinku. Because she is not complete, she cannot walk, and although she believes fervently that she is a Rozen Maiden, Shinku pities pities her, because to her it seems obvious that this incomplete doll could never have a Roza Mystica... a doll's soul. The plot of this episode is well detailed here, and I won't go over every detail. But in terms of quality of animation, appropriateness of music, vitality of characterization, and utter ferocity of the plot, which just hits you all the more for being so unexpectedly perfect, this is one of the great single episodes of all time.
7. Mushishi episode 20, The Sea of Brushes
Oh, Mushishi. On a visual basis alone, this is probably the most beautiful series I have ever seen, with the most gorgeous dewy vistas of the natural world, of snow and rain, of pool and mountain, made perfect by the presence of mushi, which are a kind of proto-kami spiritlike lifeform that exist everywhere in the world. Mushi, which should live in balance with nature, are like every other creature that exists in the world, and therefore sometimes cause problems for people and the land (although most of the time they seem to bless the land with abundance when they are where they are supposed to be, doing what they were designed to do).
The series includes 26 stand-alone episodes, all connected by the fact that each is in some way a story about mushi, and that each involves the wandering mushishi Ginko, a kind of intinerant doctor who goes from town to town, helping people deal with problems caused by mushi.
So many of the episodes are favourites of mine, it seems like it would be hard to choose just one (or, alternatively, hard to keep from filling this top 10 list with episodes from this series alone). But actually the choice was very easy. In this episode we are introduced to Tama, a young woman who seals a mushi in her leg, a particularly malignant one that has the tendancy to feed off life: all life, that of the natural world but also that of other mushi. We learn that several generations past, through a ritual that has long been forgotten, a very talented mushishi was able to seal this dangerous one into the body of a pregnant woman, who became entirely black. From then on, in every few generations of this family, a person would be born with the black mark of the forbidden mushi. And every time this happened, the procedure was the same: the baby would be raised learning a technique to put the forbidden mushi to sleep, writing down story after story as told to him or her by various mushishi. Somehow, the words of the story, in which other mushi were defeated, would tame the forbidden mushi, and the mark would fade slowly throughout the person's lifetime. These stories would in turn be collected in a secret library, protected through time and strenthening the seal with the power of the words contained on each scroll.
Tama is a very beautiful and graceful woman, but the mark on her leg makes it very difficult for her to walk, and she is set with this task for as long as it takes, writing down the stories of mushi perhaps until the day of her death. Ginko comes to her and we find out that he has been visiting her periodically. Tama has grown tired of all the stories that mushishi tell her, in which the mushi is invitably destroyed, and longs for stories where humans and mushi live together in peace. But no mushishi have such stories, and in any case they would not be useful to her anyway. But Ginko is different; he will destroy mushi if he has to, but he prefers to find a way to restore mushi to their proper place. So when he visits, his stories provide a relief for Tama.
Tama and Ginko share a deep bond. There is one scene where they are sitting together on a rock in the middle of a rather barren field, and hesitantly, Tama asks Ginko if he would be willing to let her come with him if she ever breaks the curse. At first he doesn't answer, shocked by the request, and Tama takes that as a refusal, and tries to beg off, pretending to have been joking. But then Ginko agrees, promising her to bring her with him. It is a small moment, but you can tell that is is one of profound significance for the both of them.
Is it love? Are they in love with each other? This question is never answered... in fact, it is not even really raised. As spectators, even though we are allowed to observe the actions of many characters and from that infer their emotions, in this we are given, in one brief episode, a relationship that is too close to Ginko for the audience to be at all able to quantify it. Ginko is a character you know, but don't know. It reminds me of real life, in the fact that when you become closer to someone, it becomes harder and harder sometimes to read them. Not because their behaviors are so different from everyone else, but because you have invested so much feeling into the relationship that there is no longer any chance to have distance, and objectivity. And startlingly, Mushishi gives you this kind of relationship with Ginko: you become close to him without even knowing it, and as that happens, a veil is placed between you and him, making him more mysterious and interesting than any mere character should have any right to... except, of course, this is the goal of all great art, to give you something that should not be at all possible.
++
Wow... this is getting to be long! Well, I'll cut it off here, and will pick it back up with episode 6. HOPEFULLY!
Although anime as a medium is not always the most serious artform in the world, at its best it has the ability to move me as much, if not more, than my favourite books. I've been a fan of this form of media ever since I was a child, even outside of my appreciation for various series that Japan has produced. There is a kind of visual artistry that can be achieved with animation techniques that is separate from anything seen in live action film (or, for that matter, strict CGI); I would not say that hand-drawn animation is superior to other visual media, but in terms of my own personal taste, it is what I tend to be drawn to. It evokes something of my own heart's longing that I also get from books, but with an added dimension of visual artistry that makes me ache with happiness.
So, here are my top 10, in reverse order from least to greatest. Assume spoilers.
10. Hikaru no Go, episode 60, Farewell Hikaru
Strangely enough, although I'm not sure HnG would rank as one of my top 10 series of all time, it's the only series that gets two episodes on this ranking. Visually, the series is adequate but not spectacular, and although the characters are all quite memorable, none would rank as top 10 characters for me either. But the storyline that starts here is something so profound and moving, and one I've never seen done with quite this level of sensitivity and grace.
Basically, Hikaru is on his quest to become a good enough Go player that he might beat his top rival, Akira. This quest was spurred on by his seemingly accidental awakening of Sai, a ghost who inhabited his grandfather's antique Go board, a restless spirit who is on the grandest quest of all (in Go terms, anyway): to learn the Divine Move. The legend is that the god of Go was lonely, having no one to match his skills, and so he set the task to humans to raise a player who might challenge him in an even fight, thus producing the most spectacular rivalry in all of creation. Sai becomes Hikaru's constant companion, an insubstantial presense that only Hikaru can detect, let alone communicate with.
In the time of the series, which is set pretty much in modern-day Japan, the player considered to be closest to the Divine Hand is Akira's father, Toya Koya. Almost from the start of the series, it is Sai's ambition to play Toya Koya in an even fight, but of course this is not easy, considering that he is an insubstantial ghost, and that Hikaru has ambitions of his own that would be ruined if Sai were to "play for him," always suggesting moves but never letting Hikaru make moves of his own.
A couple episodes before the one I list, Sai had been able to achieve his ambition, playing Toya Koya in a game that Hikaru arranged, on the internet. Oh, the marvellous internet, enabling ghosts everywhere to have a plausible existence in mundane human reality. Near the end of the game (which Hikaru of course observes intimately, since he is the one entering Sai's moves into the computer), things are very tight, and it is hard to predict who will win. But at a critical moment, Hikaru noticed something, a move beyond anything Sai had ever achieved before, and suggested it. Sai was astonished, beyond astonished, because in all things he was still a much better player than Hikaru, even though Hikaru was quickly growing as a Go player. But it was at this moment that Sai came to a moment of nirvana-like revelation, realizing that his hundreds of years existing as a ghost were all in preparation for this one moment; not so that HE could learn the Divine Move, but that he could "raise up" Hikaru and give him the training and drive to continue with Go, to get one step closer to the Divine Move.
It is at that moment that Sai realizes that his time on earth was about to end. But it is two episodes later when he finally dissipates, and the moment when it happens is one of the most emotionally affecting things I've ever seen in any series. It comes near the end of an episode filled with seemingly mundane things, but we in the audience feel Sai's urgency, because he wants to say so much to Hikaru before he goes forever, but is not really sure how to do it... especially since Hikaru thinks that Sai is worrying over nothing, and is irritated with Sai's seemingly whiny mopeyness in the face of what should have been his most triumphant moment. Throughout the episode, Hikaru just does not get what is going on, but at the end Sai convinces him to play a game of Go, which they do.
It is set in Hikaru's room, just a regular day. Probably summer, because the windows are open and Hikaru has one of those traditional wind chimes set up. Hikaru is extremely sleepy, having stayed up very late the day before, and starts fallin asleep in the middle of the game, just when Sai loses his ability to communicate directly to Hikaru. But Sai still has a few moments, and without Hikaru hearing him, he thanks him for everything, and says "it was fun..." before fading into nothingness.
The realism in this scene is so affecting, but what makes it so much more so in follow-up viewings is knowing what happens after... how frantically Hikaru searches for Sai, how regretful he is for what he sees to have been his arrogance and flaws, the sheer enormity of his grief. It is extremely realistic and heart wrenching, a perfect illustration for how people deal with death, and in the end of the series we realize that Sai is never coming back, and that perhaps Hikaru will never be able to speak to him again, definitely not in life, but perhaps not in death as well. Knowing how it ends, this episode just guts me, because of the sense of lost connection, of things unsaid. The wall between even people who share deep intimacy, the way that misunderstandings can turn into permanent regrets. Because Sai was happy with his time with Hikaru; but Hikaru will never know this, never know how fondly Sai was thinkin of his at the very end.
Just writing it out makes me all tearful!
9. Honey and Clover II, episode 12, "...I'm here"
Honey and Clover is a series that follows a group of college-aged friends through their years in art school, along with a few of the teachers at that school who are closely connected to them. It is often classified as a "slice of life" series, because of its realism and focus on everyday moments and human emotions. It can also properly be called a "shojo" series ("shojo" being either anime or manga that are designed to appeal to girls), because of the high complexity of the relationships portrayed, as well as the focus on emotionally affecting philosphical moments.
It's rare for series like this to end powerfully; most are trite, and usually the best you can hope for will be a satisfying resolution to all of the various emotional entanglements. Whether or not things end happily, you have a sense that things are how they are supposed to be, and can bid farewell to the various characters with a sense of having successfully seen them through their problems and requisite growth as people.
Honey and Clover is different; it supercedes all of these elements, probably by a factor of 100. But it also has that rare quality of being powerful and true. I was extremely sad to see it end, because I did not want to say goodbye to the characters, and yet the ending was perfect, a complete summation of events with an unaffected naturalness that gives you the sense that "this is how it is supposed to be," while at the same time taking you somewhere you would never have expected.
The main question of the series is this: "is there any meaning to a love that is unrequited, and are things that disappear the same as things that never existed in the first place?" Appropriately, this is specifically wondered by the main character, Takemoto, who we have followed through the the entire progression of his feelings for Hagu, an elf of a girl who is full of neuroses but who also posesses a powerful, almost scary talent for art. He developed a crush on her at first sight, and became close to her as a friend, all while dealing with his own struggles as a poor, no-more-than-mediocre student of architecture who has yet to have found his place in the world. At the end of the first series, he confesses his love for her, and if things had ended right there it could have been a "happily ever after" ending, full of possibilities with the suggestion that everything will all work out for him.
But in the second series, we see this is not to be. Hagu never responds to his confession of love, and begins to avoid him, and we realize without either of them saying anything that she has implicitly rejected his love. This becomes an issue for her as well, because it really pains her to hurt someone who she considers to be a dear friend, but in the end this is probably the most trivial of her own issues, and I get the feeling that she puts it to the side fairly quickly in the face of other events. Takemoto, on the other hand, has to deal with the fallout; having confessed, he has changed his friendship with Hagu, perhaps ruined it. And although this has technically "freed" him, he is left still very empty and lonely inside. And he has to learn how to be okay with that.
The final scene of the anime, with Takemoto leaving Tokyo (I...er, think it is set in Tokyo? This seems like one of those fundamental details I should just know, but... don't), and Hagu catches up to him and gives him a pile of... I dunno, bread? On each slice of bread she has imprinted the image of a clover, something he knows carries a lot of meaning for her. It represents all of her best wishes for happiness, and brings back the memory of one perfect day with the group of them, he and Hagu as well as all of their friends, go searching on the side of hill for a four leaf clover. At this moment, the extremely melancoly "Inaka no Seikatsu" by SPITZ is playing, and it is an extremely fitting ending, as Takemoto realizes: Yes. A love that has not been answered DOES have meaning.
Many other important things happen in this episode, too, regarding other characters, and are of only slightly less emotional resonance. Shuu's resolve to care for Hagu has been answered; Morita's concerns for his brother have been assuaged. Yamada and Mayama also are beginning to find their places. There is a lot I could say about every single one of these relationships, but in the end this is Takemoto's story, and it was his departure I felt most keenly at the end. Without ending up with anyone, he went very far emotionally, coming to terms with himself and finding peace with who he is.
8. Rozen Maiden Ouverture, episode 2, Vanity
This is a two-episode prequel special that aired after the first two seasons of Rozen Maiden were complete, and tells the story of how Suiginito first became a Rozen Maiden, as well as the story of her relationship with Shinku. The Rozen Maidens are a series of very detailed, beautiful ball-jointed dolls created by a master craftsman with the surname Rozen, whom the dolls all call "Father." Rozen has created them to be superb, but they all lack the spark to become Alice, a theoretical ultimate doll, and to this end all of the dolls fight each other in order to obtain each other's spirits (their "roza mysticas"), which they hope will bring them closer to becoming complete, perfect dolls worthy of Rozen's love.
There is much in this set up that could be relentlessly awful, predictable, and sleezy, but somehow the series manages to evoke more of the Pinnochio and less of the lolicon. On technical merits, this is not as strong a series as Princess Tutu, another series that I feel takes that fairy tale mythology and weaves it into a new, modern story of wonder. Nor is it in general as emotionally affecting; the journey of Ahiru as she follows her own wishes to an end that she could never have predicted is more carefully considered, and the ending is as perfect as any one could wish. But this one episode of Rozen Maiden, standing alone, is superior to any one episode of Princess Tutu. And because they are similar series in some ways, this alone is an astonishing accomplishment.
Suigintou is the first doll made by Rozen as an Alice candidate, but she was never finished, and set aside incomplete. However, through the sheer force of her love for "Father," she manages to come to Shinku. Because she is not complete, she cannot walk, and although she believes fervently that she is a Rozen Maiden, Shinku pities pities her, because to her it seems obvious that this incomplete doll could never have a Roza Mystica... a doll's soul. The plot of this episode is well detailed here, and I won't go over every detail. But in terms of quality of animation, appropriateness of music, vitality of characterization, and utter ferocity of the plot, which just hits you all the more for being so unexpectedly perfect, this is one of the great single episodes of all time.
7. Mushishi episode 20, The Sea of Brushes
Oh, Mushishi. On a visual basis alone, this is probably the most beautiful series I have ever seen, with the most gorgeous dewy vistas of the natural world, of snow and rain, of pool and mountain, made perfect by the presence of mushi, which are a kind of proto-kami spiritlike lifeform that exist everywhere in the world. Mushi, which should live in balance with nature, are like every other creature that exists in the world, and therefore sometimes cause problems for people and the land (although most of the time they seem to bless the land with abundance when they are where they are supposed to be, doing what they were designed to do).
The series includes 26 stand-alone episodes, all connected by the fact that each is in some way a story about mushi, and that each involves the wandering mushishi Ginko, a kind of intinerant doctor who goes from town to town, helping people deal with problems caused by mushi.
So many of the episodes are favourites of mine, it seems like it would be hard to choose just one (or, alternatively, hard to keep from filling this top 10 list with episodes from this series alone). But actually the choice was very easy. In this episode we are introduced to Tama, a young woman who seals a mushi in her leg, a particularly malignant one that has the tendancy to feed off life: all life, that of the natural world but also that of other mushi. We learn that several generations past, through a ritual that has long been forgotten, a very talented mushishi was able to seal this dangerous one into the body of a pregnant woman, who became entirely black. From then on, in every few generations of this family, a person would be born with the black mark of the forbidden mushi. And every time this happened, the procedure was the same: the baby would be raised learning a technique to put the forbidden mushi to sleep, writing down story after story as told to him or her by various mushishi. Somehow, the words of the story, in which other mushi were defeated, would tame the forbidden mushi, and the mark would fade slowly throughout the person's lifetime. These stories would in turn be collected in a secret library, protected through time and strenthening the seal with the power of the words contained on each scroll.
Tama is a very beautiful and graceful woman, but the mark on her leg makes it very difficult for her to walk, and she is set with this task for as long as it takes, writing down the stories of mushi perhaps until the day of her death. Ginko comes to her and we find out that he has been visiting her periodically. Tama has grown tired of all the stories that mushishi tell her, in which the mushi is invitably destroyed, and longs for stories where humans and mushi live together in peace. But no mushishi have such stories, and in any case they would not be useful to her anyway. But Ginko is different; he will destroy mushi if he has to, but he prefers to find a way to restore mushi to their proper place. So when he visits, his stories provide a relief for Tama.
Tama and Ginko share a deep bond. There is one scene where they are sitting together on a rock in the middle of a rather barren field, and hesitantly, Tama asks Ginko if he would be willing to let her come with him if she ever breaks the curse. At first he doesn't answer, shocked by the request, and Tama takes that as a refusal, and tries to beg off, pretending to have been joking. But then Ginko agrees, promising her to bring her with him. It is a small moment, but you can tell that is is one of profound significance for the both of them.
Is it love? Are they in love with each other? This question is never answered... in fact, it is not even really raised. As spectators, even though we are allowed to observe the actions of many characters and from that infer their emotions, in this we are given, in one brief episode, a relationship that is too close to Ginko for the audience to be at all able to quantify it. Ginko is a character you know, but don't know. It reminds me of real life, in the fact that when you become closer to someone, it becomes harder and harder sometimes to read them. Not because their behaviors are so different from everyone else, but because you have invested so much feeling into the relationship that there is no longer any chance to have distance, and objectivity. And startlingly, Mushishi gives you this kind of relationship with Ginko: you become close to him without even knowing it, and as that happens, a veil is placed between you and him, making him more mysterious and interesting than any mere character should have any right to... except, of course, this is the goal of all great art, to give you something that should not be at all possible.
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Wow... this is getting to be long! Well, I'll cut it off here, and will pick it back up with episode 6. HOPEFULLY!