Mushishi: The Next Chapter

Episodes 17-18

Episodes 17 and 18 are both eerie tales about cursed mother-child relationships, but they couldn't be more different in execution. One flounders around in the muck while the other makes a lightning impact, and as you may have guessed from that oddly specific metaphor, their successes match their respective subject matter.

In episode 17, Ginko meets a single mother living by the river who raises her very strange son in secrecy. The boy's skin is cold like a fish, he's an excellent swimmer, and he finds himself drawn to the water almost every waking minute. He even has slight webbing between his fingers and toes, and when he cries, his tears move strangely, as if they are alive. Of course they're alive. They're mushi, and the boy has been infected by them symbiotically. Ginko is familiar with the behavior of this mushi and assumes the only way the boy could have ended up like this was if he had a close brush with drowning. The truth of the matter is far more disturbing, but not necessarily in a good way.

Sometimes Mushi-Shi is up, sometimes it's down, and sometimes it's just plain weird. This was one of the weird ones, probably most reminiscent of the original series' plant-zombie horror tale "Cotton Changeling," but unfortunately without the haunting factor that made that episode so memorable. In fact, this is as close to a "dud" as Mushi-Shi ever gets, straying just a little too far into hokey territory, with a delayed emotional payoff not remotely worth the build-up.

Without spoiling too much, "Azure Waters" is predicated on the eerie resemblance between a human fetus and a primordial salamander. There's more to it than that, with messages of grief and the difficulty of letting go vs. the catharsis of moving on mixed in closer to the end, but it's all stuff we've seen done better in several other episodes of Mushi-Shi, most notably "Beneath the Snow" from earlier this season. By contrast, the themes of this vignette are muddied by the presence of bizarre imagery out of character even for a show as weird as this one. Regardless of the episode's thematic goals, the actual execution of its premise is more "Shadow over Innsmouth" than either "Cotton Changeling," "Beneath the Snow," or most Mushi-Shi vignettes in general. It's lukewarm both in creepiness and poignancy and unfortunately, it reminded me of "The Thirteenth Year" more than anything. (That's a dopey Disney Channel Original Movie from the 90s that revolved around merman puberty.)

It's not a bad episode. Even at its most tepid, Mushi-Shi's excellent direction and engrossing atmosphere lift it a cut above even the lamest of weekly stories. It has its merits, mostly the beautiful and frightening visuals during the episode's climactic flash flood scene, but subtextually there's not much here outside of a disturbing "gotcha" reveal and some halfhearted "you'll be in my heart" platitudes right before the end credit roll. This episode also continues a fascinating recent trend of Ginko being wrong to the detriment of his patients, but unlike previous episodes, it doesn't reveal anything about Ginko's character or yield him any consequences. He mumbles a noncommittal "whoops" and it will probably never come up again.

It's one of the worst Mushi-Shi episodes I've seen yet, but it's still more memorable and thoughtful than most episodes of any given anime per season. Still, high bars call for high jumps, and this episode just flops through the mud to plop off into the river. Oh well.

Rating: C+ for episode 17

Episode 18, "Lightning's End," fares much better, opting for a pitch-black tone and truly dark subject matter rather than halfhearted slimy scares. When relationships become mutually abusive, yielding guilt, self-hatred, and fear where love once blossomed, it's definitely time to "break up." But what if the relationship is between a mother and her own son? It's a frightening scenario with extremely depressing roots in reality, and "Lightning's End" also benefits from tackling a character dynamic that I don't think the show has ever attempted before. If episode 17 reminded me of "The Thirteenth Year," episode 18 reminded me strongly of this year's chilling indie horror flick, "The Babadook." In both cases, Mushi-Shi supplants the happier endings of both works with its trademark "sweet bitterness."

This time, Ginko runs across a couple brought together through arranged marriage. They don't love one another, they don't love their son, and their son knows it. The father seems at peace with this (the big jerk,) but the mother is wracked with suicidal guilt at the lack of affection she feels for her own child. After she unsuccessfully tries to abandon him to the elements, he becomes a literal lightning rod of terror for her, returning home with a mushi in his stomach that calls down electric fury from the heavens. (It's no coincidence that the mushi takes up residence in his belly-button...where an umbilical cord once was.)

Thankfully, it's not all grim, and the episode ultimately delivers a reassuring message of "love through abandonment," not of the mother-to-child variety, but from the child to his mother. There was no way this story could end happily, but to the episode's credit, it offers sympathy and hope to both characters, and allows them both a future - far, far away from one another. It has plenty of striking (sorry) images, perfect pacing, and while the ideas are challenging, its exploration of them is a little too simple to make it one of the series' best. It's darn close though, and stands out as one of the most memorable stories in an highly memorable season of an excellent show. If you can wade through the puddle of "what" that makes up "Azure Waters," "Lightning's End" is a powerful reward.

Rating: B+ for episode 18

Mushishi: The Next Chapter is currently streaming Crunchyroll.

Hope has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.