Product Details

• Actors: Jô Odagiri, Travis Willingham
• Directors: Katsuhiro Ôtomo
• Format: Box set, NTSC, Color, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Japanese, English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Funimation Prod
• DVD Release Date: July 6, 2010
• Run Time: 625 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003H6KRMA
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #28,089 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Between this world and the next, there is a point where it becomes impossible to distinguish between plant and animal, between life and death. It is a place man was never meant to tread… Neither good nor evil, they are life in its purest form. An unseen river reshaping the path of man, through their very presence we are changed.

Vulgar and strange, they have inspired fear in humans since the dawn of time and have, over the ages, come to be known as “mushi.”

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars NOT a Review of the Movie!, September 16, 2010

By 

RavenRing (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mushi-Shi: The Complete Collection (DVD)

Ginko is a Mushishi - an expert on Mushi, odd spirit-like creatures not everyone can see and that occasionally cause harm to unwary humans. Ginko travels Japan studying Mushi and helping solve problems related to them, such as a village paralyzed by rust mushi, or a bamboo mushi that traps travelers in its forest. Each episode stands on its own, telling of a different place with different mushi, with Ginko observing and assisting when needed.

This is a very languid, beautiful series. Ginko does have a backstory that is eventually revealed, but the series focus is individual episodes. The scenery and mushi combine to create a delightful viewing experience, and the stories are engaging, quickly drawing you in to the world they create. Watching this show made me feel relaxed and I came away from each episode with a contented, peaceful feeling. Not that the stories are boring - since Ginko is a healer like character, most of the stories involve people who are suffering from their contact with the mushi. But the resolutions are normally uplifting and satisfying.

If you are looking for an action show, this is not it. If you are looking for a show that has an continues storyline, this is also not it. But if you want a show that you can just watch and enjoy on an episodic basis, that has emotional stories and beautiful scenery, please give this show a try. So far everyone I've showed this series to has enjoyed it, and I hope you will too!

Random Trivia: "Mushi" is the Japanese word for "bug", which is what the mushi of this show often resemble.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Piece of Art, May 23, 2011

By 

Watcher - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mushi-Shi: The Complete Collection (DVD)

One of the best animes I have watched in the last several years. Slow paced but extremely atmospheric with unexpected stories and plot twists, if plot twists is ever possible to say about this anime, Mushishi really stands out among the standard stories of most animes nowadays. It is really hard to find something different from generic boy-meets-girl-meets-giant-mecha-meets-superpowers plots and makes Mushishi a true gem.

I have purchased the Mushishi: The Complete Collection version with 4 DVDs and Ginko-san's closeup image on the cover (DVD Release Date: July 6, 2010 Run Time: 625 minutes) and am happy about the quality of it. It has both English and Japanese soundtracks and English subtitles. The short insider bonus video from the Mushishi creators' studio is priceless for a true fan. Manga pages provided as a bonus are seriously worthless, a handful of too lowrez images is not even worth mentioning as a bonus. The textless opening is a nice addition.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful and unconventional., December 22, 2010

By 

Angry Mofo "angrymofo" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mushi-Shi: The Complete Collection (DVD)

If you'd like something a little different from your anime, Mushi-Shi might be for you. It is a gorgeously animated show, with truly lovely watercolour-style visuals, set in old Japan, with careful attention paid to period costumes and architecture. There is a supernatural element in the form of "mushi," or invisible spirit-like beings with magical powers, which apparently exist all around humans, and often have profound effects on people's lives. However, the show avoids most of the usual cliches. There are no battling samurai, magical schoolgirls, or giant robots. The show's protagonist is a "mushi master" named Ginko who wanders around the countryside, observing people's encounters with mushi and sometimes helping them deal with these situations. He's somewhere between magician and scientist (also, for some reason, he wears a shirt and pants instead of a kimono) but most of the time he acts as an impartial observer of human nature.

For the most part, the mushi are plot devices that cause people to experience intense emotions or moral crises. Many of the situations are memorable and poetic. One man is so struck by a vision of a rainbow that he spends his life chasing after rainstorms. A woman accidentally gives a magical potion to her husband that forces him to live with her in a forest, unable to leave. Another man lost his wife at sea, and waits for her clothes to wash ashore for years afterward. A starving artist painted his first picture on the inside of his own coat, which apparently took on magical powers. A certain village sacrifices people to the ocean, only to have them reborn anew. These stories offer many good moments of reflection. The characters are frequently subject to strong feelings of guilt, obligation, or regret, cutting deeper than the typical motivation offered in anime. Although the storyline is episodic, and there is only one recurring character aside from Ginko himself, the show still offers many convincing portraits of inner turmoil, and the numerous one-time characters are still able to demonstrate the kind of intense introspection that people engage in when their lives undergo dramatic changes.

Some episodes have a more chilly and creepy atmosphere. The most noteworthy one of these is a story about a couple whose child was killed and then replaced by human-looking mushi, with clear pod-people overtones. Yet, there's an emotional angle there as well: Ginko figures out the imposture immediately, but the wife (who lost her baby from a previous pregnancy) is so desperate to have children that she refuses to believe him. Fate is a big theme of the show, with many episodes where Ginko can clearly predict the unhappy conclusion, but is powerless to prevent it. Ginko himself is a likeable character, not analyzed extensively, but given just enough backstory to put a tragic tinge on his wandering.

So, the mushi are used to drive some pretty great ideas, but they can also become a problem. Every episode features a different type of mushi. Mushi come in many flavours -- flying, insect-like, plant-like, predatory, and so forth -- and every episode features a new species. As a result, Ginko always spends way too much time telling you each mushi's name (also reminding you that mushi are invisible) and explaining its habits and life cycle in tiresome detail. The real draw is the guy trapped in the forest, first longing for his past village life and then grieving over his wife's sacrifice, not the biological functions of the bamboo-like mushi, whose name I already forgot. The weaker episodes are ones that try to focus more on the mushi. There's one about a girl who pities them, and a couple more that dwell on details about the "river of light," which is something made up of mushi that is apparently dangerous to look at. The problem is that mushi are drawn as little squiggles, difficult to empathize with, and the whole Lifestream concept isn't really original enough to merit the attention.

Fortunately, the show always looks pretty. There are beautiful green misty hills, swirling clouds, pink springtime flowers, raging oceans, pristine snowfields and dense forests. Nature plays a big role in the world. Humans mostly live in tiny villages, with occasional conflicts on a small scale (e.g. the villagers' prejudice against a particular family), but with no war or crime. The show's meditative nature is a welcome respite from the typical good-versus-evil or boy-gets-girl generic anime plots. It's not surprising that it only lasted for 26 episodes (any more and it might have become repetitive or boring), but it's a fascinating experiment that puts anime to bigger and better use than the norm.