Yuki Urushibara's Mushishi

I couldn't help but laugh at this week's list of recomendations. Mostly because I have read most of them after getting into Manga back in middle school. Over the years it's hard to find a series I haven't heard of in passing.

So I was actually kind of embaressed with myself that I hadn't gotten around to reading Mushishi.

This had been a series I heard about but again never gotten the chance to read (seems to be the story of my life). Well I had the chance. And I couldn't stop. I read all 10 volumes of Mushishi in under a week. Probably not the best use of my time but I couldn't put it down.

Most stories revolve around creatures called Mushi that have caused problems for humans in some way. Its Ginko's job as a Mushi master to fix these issue.

What I found so interesting about this series is that most chapters are a completely new story about a new Mushi causing problems. That's about 40 pages per story and the series went on for 10 volumes. That's quite a lot for Manga. What made me continue to finish the series was these different plots per chapter. Far too often I see manga cling to plots for long stretches of time spanning multiple chapters to be pointless. This was a refreshing change to that pace. The lore that is used behind the mushi is also an interesting. I haven't been accustomed to growing up in America where the only fairy tales we get are Mother Goose and pretty much Disney stories.

At first the art annoyed me. It wasn't by any means the worst manga art I had ever seen but for a series that had gotten such nice recommendations it didn't impress me. It was mostly because of his hands. They were huge compared to the rest of his body. It was a serious case of 'Yaoi Hands'. Once I got past that however the series was far more impressive. What also helped was the improvement as the issues continued.