Mushishi

So i just watched the first episode of Mushishi, and i already found some glaring issues.

In this first episode, the grandma of the boy takes part in a ritual, in which she's told the ability her grandchild will have, and that they want her to look after him.

However, the liquid they give her to drink would have turned her into a Mushi had the ritual not been interrupted.

How would she ever even get a child and grandchild to begin with if she had been turned into a Mushi back then? Literally doesn't make sense. If she was 100% Mushi her grandchild would've been able to see her i assume, but she wouldn't have been able to get a grandchild in the first place.

Am i missing something or is this just bad writing? And if it's just bad writing, is it even worth watching beyond the first episode?

I love Mushishi

She was a half mushi.

Yes, but only because the ritual was interrupted, which was not supposed to happen.

But it happened.

Yes you fucking idiot, but the Mushi wanted her; and expected her to drink the entire thing, which would've turned her into a 100% Mushi, which would've meant that she would have never been able to get a grandchild, and therefore she wouldn't have been able to do what the Mushi asked of her.

Who said you can't impregnate a mushi?

Even if you could, the child would not be human, therefore it wouldn't need protection, because it would exist on a different plane with only few people being able to see it.

Why are you asking all these questions with obvious answers, i am the one who asked a question.

Maybe she was already pregnant.

She was literally like 10 when that happened and it wouldn't have mattered because evidently you leave your physical shell behind if you turn into a Mushi

Who else has got this masterpiece on their 3x3? I know I do ;).

I added it to mine Its next to Tatami Galaxy and Legend of Galactic Heroes :)

Nice shitposts

bump

God damn it, I'm rewatching episode 1 now just to figure out what OP is talking about.

Don't think too hard about Mushishi. When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

It's really not that hard to understand tbqh

The mushi asked her to look after her grandchild once it is born, but during the ritual they attempt to turn her into a mushi, the only reason she can have a grandchild in the first place and do what the mushi asked of her is because the ritual suddenly got interrupted.

I mean, you could also ask why they asked the boys grandma instead of his mother since the probability of his grandma dying vs. his mother dying during his adolescence would be way higher, but that's too much theorizing for this kind of show.

I assumed that if they could predict her grandchild's ability, they could predict the ritual being interrupted.
The boy -may- have gotten his ability only because of her grandmother being half mushi.

At some point in the show they also say that Mushi don't really have a will, and that whether they affect those around them negatively or positively has nothing to do with them wanting to do good or evil. They are just beings that affect their environment simply by living.

But if that's the case then it doesn't make sense that they'd conduct such a ritual and literally ask the grandmother to do all of this.

i don't think they say that mushi don't have a will, but i think the rest is accurate.
although i think it's said that mushi are life in its purest form, and are closer to fungi than plants and animals

Are you done yet

It's not hard to understand but it's hard to remember something you watched years ago, so I rewatched it.

The banquet was questionable but I think you're theorizing too much to begin with, especially for someone who's seen one episode.
Ginko could have been mistaken about what happens at Mushi banquets (which happens), someone could still be born from a mushi (which happens), the grandson could have been a non-direct decedent from his "grandmother", etc.
Like said, the Mushi predicted the future already. They could have just been doing whatever will lead to the best outcome.

love ironicly good shit anime

this, keep watching it OP its really enjoyable

That's the thing I enjoy most about mushishi, You can interpret the story anyway you want.
Maybe the mushi calculated the interruption and Ginko's arrival all along? They say they want the grandma to take care of the boy forever, and so turned her into half mush so she can still give birth to her son and look after her grandson even after her human half died.

>half mush
That got a laugh out of me.

The first chapter/episode of Mushishi is basically a pilot compared to the rest of the series. It doesn't really follow the same rules as the rest since those rules hadn't been figured out yet. If I recall, that story was originally written when Mushishi still took place in the modern era, for example.

there are multiple half mushi children/people throughout the series, they can still interact with people normally most of the time.

example: the man who had a bamboo baby

Why did Ginko wants to kill himself in the last episode?

I have literally no idea what you are talking about OP, it's been far too long.

"Mushi" is just an all-encompassing term used to describe various phenomena of the world, don't think about things like mushi-identities or mushi-wills.

Weren't there 2 of them? They split: her mushi self and her human self which died.