Mushishi ep.16

March 19, 2006 | 5 Comments

One of Mushishi's strength is its ability as a series to present a one-off story and characters that are easy to identify. Despite all of the paranormal trappings that the series used, at its core the problem that the characters face, usually is similar to what normal people face on a daily basis. Part of the series' charm also relies on Ginko and his limited ability to solve a particular case. This gives the series a slightly 'realistic' feel to the series, in the sense that not everything in this universe will fall neatly into place. Just like real life, problems sometimes persist despite what the characters do to overcome the odds. As a result, the series often ends on a bittersweet note, which makes it far more interesting to analyse than if it just ends on a happy or a sad note. As a side note, I just encoded the opening theme into a PSP format. So if you're interested in it, feel free to grab it while it's still up on the server.

Mushishi OP Theme - The Sore Feet Song (11.1MB, for PSP/Quicktime)

The episode itself opens with a shot of a woman sleeping underneath a Sakura tree. Unknown to the woman, however, a snake-like shadow appears in the area then slithers its way towards her ear. Cut to a shot of Ginko enjoying a trip on a boat during spring time. Ginko's travelling companion makes a comment about how the current weather spoils everyone to the point that his wife becomes lazy lately. She also becomes a bit forgetful and at one point left their kid at a market. Upon hearing this, Ginko wonders if the wife in question also has difficulty to sleep at night. Much to Ginko's relief, however, the man claims that his wife can sleep perfectly well. In fact, she actually snores loudly during sleep. Once the boat arrives at its destination, however, the boat rower asks Ginko if it's bad when someone can't sleep at night. Ginko wonders if there is something that is bothering the boat owner. Because of this, the boy asks Ginko to come with him to his house.

Upon reaching the place, the boy, whose name is Kaji, is puzzled to see his mother, Sayo, claiming that there is a strange creature crawling on the ground. Kaji and Ginko are even more unimpressed when they realised that the 'strange creature' turns out to be a small crab. However, this is exactly Kaji's problem. He tells Ginko that his mother has been forgetting things ever since last spring. Kaji started to realise this when his mother claimed that the Dango that Kaji bought was the first one she ever had. After this, she started to forget that she actually owns an expensive kimono. Sayo has even forgotten of the fact that people often sneeze when it's cold. The worst, however, was when they came to their relatives' house for a New Year's party and Sayo couldn't recognise her own sister. Upon finding out about this, Ginko thinks that Sayo's problem seems to point more towards progressive amnesia instead of normal forgetfulness.

Before they can continue their conversation, however, Sayo already invites them for dinner. Despite this, Ginko manages to ask Kaji to write down a list of things that his mother has already forgotten. During dinner, Ginko notices that Sayo is preparing 4 meal sets even though there are only 3 people inside the house. As it turns out the other meal set is actually for Sayo's husband, who's currently away because he's a travelling salesman. The meal is simply an offering so that he won't get hungry on the road and because it makes Sayo feels better. Kanji, however, thinks that doing this is a waste of food. He also feels that his father doesn't care about them and that is why he hasn't come home for a while now. Despite this, Sayo continues to defend her husband, telling Ginko that the guy probably just lost his way. In return, Ginko tells Sayo that Kaji is worried about her. Sayo admits that she's aware of this and knows that Kaji had asked Ginko to help her.

Sayo tells Ginko that she really needs his help for Kaji's sake and herself. She believes that if this continue, she may forget about Kaji and her own husband. She's afraid that she will then forget that she has forgotten about her child and husband. Because of this, that night Ginko tries to find a common theme amongst the things that Sayo can't remember any longer. He also finds out from Kaji that Sayo tends to forget relatives from the other side of the river because she doesn't see them often at the Market. Upon hearing this Ginko thinks that it seems Sayo forgets things that she doesn't see that often. However, this does not explain why she still remembers her husband. Ginko, however, gets his answer when Kaji tells him that because his mother can't sleep at night, she usually weaves threads at night, while thinking about her husband so she won't forget about him. The next morning, Ginko finds out that Sayo eventually manages to get a brief sleep.

When Sayo wakes up and walks away from the chair, however, the shadow on the wall remains stationary. After Sayo leaves the place, the shadow then slinks down and slithers out of the house. Ginko eventually explains to Sayo and Kaji that her memories has been eaten by a Mushi known as Kagedama. This Mushi is translucent black and usually likes to submerge in the shadows of old and large trees. The Mushi will then wait until animals or human sleep before entering their brain through the ear. Once this happens, the host will find it difficult to sleep and slowly lose their memory. After the Mushi consumes a certain amount of memories, it will multiply internally and its duplicate will escape from the host during the short time when the host gets to sleep. This duplicates then hide in the shadow because they normally are weak against sunlight. However, once they enter the brain, it's impossible to get rid of a light can't enter a brain.

There are, however, ways to ensure that the memories that Sayo likes to retain remains in existence. He likens Sayo's memory to a group of drawers. Kagedama will take over each drawers regardless how important they may seem to its host. Having said that, there is one area of the memory that remains untouched and that is the memories of things that Sayo does and thinks of every day. This includes cooking, weaving, her own son, and even her own husband whom Sayo sees in her mind. Ginko believes that Kagedama probably leaves the everyday memory as a last resort in order to keep its host alive. Because of this, Ginko recommends that Sayo learns new things everyday and recalls the things that she does not want to forget. Upon hearing this, Kaji encourages his mother to go out more and do some exploring. Unfortunately Sayo's idea of exploring translate to going out to find her missing husband. After this, Ginko leaves Sayo and Kaji to continue his journey.

One year later, Ginko returns to the village and finds out from Kaji that the boy finally found his father. However, as it turned out, his father already has a family with another woman. After the incident, Sayo spent many days without food and eventually collapsed due to exhaustion. One morning, Kaji woke up and saw a large snake-like shadow sneaking out of his mother's body and out into the ocean. His mother then awakened feeling refreshed but has completely forgotten about her husband and many other memories. Sayo, however, still remembers her son and how to cook because she follows Ginko's advice of going out to experience new things every day. Apart from this, things remain the same. The episode then ends with Kaji returning home only to find that his mother has prepared an extra meal set as usual. This time around, however, she doesn't know the reason why she does it except that doing so makes her feel better.

Impression:

The memory loss part of the story is something that any adult can identify. As humans get older, a person starts to forget things progressively. It will start with the something as simple as forgetting where a car key has been placed. And as the person gets older, the problem becomes a lot more serious and debilitating. The age of a person sometimes does not matter either as exemplified by sufferers of Alzheimer's disease. Similar to the story presented in this episode, there is not much that a person can do to overcome this problem when the time arrives. And the truth is, as humans go through new experience every single day, they start to forget things that they probably encountered a few years ago. This is why humans have been trying to preserve memory in the form of pictures or documents since the olden age. By doing this, people hope that their most important memories will live on in other forms even when their own memory cease to exist.

To humans, the memory of their families, friends, and the people that they met are probably what makes them who they are and define their life. This was the case for Sayo, who clearly treasured the memory of her husband, to the point that she can't forget about him even when the Mushi started to devour other parts of her memory. Unfortunately, sometimes feeling does not get reciprocated and when this happens, humans are left with only 3 choices. The first option is to remind the other person of your own existence. Sometimes this will work, but sometimes it does not. Other than this, a person can choose to keep the fond memory of being with that other person and hope that the other person will eventually reciprocate. This is probably the worst possible choice a person can make. Sayo was doing this until Ginko told her that she may lose all of her memory one day. The last option is to let go the memory of the other person and move on with one's life.

Of the 3 choices, the last option is probably the easiest path for a person to take. In the end, Sayo unconsciously chose this option, allowing the Mushi to consume the memory that she considered important. She realised that her husband has forged a new life for himself that doesn't include herself or her son, Kaji. Thus, the only option left was to move on. This is why the ending felt bittersweet and the Mushi came across as a blessing in disguise. On the one hand, Sayo lost a memory that she used to treasure so much. On the other hand, the Mushi allowed Sayo to move on with her life. At its surface, this does sound like an easy way out but it's hard to see what else Sayo could have done. Judging from the ending, it seems that she still harbours feelings for her husband. If she still has her memory, these feelings will only hurt her even more. It's ironic how something that actually destroy part of Sayo's memory also ends up being beneficial in this case.

© memento 2003