Mushishi ep.22

July 9, 2006 | 7 Comments

I am so tired. I foolishly went all the way from Tokyo to Osaka even though I knew that tourist places would have been closed by the time I arrived, which was around 4.30 (it took a good 3 hours to go from Tokyo to Shin-Osaka using the "Hikari Super Express" and another 3-4 minutes from Shin-Osaka to Osaka). Thankfully I brought my laptop and the thing actually had enough battery power to watch this episode and write the majority of this entry while on the train. Oh well, now I can understand why Ginko pouts when he found out that no one in the destination is willing to help him. It sucks when you travel far and you don't get to do what you want to do. But at least he's got girls offering a place to stay.

The episode begins with eerie narrator asking someone to give birth to her again because she wants to see the person and the beautiful ocean once more. Cut to a shot of a dead body being dumped into a calm ocean. A few years later, a young girl can be seen swimming in the same ocean but momentarily stops when she notices an incoming boat. In the shore, a few women gossip about a man who supposedly have asked them about Uminaoshi, prompting them to wonder where he heard about it. Their gossip attracts the attention of a young woman who happen to pass by the area. Later on that evening, Ginko can be seen sitting in the beach and grumbling about the fact that he hasn't got any information because the people on this island are stubborn. As he moves to another location, he notices a young woman and asks her what's that bright light across the ocean. He thinks it's too bright to be lantern fish and too small to be coming from a boat.

The young woman tells Ginko that she does not know either. Ginko immediately reveals that he didn't expect the woman to be able to see the light but now he knows she can see it. The woman wonders if Ginko is an expert in the subject and Ginko tells her that he is indeed. Their conversation, however, is interrupted by the presence of a young girl who tells the young woman that dinner is ready. The young girl becomes afraid upon seeing Ginko and tells her mother that he is the 'stranger' from before. The mother, however, is not afraid of Ginko and instead invites him to stay with them because there are too many snakes here to camp out. When the three arrive at their house, they are greeted by the grandpa who calls the young girl 'Mana'. The young mother becomes angry and tells the grandpa that the child's name is 'Isana'. The grandpa immediately apologises to the young mother whose name is Mio.

After dinner, Ginko looks for the light again but Mio thinks it won't come out anymore because the moon has risen. When Mio asks him if he has come for Uminaoshi, Ginko immediately asks Mio what she knows about it. Mio tells Ginko that those light always appears around the rock and there are caves underneath those rocks which they called 'Dragon Shrine'. Apparently people who die there are born again with the same appearance. Mio then asks Ginko if Isana looks normal to him and reveals that the girl is her mother's Uminaoshi. Cut to a flashback where Mio tried to prevent her father from taking her dying mother to the rock area. Although Mio tried to argue that her mother is still alive, her father pointed out that no one survive from the illness that she suffered. Because of this, they have to drown her while she's alive or else she won't be able to come back. Her mother then apologised and told her that she's afraid of disappearing.

In essence, Mio's mother wanted to leave this world knowing that she'll be back. A few days later when the night is in full moon, her father begged Mio to bear the child who will have the appearance of her mother. He thinks that Mio has had a harsh life after losing her mother and husband. However, if she has a child, she would feel better about it. Mio eventually agreed to her father request if the child's appearance will console everyone. Having said that, she asked her father to not call the child 'Mana' because she's not Mio's mother. The two then went to the rock area and fished some strange red beads from the ocean. Mio's father then asked Mio to consume one of those beads. If a person eats it, the bead will turn into a child who is similar to the person that got drowned during that month. Upon hearing the story, Ginko wonders if Isana could be the child of her husband. Mio, however, tells Ginko that her husband died 2 years before Isana was born.

Ginko thinks that he can't give Mio any answer about Isana's background yet. Having said that, he thinks she looks like a normal human being so she should think of Isana as a child who resembles her mother. That night, Mio can't sleep and remembers what her mother used to say to her when she couldn't sleep as a child. Her mother used to come over to her side and told her that she tried to think of the time when she dive slowly into the dark blue ocean like a fish. Mio's mother believed that if Mio does this, she'll fall asleep before she knows it. The next day, Isana takes Ginko on a tour to the island. She admits that she knows that she's the Uminaoshi of her grandma and so are many people in this island. Examples of these people include a girl who got bitten by a snake, and a woman who got killed by a shark and remarried her husband 10 years later after being reborn. Isana thinks that everyone is happy after going through Uminaoshi.

Ginko asks Isana if she's happy as well and the girl tells him that it is a bit complicated when people calls her 'Mana'. But it doesn't really bother her since her mother doesn't call her with that name. Later on Ginko takes Isana to investigate the Dragon Shrine but since he can't find anything there, he decides to wait until it's full moon. Isana seems to be happy to hear that he will stay with them until then. In his observation, Ginko makes a note that this is an island that allows you to be with the person that you've lost. It almost feels like this place is heaven. However, not everyone thinks this way because Mio tells Ginko that lately she's a bit disturbed with the similarity between Isana's personality and her mother's. When Isana was just a baby, Mio assumed that Isana simply looks similar to her mother. But after Isana grew older, her personality and habits became similar to that of Mio's mother. Mio is disturbed with the fact that her daughter doesn't feel like her own.

That night Ginko returns to the rock area and witnesses countless beads floating up into the surface. After obtaining a few of them, Ginko disects one of them and puts it underneath a microscope. Ginko then tells Mio that he found out that the bead was made by some kind of a Mushi and the basic foundation of life are contained within it. If someone ingests the bead and gives birth to a person who was drowned in the sea, it means that the Mushi has the power to put that person to its embryonic state. This means that genetically, Isana is Mio's mother and will grow up to resemble her even more. However, that child was raised by Mio so she will never become her mother. To Isana, Mio is her mother. Later on, Ginko tells Isana that he's going to leave tomorrow because if he stays longer, he's not sure if he can leave the island in this state. Having said that, he also feels that he has no right to take away other people's happiness.

Isana thanks Ginko and tells him that if her mother were to die, she'll also give birth to her since she can't bear the thought of her ever being gone. Unfortunately before Ginko can leave, a typhoon arrives on the island so he has to cancel his plan to leave the island that day. At the same time, Mio is disturbed when Isana tells her that when she can't sleep, she imagines herself as a big fish and dives deep into the ocean, go around the coral and have little fish follow her. While these words are not exactly what Mio's mother told her, the similarity is quite close and bothers her a lot. She decides to get out of the house and notices that one of the boat is not properly tied up. In order to remedy the situation, she decides to go to the beach and in the process, ends up being swallowed by the stormy sea. Ginko and Isana try to save her but when they get close to Mio, who is now near the rock area, she asks them not to get near because there is something in the water.

Mio is eventually taken by a seaweed-like Mushi into the water and Isana decides to save her mother by jumping into the water as well. The girl then throws a harpoon into the Mushi, effectively forcing them to release Mio. Ginko then helps Mio back into the boat but before he can help Isana as well, the creature has come back and drags both Isana and Ginko down into the ocean. Ginko finds himself unable to fight the creatures and wonders if he'll be reborn as well if he gets eaten by them. This means, he'll be back to where he was before everything started. Thankfully for Ginko, the creature suddenly leaves him and Isana and later on he realises that it's the moon that drives the creature away. In the aftermath, Ginko explains that the creature is a Mushi that eats the time that a creature have lived. Ginko, however, scolds Isana for jumping into the water without thinking. Isana simply grins and apologises to Ginko for making him worried.

Ginko tells Isana even if her mother got eaten by the creature, she could just have her reborn so Isana can see her again. Isana agrees that Ginko's reasoning is true but she also thinks that if she did that, the time that her mother has lived would have been eaten. Isana thinks that this is sad. If her mother has to give all of the time that she had lived to something else, then she thinks it would have been better if her mother died the way she is. Mio almost cry upon hearing this and praises Isana's way of thinking to be similar to that of her own. She then tells Mio that is exactly what she expected from her child. As Ginko leaves the island, he makes a note that the island will probably continue using the Uminaoshi to console those who are dying and to fill the emptiness of those who are left behind. He thinks that to die without wishing for that would mean that it'll be harder for them to achieve happiness.

Impression:

I don't quite understand the message of this story. At first I thought this is one of those cautionary tales about the danger of going against the flow of nature. I think it's obvious that Mio is disturbed with the fact that she's carrying a child who looks and behaves just like her mother. Throughout the story it seems as if the writer wants to say that the circle of life, which ends with death, must not be tampered in any manner. This, however, does not explain the ending, which shows Mio finally feels at peace with the idea of having Isana as her daughter. The ending feels like an allegory to cloning and how you can't fully replicate a human because the nature and the circumstances that surround that human are parts of what makes the person a unique invididual. That means no cloning or in this case, Uminaoshi, will be able to produce an individual who is competely similar to the original person that was used as the base material.

The main argument against cloning is that it defies the convention of nature. However, the opposite of that argument is that it may bring the happiness to those who need the technology. Similarly, in this story Ginko realises that Uminaoshi gives the people on the island the chance to be together with the people that they've lost to death. A few centuries ago, humans believe that disease such as malaria is some sort of a curse by the 'Gods' and simply believed that there's nothing that they can do but to let those who got infected die. Nowadays, with the advancement of medicine and health knowledge, humans no longer have to resign their fate like their ancestors. Obviously cloning still has a long way to go before it can have the desired effect. When it does, however, should humans accept death and move on with the knowledge that they should not tamper with it or should they do something about it when they have the technology to do so?

© memento 2003