I am going to try to catch up on a backlog of my reviews this week. Hopefully finish up on my post of Kill La Kill at some point. I’ve got finals next week so expect a few delays of the series airing around that time. Whew what a semester its been. I cannot wait until summer arrives when we will have Zankyou no Terror, Space Dandy, Sailor Moon, Psycho-Pass Re-edit Season 1, Sword Art Online II, and so many other series. It will be just as good as this season if not even better. Let’s hope its quality over quantity though. I recall previous seasons airing tons of series that didn’t turn out so well, and were left with so many series per season that had been so similar.

I mentioned this before in a previous post in regards to Mushishi, but I will go ahead and say it again. This 2nd season is going to be split-cour. It’ll be nice to have a break for this series considering how good it is I wouldn’t want to see Artland run out of fuel here. I am already looking forward to the first BDBOX of the first 4 episodes in July as it will include the ED SINGLES featured in those stories. Really am enjoying the soundtrack to this series as much as I am with the stories in this new season.

I can recall a few episodes in the 1st season that were light-hearted, and this was one of the first in this 2nd season that followed the same trend. The theme here was love, and how far someone could go to have such a strong devotion to another person. I didn’t realize what the episode was REALLY speaking about until mid-way through the episode when I had an ah-ha moment.

The Mizukagami had been a mere reflection of Masumi, and the introspection here alluded to her true feelings about herself. This was fantastic! The man that Masumi was in love with eventually grew to a love that gave the fact that the Mizukagami unbeknownst to itself was falling in love with Masumi. At least for me that’s what I noticed in this episode with the Mushi choosing to be attracted to her when she looked in the lake. When she realized she was getting frail and believed Ginko’s words was where this really allowed for some strong self-examination. Not to mention the mirror that her lover gave her was never polished was a great parallel into her love for the man  that was left unspoken for, an unrequited love.

If you look at it from the Mushi’s point of view, the mushi attracted itself to Masumi, with a one-sided affection to her weak heart of being lovesick, which had ultimately thrown her to a very fragile state. If it weren’t for her eyes that would’ve led to her transformation into a mushi herself. Close call here! She just had to dig a little deeper into her own self to find something worth living for, and to not be discarded and truly alone. Ginko said it best when he explained to Masumi how the Mushi live in darkness and try to live searching for a light or way out of it all. This lonely place would be far worse than the loneliness she was feeling at that moment. Mirror-like eyes illustrated this point immensely!

I really enjoyed how we went from such a darker toned episode last week to a story so light here. The end of this episode was really funny and that is something we’ve yet to see in Mushishi aside from the few scenes with Adashino back in Season one. That is what is amazing about this series, it can take a collection of stories, shuffle them around, and develop into having real people with real-life problems. This would be colorized by the Mushi throughout each tale that is told. This is props to the author of the original manga that these stories are written extremely well. They avoid being over the top and move straight to the point. I can’t forget however that I have to hand it to ARTLAND and Hiroshi Nagahama’s wonderful direction that they can deliver a series so powerful. Would this series still be amazing if Tetsuro Amino had directed this? Sometimes I wonder about that. Yet, Nagahama DID direct Flowers of Evil last year, and the atmosphere in that was just as compelling as the first season and now second season of Mushishi. One thing I did feel a bit on the fence about in this episode and it may have been just me but did this episode not feel like 20 minutes had gone by? It rolled on quite quickly. All the previous episode seemed to be a lot longer than this one.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: 9/10