Mushishi

Some live in the deep darkness behind your eyelids. Some eat silence. Some thoughtlessly kill. Some simply drive men mad. Shortly after life emerged from the primordial ooze, these deadly creatures, mushi, came into terrifying being. And they still exist and wreak havoc in the world today. Ginko, a wanderer with a sardonic smile, has the knowledge and skill to save those plagued by mushi . . . perhaps. (This is the Official Description, I don't feel like making my own)

Mushishi is mostly a collection of oneshots (at least so far, I'm on book 2 of 10) with a recurring main character but the one shots are all varied and interesting. The Mushi are very diverse, some look like ranbows while others look like snails, and it's very interesting to learn about the different types. Some stories revolve around Ginko trying to get rid of the Mushi and protect a human but just as often he just observes the Mushi.

Mushishi isn't much of an action manga, it's calm and takes care in building up an atmosphere. It's pleasantly strange and the stories do not feel repetitive, something that almost-oneshot-mangas often fall victim . The stories could easily have been played for scares (is that a real saying?) and well, sometimes it's still somewhat creepy I guess but rather than antagonizing the Mushi (which would have been very easy considering they sometimes end up killing people) the manga shows they are just creatures trying to live.

The biggest problem with the manga is the artstyle. Not that it's ugly or anything but it's very hard to tell characters apart and almost all oneshot characters look the same, luckily this is  not a big issue since the oneshot-characters rarely return after their chapter.

Mushishi is, like most things, not for everyone. If you do not like oneshots or can't stand strange things it's probably not for you, but I really líked it. When I write reviews I have a tendency to Accentuate the Negative (if you remember my Higurashi Spinoff Review, I thought that  book was fairly entertaining.) about every work I do not consider really awesome so that should say something about my opinion of the manga. I'll keep reading it!