It’s a tender rain.
What They Say:
“Cloudless Rain”
They are creatures only known as ‘Mushi,’ whose abilities range well into the supernatural. While their existence and appearances are unknown to the humans around them, there are a few like Ginko who is a ‘Mushi-shi’ that travels around to investigate and find out more about the ‘Mushi.’ During the course of his discovery and understanding, he helps those who are troubled by the Mushi themselves…
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Has anyone else been watching The World Is Still Beautiful? It’s also about rain and the beauty of it, but we often forget how dreary it looks when it rains. The clouds cover the sky and consume the sun’s light and warmth. If rain continues, like it does in this episode, we wonder if it isn’t an omen or a curse brought upon for some wrongdoing.
Of course, rain isn’t at fault. It’s a natural phenomenon that can’t be stopped or created. But that’s just how the rain is: fleeting. Regardless of whether it can be created or not, like in The World Is Still Beautiful or this episode of Mushishi, it is only for a finite period of time. Eventually, the rain stops.
Until then, we could be in for some scary things. Flooding and psychological down-ness for one, and that’s what Teru goes through (the psychological feeling, not the floods, or at least not extreme floods). She begins her rain journey by accidentally stepping on what should be a mirage. In actuality, it’s an Amefurashi (Rainmaker), a Mushi that gathers moisture and then disperses it like rain. Teru can’t quite call it like Princess Nike, but it comes eventually. Fleetingly so, as rain can be.
As I said, rain doesn’t just bring the thing that gives life. Water can bring death as well, and when the rain continues on and on, it will. An epidemic spread thanks to the continuous rain immediately following Teru contracting the Amefurashi. It killed the boy she was closest to and the rain hit the hardest at that time. The Amefurashi sucks up all the moisture in her body and around her. It’s like a leech that gives back eventually. She can’t sweat and she can’t cry. The boy she probably loved died and she can merely stand in the rain wondering why. At this point, she doesn’t even understand that the Amefurashi is within her.
She coexists with the Amefurashi by going from town to town, promising that rain will come in two days. The rain does come in two days, the accumulation of the moisture in and around her body. It falls like a light spring rain at first and only intensifies. Too much of anything eventually will be too much, no matter what anyone else thinks.
Too much time without rain and too much time with it can be equally bad. Teru is the very embodiment of this. She is merely living without purpose because she cannot settle down. She provides a good foil with Ginko, who wanders just as much. He can’t stay in one place, otherwise the Mushi gather around him in a bad way. With Teru, it’s the rain.
Both of them want nothing more than to be able to settle in one place. Two episodes ago, a girl offered her hand in marriage to Ginko and he declined but it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. The girl whose leg is cursed offered the same thing and Ginko didn’t answer. He wants something he knows he can’t have and backs himself off to prevent any hurtful feelings on either side. He’s protecting himself just as Teru is, by wandering. Both of them are incredibly considerate of those around her because of the burdens they carry.
Herein lies the very essence of Mushishi. This show is about a guy who travels around helping people, perhaps more than doctors because he can partially play the role of both. He heals people, just as the tender rain that Teru brings heals in a different way. They play in parallel and Teru emotes as Ginko would like to, but it just isn’t in his personality to do so.
So we have to ask how many times has Ginko lost someone like Ryou, the boy who contracted whatever was going around in Teru’s village’s epidemic when she was a child? How many close calls has Ginko come across like with Yasu, the well builder? How many times has he been hurt because of what he couldn’t do? But Ginko can do something about it. Teru can merely walk around and hope that her rain brings happiness, not dreariness.
I think it ultimately does. She returns to her village and the rain she brings gives life to the formerly tired farmers.
In Summary:
Episodes like this are beautiful. It plays the exact same thing off as fearful and damaging at the same time. The little thing that can make people so, so happy can bring the same amount of sadness to another person. The look in Teru’s eyes as she first returns to her home village after visiting her aunt is painful, but she brings sighs of relief and parties to those villages wrought with drought. It’s a game of give and take that no one can win, but can always garner happiness somewhere. And that’s what we have to do: find our happiness even in the worst situations.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Equipment: Radeon 7850, 24” Dell UltraSharp U2410 set at 1920 x 1200, Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II
