If you liked
Mushishi
|
...then you might like
Mononoke
|
Similar concepts of otherworldly phenomena plaguing people and a mysterious traveller able to deal with them. Instead of the episodic nature of Mushishi, Mononoke consists of several arcs that, while separate, benefit from building tension across multiple episodes. The big difference though is that the phenomena in Mushishi strike people at random whereas in Mononoke they rise from the psyche and actions of those affected, and the plot of each arc is a more structured investigation compared to the fanciful musings of Mushishi. A lot of recommendations call Mononoke the "darker" version of Mushishi, I disagree. If anything, the endless march of doomed, innocent people dying of bad luck throughout Mushishi struck me as quite a bit "darker" than the themes of karmic crime and punishment that predominate in Mononoke.