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This anime provides a few core pleasures to the viewer: Watching an intelligent character plot their way out of a sticky situations, getting to see the specific limitations and abilities of a magical power, and giant mech fights. With these elements alone, and the fact that they are executed with solid writing and pacing, I would recommend this anime to anyone. This show consistently surprised me and supplied moments where I jumped out of my seat and yelled or cheered. In regards to the mechs specifically, they have an understandable power level and set of mechanics such that it's clear what the stakes and the ... chances are in any given fight. There is also a slice of life aspect to this show that somehow manages to fit decently in this otherwise violent, political opera, but it's not a core appeal of the show. It's worth mentioning that the character designs are... a little off putting, but it doesn't distract from the story once you become engrossed in it.

This show has great escalation, consistent suspenseful situations, and satisfying resolutions to those situations. For that and all the above reasons, this show is enjoyable. But it's not without flaws. I'd like now to address one of the reasons why I gave this 8 stars and not a higher rating. The thematic core of this show is a duality. Between Lelouch and Suzaku, master and slave morality, and Britannia and Japan. This duality is reinforced and incorporated nicely throughout the show, but it is fundamentally flawed. Despite decrying it, Lelouch acts more or less with master morality, using whatever means necessary to achieve his goals. His goals are noble enough however, in that he wants to liberate an occuped Japan from Britannia. This is all fine. The issue comes with Suzaku, Lelouch's long time friend and foil. He acts in accordance with slave morality and condemns Lelouch's "ends justify the means" philosophy, but works as a soldier for Britannia to keep Japan occupied. Suzaku constantly criticizes Lelouch's actions as violent and unnecessary. How is Suzaku justified in this criticism when he fights for the occupying military? He isn't. What should the people of this occupied country do? Ask nicely for their country back? Certainly not join the occupying military, which was somehow Suzaku's course of action. Lelouch never does anything (at least, as far as Suzaku knows) that would warrant criticism of this kind. He simply fights back against oppressors. Which is more than warranted, given the treatment of the Japanese people. When Euphemia, a member of royalty, orders an arena full of civilians seeking refuge to be killed (a war crime on so many levels), the squad of mechs inside obey her without question. This is somehow not a wake up call for Suzaku, that the power structure of Britannia is organized in such a way that despicable acts of mass violence like this are not only possible but acceptable. Lelouch (again, as far as Suzaku knows) does not do anything half as evil as this, but rather fights back against it. So Suzaku's criticisms throughout the show of Lelouch often ring hollow. Rebel characters have the opportunity to speak to Suzaku, and they somehow don't push back against his asinine rhetoric. What would his response be if one of them asked him about the ghetto that is indiscriminately leveled at the beginning of the show? Apparently that's justifiable, but Lelouch's warfare is moral degeneracy.

Having a character with weird politics is not necessarily an issue. But in Code Geass, Lelouch and Suzaku are presented as two equal and opposite champions of differing moralities, and this aspect of the show does not work when Suzaku has no moral ground to stand on. In fact at times it seems that Suzaku is positioned as the more moral option. He's certainly the more virtuous character. But however duplicitous Lelouch is, he doesn't do anything as evil as the genocide being perpetrated by Britannia. And for that reason the "both sides"-ism of the show is frustrating to watch. In moments that attempt to have a moral or political discussion, I'm begging in my head for one of the characters to ask Suzaku what he thinks an appropriate countermeasure by Japan would be. Suzaku's moral position as it stands is essentially untenable, and this weakens the duality being put forth by the show.

While we're airing out political grievances, the slice of life aspect of the show can be a little hard to enjoy when several of the Britannian student characters (read: Nina. God Nina is detestable, and I don't think that's intentional) are intensely racist towards Japanese people, even after befriending Suzaku. After you see them tense up around and degrade another race (whose country they are currently living in), it can be hard to see them as lovable high school students. Again, how this doesn't phase Suzaku as a Japanese person himself is anyone's guess.

Despite the majority content of this review being negative, remember that this show is enjoyable and worth watching. It executes well, really well on the aforementioned core pleasures. But that's all it does. The unrefined political philosophy and resulting dissonance of theme nags at you and holds this show back from entering a higher level of anime.

Mushishi is a special, beautiful anime. The calm, surreal mood that this show is able to create is really wonderful to take in. Though the writing and pacing are both great, the real stars of the show are the color and sound. The show's color palette is wonderfully constrained to an essentially monochromatic green palette. Every frame is filled with lush green vegetation and the light and shadow that envelops it. This also makes the few scenes/episodes not based on green that much more impactful. As for the sound and music, the show embraces lots of silence alongside aberrant and otherworldly noises.

Perhaps it's just ... the place I was at when I watched this show, but seeing intense, serious conflicts be solved without action and yelling and whatnot was very refreshing. Additionally, this show is episodic, a format that fits it perfectly. The only thing that needs to be reinforced from one episode to the next is Ginko's characterization, and as long as that's clear you can watch this show on whatever timeline you like.

I do have some gripes with Mushishi. The show does feel like it's hitting the same note in terms of story and mood at some points. There are several characters who are hard to distinguish and difficult to flesh out due to the episodic nature of the show (in particular, there are like 10 village boys with short black hair amongst the episodes and they all blur together). And if you don't know the stories and mythologies upon which these episodes are based (like myself), it may feel like the show is missing something (a punchline, etc.).

As this is an episodic anime, it's pretty easy to identify good and bad episodes (though it really doesn't have outright "bad" episodes). Watching the second episode "The Light of the Eyelid", is when I realized that this show is something special. Other favorites of mine include "The Traveling Swamp", "Pickers of Empty Cocoons", and "Cotton Changeling". One episode that is close to being outright bad is "The Journey to the Field of Fire" which embarrassingly lacks the nuance and subtlety present in the other stories. Hopefully I haven't poisoned your viewing experience of that episode, but those who watch that episode in context of the whole series will understand that assessment.

Overall I would definitely recommend Mushishi. It's episodic, so there's nothing to lose by trying out the first few episodes. But I highly doubt most viewers will stop there...