Mushishi

Read a wonderful Japanese manga a handful of months back called "Mushishi" and I just fell in love with it. Gorgeous artwork and provocative writing that's a combination of Japanese folklore, ghost stories and elemental nature tales and yet more atmospheric and subtle than that description indicates. It's utterly unique in the the manga that I've read so far and truly beautiful. Each story is a stand-alone tale with the link being the character of Ginko, the Mushi Master, who travels from town to town helping people understand the bonds between humans and "mushi", an elemental form of life barely perceived by humans, beyond a few exceptional "mushishi", and solving problems that develop when humans and mushi unintentionally interact.

I was happy to discover that the anime developed from the manga is on Netflix and it is just as gorgeous and atmospheric as the manga. Music, animation, voicework, stories- just exquisite. I recommend it very highly.

So I wanted to do some cross-stitch. There were no "Mushishi" patterns, so I made one of my own.



I took this frame from the anime:



Made it into a cross-stitch pattern using one of the free programs on-line and stitched this piece:



I like how it turned out.

Also love the theme song from "Mushishi". You can hear the part used in the opening credits here:



And this gives a bit of an idea of the art style, which I love, too: