Mononoke

Mononoke is generally thought of as one of the most artistic shows in the medium, if not the most artistic one out there, and it is hailed as a more artistic version of the famous Anime Mushishi, filled with bright yellow and orange colors in contrast to Mushishi’s dim grey and white foggy ones, and animation that comes off as surreal for most of the time. The problem here is that this Anime, although artistically achieved what it wanted to achieve in the long run, became one of the most nauseating experiences I have ever had with an Anime, if not the most nauseating experience ... I have had with a TV show period.

First of all, regarding the narrative, the storyline is formulaic, and that is a major problem. This series tried to follow in Mushishi’s footsteps: A lone man travels far throughout different lands in order to cure citizens from some diseases of sorts. The problem here is that once you watch the first episode, dislike it and decide that it is not for you, you are bound to dislike the rest of the series. If a series starts off bad and does not work to change the Anime from there on then that is not a good thing at all, since most of the Anime’s episodes are similar in tone, directing, story and audiovisuals. A problem here, faced by Mushishi as well, is that this Anime becomes rather monotonous and redundant throughout it’s short twelve episode run. We start off with the traveler who is a medicine seller, he sees trouble that is occurring and taking place, he rushes in to save the ones who are being infected and hurt by said creatures, and he saves the day. Rinse and repeat until you get the average runtime for a short Anime series. The problem here is not the storyline, not at all, the problem here lies in the fact that this same plot is repeated several times over until it becomes rather redundant and tiring to get through.

Another problem that this Anime suffers from is the fact that the artstyle, while being rather unique, is too bright for it’s own good. This in turn leads to a rather nauseating experience in the long run, and not a fun or pleasant one. At least Mushishi’s grim and grey color palette set the tone for the series successfully while not being insulting to the eyes. This on the other hand, is too much to bare and witness.

Overall, one wishes to critique many of the aspects of this show and analyze them, but the problem arises when there isn’t much to critique over. Mononoke is monotonous, slow, just like Mushishi, but now they decided to make it visually unpleasant to watch.

'Mononoke' is a pretty huge mixed bag for me. It feels like, for everything that does work, there's another three that don't.

Starting positively, there's definitely an artistic flair to this show. The direction is weird, but weird is not always bad, and I always do appreciate a show that attempts to put itself forward in a slightly different way to others. The visual style is also very unique, clearly harkening back to traditional Japanese paintings, and because of that the whole world, the backgrounds and the settings, do look pretty phenomenal. I also found the final three-episode arc to be particularly interesting, a fun mystery ... in the vein of 'An Inspector Calls' or the work of Agatha Christie.

Unfortunately, I've somewhat run out of positives. Outside of that final arc, I found myself struggling to find any reason to care about anything that happened in this show. The rest of the stories sort of went in one ear and out the other, with my eyes somewhat glazing over everything. They are certainly not character-driven stories, and while that's fine for some, it kind of stopped me from connecting with any of it. It probably didn't help that the pacing is super slow; I'd say every one of the storylines could have taken at least one episode less than they did. There just isn't enough substance in most of them for three episodes.
It isn't just the plotting that's the problem though. Visually, it's also got its issues. While I was being honest saying that the backgrounds and set designs are very pretty to look at, they're spoiled somewhat by some of the most hideous and unappealing character designs I've ever seen, with few exceptions (although the protagonist is thankfully one of those). I also feel like the style is somewhat deceptive; it's easy to come out of it feeling like it at least LOOKED really nice, but the truth is the animation is pretty rough at lot of the time. It's definitely got its moments, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing even remotely special.

In a weird way, this sort of reminded me of 'Monogatari Series'; it's got its weird dialogue pacing, its supernatural aspects, its avant garde stylings. But what it doesn't have, and what I feel hurts it the most for me, is vaguely interesting characters. Everyone involved in all of these stories is just kind of boring. Certainly the medicine seller has more or less no depth at all. It's probably a big part of why I found it all so difficult to invest in.

I watched this with other people. Many of them enjoyed it. I can absolutely see why someone with slightly different tastes to me would. But I can only say for me, and for me, this show just sort of did nothing.

A psychological, mystery, and seinen show?
That's going to be great.
That was my first impression.

Fairly quickly I realize it's one of those "traveling protagonist" shows like "Katanagatari", "Majo no tabitabi" and to some extent "Ergo Proxy".
(all of which I really enjoyed)
A new place, a short story told in a few episodes. It can work really well.

Well let's get straight to it.
Simply put I thought the story is told in an overly confusing style.
The story is too busy trying hard to be deep to give me context so I basically just sit there to watch some borderline-psychedellic events happen on the screen while puzzling it together and ... wondering why I'm supposed to care.

The characters I saw for the short time there were on screen were all forgettable and the show didn't give me a single good reason to care about them at all. Which may be alright for side characters but I didn't even care about the protagonist, which is a problem.

Then there's the visuals. The artstyle is interesting enough, +1 for effort, but honestly? I wouldn't call it beautiful or anything like that. It's very nauseating to look at sometimes.

I believe I gave it a fair chance with 7 episodes, finishing 3 of 5 stories.
It just simply couldn't make me interested.

You can hate me for this but in my opinion this show is just overly pretentious, trying to appeal to elitists by trying to look "unique" and "deep", when it really isn't.

A show does not need to be praised for it's uniqueness and shouldn't be rated highly just because of it. Unique doesn't necessarily mean better.

Still watching a few episodes and seeing if it's for you or not can still pay off.
It's neither a good nor a bad show.
To me personally it was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

5/10

Mononoke is a horror themed anime anthology consisting of 5 stories split into 2 or 3 episodes each

Our main character is the medicine seller who may or may not be based off Abe no Semei the famous Onmyoji as he has a fox like appearance

Is the medicine seller human? Its never revealed who he is.

Mononoke takes place between the end of the Edo period(1600s - 1860s) and Meiji era of Japan (1860s - 1900s) as such the culture and clothing is shown thoughout.

The premise revolves around the medicine seller entering a place and finding it plagued with a Mononoke, basically a ghost. He must first ... find the form of the mononoke (what it looks like) then the truth of it (what is actually is) and finally the regret of it (how it came to be) only then can he exorcise it.

The show is not for kids. It's very dark themed with themes of abortion or suicide.

You will be shocked at how actually creepy the show is. It's very eerie and unsettling at times such as children whispering or dark horrific visions.

It's art style is the most interesting aspect of it, it uses traditional Japanese art as its inspiration along with Ukiyo-e paintings.

It's sound design is fine. Theres no music in Mononoke, the only sounds you hear are people speaking, the sound of rain or the sea usually.

The dub is alright but I prefer the sub for authenticity.

This is a very heavy artsy anime and because of that I will give it a mixed rating

I PERSONALLY loved it but I can understand how it may not be for everyone.

If you like dark, creepy anime with heavy Japanese folklore/inspiration..I think you'll like Mononoke.

In 2006 a short series called (Ayakashi: Japanese Classic Horror) aired with only 11 episodes and consisted of three stories. The first two were classic Japanese plays by notable authors, The last story however was an original tale about a mysterious medicine seller that goes around exorcising mononoke / evil spirits.

The writers of the show must have been proud of their creation because a year later we got Mononoke. A spin off staring that same medicine seller and with the same art style.

While the show itself is fine the SUPER busy art style, combined with the aggressively bright colors and the jump-cut style of animation... ... This show was just not for me, half way through a single episode I'd get severe headaches and rather nauseated because of it.

Plot wise this was rather formulaic. Medicine Seller (I'm going to be calling him fox dude from here on out because that's what he is in my head) appears because there is an evil spirit around. There is a bunch of characters and at least one of them is lying through his teeth. This stretches the story arc a few episodes until finally the truth comes out in the last 10 minutes of the episode's arc and exorcism done. Rinse and repeat. It reminded me a little of gegege no Kintaro but without the clever writing or the attention to yokai lore.

The attraction of the anime is the rather unique artwork. However as mentioned it was just so busy it ended up making me physically sick. To add to it there is a texture filter placed over it so that's another layer of annoyance.

Sound and music were nice and added to the show's atmosphere.

Overall, this show depends on style over substance. The second story about the Umibozi was probably the best because it's subverts expectations. You'll probably figure out if the show is for you after the first story arc so give that a try at least. I can't really recommend it to someone with migraines or motion sickness though.