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Oct 13, 2014 6:18 PM

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Feb 2013
6196
I had a feeling the kid was Ginko. Called it!
Oct 20, 2014 8:07 AM

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Oct 2013
4358
It was inevitable that Ginko would have a story as tragic as nearly every other story in the anime. As sad as it is that Ginko forgot about his mother, about Nui, about everything and had to become a wanderer, there is a point that seems to have been missed: all creatures affected by the Ginko's light are doomed to eventually become a Tokoyami - including Ginko himself. ;_;

Ginko, having become the Mushi Master he is, has surely learned about the Tokoyami (again) and how they are created. Does this mean he knows his own fate?



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Nov 2, 2014 7:15 AM
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Feb 2012
3606
It was kinda obvious it'd be Ginko from the start. The ending just solidified it for me. This episode still managed to successfully tug at my heart strings, though. Great ep. ^o^
"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Nov 8, 2014 10:01 AM

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Jan 2014
17169
Ah, the Ginko backstory. Great stuff.
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Dec 20, 2014 7:36 AM

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Dec 2010
4810
One of the most important & better episodes. It also had that nostalgic vibe which is one of the best points of this anime.
Dec 24, 2014 9:37 AM

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Dec 2013
10536
I was quite surprised to see some backstory about Ginko. :o

But very beautiful episode.
Dec 24, 2014 6:45 PM

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Jun 2014
14630
The ED was especially beautiful for this episode

Jan 7, 2015 2:21 PM

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Jul 2014
23
This episode absolutely blew my mind. Beautiful.
Jan 13, 2015 4:21 AM

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Jan 2011
49
One of the best episodes I've seen in anime. This is how you handle a background story. Beautiful
Jan 27, 2015 9:40 AM

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Jul 2014
235
by far my favorite episode, that sense of awe I received from 1st watching Mushishi was rejuvenated here. It's that rare feeling familiarity you get despite not having any personal connection.
also Nui is pretty awesome, wouldn't mind having a side story following her around.
And we finally get a solid backstory for Ginko, what a bittersweet tail it was. I never thought I would like this show more than I already have but God this episode did it for me.

5/5
Feb 14, 2015 8:01 AM

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Jan 2014
1422
lol at first i thought this was some weird alternate universe with a female ginko that was somehow a continuation of the last episode (come on, ginko looked exactly like the kid from the last episode), but once she mentioned the takayomi and the memory loss thing, i was able to predict what would happen :P fave ep so far!!

Zadion said:
It was inevitable that Ginko would have a story as tragic as nearly every other story in the anime. As sad as it is that Ginko forgot about his mother, about Nui, about everything and had to become a wanderer, there is a point that seems to have been missed: all creatures affected by the Ginko's light are doomed to eventually become a Tokoyami - including Ginko himself. ;_;

Ginko, having become the Mushi Master he is, has surely learned about the Tokoyami (again) and how they are created. Does this mean he knows his own fate?
but i'm pretty sure you have to face the ginko's light first -- that's why nui had to deliberately go to the pond before she finally became the tokoyami. but he might have been able to guess some of what happened to him :P
laputiaFeb 14, 2015 8:04 AM
Mar 18, 2015 7:27 AM

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Aug 2014
5132
I had a feeling that that was Ginko. That was a good backstory though.
Apr 7, 2015 1:07 PM
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Nov 2014
26586
Great episode, good to learn more about Ginko ^^
Apr 9, 2015 3:10 PM
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Jul 2018
564089
Wait wait wait, didn't he have two eyes in the begining of the series? when he sacrificed his eye to the girl who was kept in the basement i thought that was how he losed his eye! Can someone explain..
Apr 9, 2015 4:38 PM

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Aug 2014
253
Spiegel99 said:
Wait wait wait, didn't he have two eyes in the begining of the series? when he sacrificed his eye to the girl who was kept in the basement i thought that was how he losed his eye! Can someone explain..
He stated that was a fake eye.
Apr 11, 2015 5:05 PM

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Jul 2013
2405
?????
i don't understand the difference between the ginko and the dark spooky thing
this show is making me mad, i literally dont understand what's going on in the episodes, but this one just sort of hit my breaking point
the ginko are the fish in the pond and then the black thing, which apparently is nui's husband and kid, sucks their life or something and takes their eye. but the ginko is like light and all this stuff.
basically i just dont understand the difference between the two mushi in this episode
the fish consumes humans and the dark thing consumes the fish?
Apr 29, 2015 6:29 AM

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Apr 2014
327
Its been about a fortnight so maybe you will still get to read this... First there is a pond full of fish and The darkness feeds off the little mushi. After its gone, the Gingko comes.which is a stunning white light made of all the Mushi devoured by the Tokoyami. Its light is so blinding and powerful that the poor fish loose an eye. Eventually they become part of the Tokoyami after being exposed to Gingko too much. So Tokoyami causes Gingko which leads to Tokoyami... i hope that helps
May 14, 2015 1:40 AM

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Sep 2014
1282
So why is his right eye dark when looking into the mirror but is healthy when he is standing there in the end? I don't get it, did they confuse the sides? Sure, later on he has a artificial eye but at that time he couldn't have one, right?
May 20, 2015 1:10 AM

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Jun 2013
8
So beautiful. Ginko's bravery is tragic and amazing.
May 20, 2015 10:47 AM

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Jan 2014
1863
This was utterly fantastic.
May 23, 2015 1:03 PM

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Jul 2014
3113
5/5
Jun 3, 2015 9:10 PM

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May 2011
184
Great episode..
From episode to episode, I'm getting more into Mushishi.. it's a pretty touching but dark anime..
Ginko's amazing.. loved to see his childhood.. Nice to meet you, Yuki-kun :p
Jun 28, 2015 10:24 PM
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Aug 2014
1367
I thought it was a clever way of giving backstory with the twist at the end :)
Aug 4, 2015 2:50 PM

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Dec 2011
646
For those of you who are confused about Tokoyami and Ginko (mushi), I think of it like this. Tokoyami is the complete darkness where Ginko resides. You can think of it like the water in which the eyeless fish lives, but remember that it is essentially alive too. The Ginko's light takes the eyes of living things, and slowly turns them into Tokoyami, sustaining it. The Tokoyami attracts mushi which the Ginko eats, which in turn gives it it's light. They have a symbiotic relationship. Hope that helps people.

It was nice to have some backstory on Ginko... But shucks, it's so sad. Aaughhh, the feels, my heart... :'(

Okay, first, Yoki and his mother. His mother is comforting (as mothers are), but is generally dismissive of the things Yoki sees and his fears about them... And I felt like that is a terrible way to assuage children of their fears. Kids can be scared of really silly things, but simply telling them there's nothing to be afraid of doesn't do anything... If you teach them why their fears are baseless, or if they're reasonable fears, how to handle / approach them, kids will slowly find the courage to face their fears themselves. (Like teaching children that spiders are more afraid of you than you are of it.)

Also, I know it's not completely comparable, but I sometime relate seeing mushi, seeing things others can't, as hallucinating. I don't know what it's like to hallucinate, but I imagine that it can be very terrifying. Hallucinations (whether visual or auditory) is part of a reality for a person, and it must be difficult to live without knowing if other people can see the things you can. Having that reality denied... seems kind of cruel to me.

Nui is great :). She teaches Yoki that mushi are real, and while some are dangerous, others aren't... By learning more about mushi he overcomes his fears of them (the fear of the unknown). It seems such a shame that Ginko forgot about his time as Yoki... Seeing Yoki sitting by his mother's corpse, only to wander away with some passing mushi was heartbreaking. Then to find a teacher and mother-figure in Nui, only to lose her (and forget everything!) was even more tragic. :'(

I wonder if anyone noticed this, but the opening was slightly different this episode. They took out the part about climbing hills and wandering ancient lands. How neat! (And there are people who say they don't like the opening.)

And is Nui the same person as the narrator? They have the same voice, and there was no narrations done in this episode!
DalPuriAug 4, 2015 3:00 PM
Oct 5, 2015 10:55 PM

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Nov 2012
4711
Didn't realize till half way through this was Ginko's backstory.

Great stuff,hope to see more on his origins.
Oct 23, 2015 10:39 PM
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Apr 2015
50
Really good episode, nice to see some backstory, and it was perfectly done.
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Nov 18, 2015 7:16 PM
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Aug 2015
47
I love this episode!
So nice to understand how Ginko became the way he is.
I just find very interesting how he started to act so much a like the white haired woman...all quiet and stuff despite not remembering anything about her.
Despite loving this episode, it makes me feel quite sad...losing his mother, his friend and not remembering nothing about himself or anything att all...really distressful.
And the woman, who lost her family and lived all this time alone and not wanting to acceptt what happened to them, being uncapable of moving on.

I think i'm ovethinking :P
Apr 8, 2016 12:18 AM

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Apr 2009
2794
99910511 said:
Wait wait wait, didn't he have two eyes in the begining of the series? when he sacrificed his eye to the girl who was kept in the basement i thought that was how he losed his eye! Can someone explain..


Kindly watch episode 2 again.
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Apr 9, 2016 4:54 AM

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Oct 2012
7188
I thought it's just another copy paste kid!!
No! It's Ginko! I realized it when Nui said Ginko.. Also Sawashiro Miyuki's voice xD
Yoki eh.. But he forgot all of that
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Aug 16, 2016 5:58 PM
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Aug 2016
2
um... did someone realize when Ginko staring at the water, in the few last minutes of the episode. he's lost his right eye, and the next scene his right eye was on the place again lol
Aug 21, 2016 9:42 PM

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Mar 2012
5785
Poor chibi Ginko ;_; I wonder if at some point he'll remember or find out about his past.
Aug 25, 2016 11:28 AM

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Jan 2016
1694
Wow we finally got a backstory, didn't think they would actually show us Ginko's past.

Best episode so far
Oct 24, 2016 10:33 AM
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Feb 2015
1388
was interested a lot on Ginko's background glad to see some light
Oct 27, 2016 1:41 PM

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May 2010
8099
Nui is pretty much female Ginko. You can see how much he took after her despite losing his memories. I guess he remember what she taught him in his subconscious. "Everything is as it is."
Nov 17, 2016 12:27 PM

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Nov 2014
5402
So Nui had 5 years before losing 2nd eye. She also confirmed that fish separated from pond will still lose it. So how did Ginko stay alive? I'm pretty sure it's been much more than 5 years between this episode and his adult life we saw in previous episodes.
Jan 8, 2017 10:31 AM

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Mar 2016
164
What a great EP. I hope he knows now about his past.
5/5
Jun 2, 2017 4:14 PM

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May 2013
4702
YEYEYEYYYYY!!!! Ginko's past *O*

I realized midway that this was about Ginko shortly after his mother died ;3 So his old name was Yoki ;O
Nui was very cool. I'm glad Ginko brought a few sheds of happiness to her life even after losing her whole family and friends TT^TT she smiled a few times and that was very sweet :') you can tell she didn't want to get attached to Yoki and kept trying to shoo him away :(
Jul 4, 2017 6:10 AM

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Jul 2015
5111
Great Ginko backstory, I was curious from the start to know how did he end up that way, and looks like we found the answer.

Props to that man who was totally fine with having him around, what a good person, sadly Ginko had to leave for his own good.
Aug 5, 2017 4:27 AM

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Nov 2016
2981
5/5 for sure. This anime is just art.
Sep 22, 2017 10:01 AM

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Apr 2013
2282
Need more of Ginko related episodes. At least now we know his motifs when it comes to saving people from the mushi.
Sep 23, 2017 4:04 PM

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Jun 2016
821
This was quite a beautiful and heart-wrenching episode. It's nice to learn about Ginko's past.

The whole changing your form when being exposed to the light idea can be applied to many things on many levels, as in you are inevitably shaped by what you are exposed to. I also find it interesting that once their whole vision is gone, they 'disappear.' On a more symbolic level, lack of vision is reflected as the equivalent of non-existence.

Also, good to learn where his name comes from. A really impressive episode.
Dec 29, 2017 12:39 PM

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May 2016
6248
Poor Ginko ;-;

Never thought he had a tough life like that.
Dec 29, 2017 12:40 PM
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Oct 2017
81
I almost felt sleep watching this show,nothing happens.
Apr 28, 2018 8:54 AM

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Nov 2011
7621
Discovering Ginko's childhood was so touching, I felt sorry for him and for the character of Nui. Once again it was a great episode.
Aug 24, 2018 9:32 AM

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Oct 2012
1086
Finally an episode that shows some of Ginko backstory. A bit sad that he forgot everything, but most of all beautiful that the only thing that he could remember was "Ginko". I was keeping this anime on on-hold for a while now (Stopped on episode 10), but decided to try and watch it again. It's not really an anime to rush, I guess? It's so calm and relaxing, if you watch it too fast you feel like falling asleep. There's a certain magic to it.

I was sad that I couldn't remember what happened in the past episodes. Since all of them have different people - besides Ginko and his friend that show up now and then - and backstories and mushi and all that. But now I got something that is easy to remember - Ginko's backstory.

I feel like it would be easy for me to rewatch Mushishi as many times as I like - of course, I need to finish it for the first time first lol - because the individual stories are interesting but easy to forget for being so short. It's like MADE for rewatching, jesus. You forget it, but everytime you watch it, it's good.
Sep 14, 2018 6:48 PM

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Oct 2012
2104
I cried a lot tbh....
Mar 4, 2019 3:51 AM

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May 2016
12390
At first I had thought that Ginko was crossdressing as a woman to make the kid comfortable enough so he'll be able to get enough info out of him for some Mushi-related reason. As it turns out, Nui was indeed a she and Yoki was Ginko all along. It all made sense at the end and it was pretty sad that the only person he really got to know during his childhood became part of the shadows forever.








Mar 16, 2019 8:51 PM

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Dec 2018
28
This show really just keeps on getting better and better. Swear this episode went by in the blink of an eye.

The whole image of the white dragon, Ginko, swimming through the darkness of the Tokoyami and devouring any who are consumed really is both a beautiful and terrifying image. Nui was a fantastic character as well. She didn't view even the most chaotic Mushi as evil; rather as beings that simply exist. Incredible.
Mar 17, 2019 3:58 PM
Nekogirl~

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Mar 2014
3005
really touching episode
love ginkos pasdt and what he all went trough


Jun 28, 2019 1:40 PM

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Jun 2017
747
If anyone is confused about the eye being absent when Ginko looks at himself but present afterwards - It is a reflection, so the appearance is reversed. The missing eye is covered with his hair.

Not going quote anybody as their posts are several years old Lol.
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