Anime Recommendation : MONONOKE | kenji nakamura
- Where to watch: Netflix, Crunchyroll.
- First published in 2006 as part of a horror anthology.
- Anime completed.
- 3 upcoming movies. First is available on Netflix. Two more to come.
OVERVIEW:
A humble medicine seller seeks to exorcises people and places that are haunted by mononoke. Always on his person are his trusted tools: his herbal medicines, scales, and a mystical sword that can only be drawn once certain conditions are met. In order to exorcise a mononoke, he must discover the mononoke’s shape, truth and reason which is usually tied to the people/people that it haunts.
WHY I LOVE IT:
It’s probably one of the most original supernatural spirit hunting anime I’ve seen. First, the visuals are really in your face with its psychedelic colors. It took a minute for me to get used to it, but now I just love it as it adds to its uniqueness. Love the soft horror, and the mystery is well done.
Our lead, the Medicine Seller, is such a mysterious and interesting character. He’s obviously not 100% human if human at all, and he has a connection to the spiritual world. He’s so effortlessly cool, smooth, and in control even when things unravel around him. He does take on another form, but I won’t spoil it. 🙂 Like an good magic system of the sort, the one used in Mononke is a hard magical system. There are certain rules for him to unleash his powers and unless he meets those, he cannot and will not be able to defeat a mononoke.
I love the setting, Edo Japan, which is perfect for the mononoke as they are pulled from Japanese folklore. I love that the mononoke aren’t just spirits attacking people who enter its den or place of residence, but are tied to the people it’s haunting. Rather, they’re born out of the human experience if you will.
The storytelling is just chef’s kiss. I never knew what to expect even though I knew the formula of the show and to defeat the mononoke. The stories are deeper than expected and thus very fulfilling in plot for me. Watching this show for me was like eating a real good meal. There’s usually some kind of social topic at hand with each new story, some more subtle while others a bit more obvious. Every time the credits rolled I was satisfied though to be honest, I was also very much hungry for more!! It’s just THAT GOOD!
3 movies were announced some years back. The first one, MONONOKE THE MOVIE: PHANTOM IN THE RAIN is out on Netflix. I… was not a fan of it at all, but I will leave that for another review. For now, if you want to watch some real good anime, please take a look at MONONOKE the TV series. Totally one of my tops!!