Mushi-shi: Next Passage Part 1
蟲師 続章 (Mushishi Zoku Shou)
- Adventure
- Mystery
- Slice of Life
- Supernatural
- Adult Cast
- Historical
- Iyashikei
- Episodes
- 10
- Duration
- 24 min per ep
- Aired
- Apr 5, 2014 to Jun 21, 2014
- Status
- Finished Airing
Synopsis
Long regarded with suspicion and fear, the formless life known as Mushi exists beyond ordinary sight. They mean no harm, yet their unusual nature can bring unintended consequences, and treating them as tools—whether through ignorance or greed—often invites misfortune for everyone involved.
*Mushi-shi: Next Passage Part 1* follows Ginko, a wandering Mushishi who investigates these phenomena and helps people find a way to live alongside the Mushi. Along the road he meets those marked by circumstance and those bound to the Mushi in delicate balance, raising difficult questions about responsibility, coexistence, and how far one person should go in meddling with ties that are older and more complex than they appear.
Otaku Consensus
Mushi-shi: Next Passage Part 1 earns its 8.69 MAL score and #70 rank by preserving the original series' rarest strengths: Hiroshi Nagahama's patient direction, clean episodic construction, and an adaptation voice that lets Yuki Urushibara's folklore feel observed rather than explained. Fans and critics consistently praise its pacing as unusually immersive, with episodes that feel expansive despite their runtime, while the most common criticism is also its filter: viewers seeking tension, plot acceleration, or promotional "big moments" may find its minimal music, low violence, and near-static continuation too quiet.
Why You Should Watch
Watch Next Passage Part 1 if you want supernatural anime without combat rules, power ladders, or constant cliffhangers. It scratches the same reflective itch as Kino's Journey and, for viewers of Natsume's Book of Friends, offers an older, more austere version of folklore encounters: adult, rural, environmental, and less eager to comfort you with easy answers. The appeal is in how precisely each 2014 episode is shaped, with Hiroshi Nagahama's direction giving small gestures, silence, and landscape the weight that other series reserve for twists. This is ideal for viewers who like mystery as contemplation rather than puzzle-solving, and for anyone interested in iyashikei that is calming without becoming sentimental.
Key Characters
- GGinko(VA: Yuuto Nakano)
Ginko remains one of anime's most distinctive adult wanderers: a professional observer whose calm manner makes each episode feel like fieldwork, moral inquiry, and ghost story at once.
What Makes It Stand Out
- 1
Artland's production approach favors stillness, texture, and environmental framing over spectacle, matching the series' reputation for calm, living landscapes rather than action-heavy supernatural set pieces.
- 2
Hiroshi Nagahama is credited as both director and series composer, giving the season a notably unified rhythm: self-contained stories are paced to let silence and aftereffects matter as much as revelation.
- 3
The 10-episode Part 1 cour keeps an overwhelmingly episodic structure, a choice reflected in AniList's 95% Episodic tag and in fan comments praising how each installment feels complete rather than like a fragment of a larger plot.
- 4
Reviewers repeatedly single out the show's restraint: minimal music, little to no violence, and rare bursts of tension make it stand apart from supernatural anime that treat youkai or demons as enemies to defeat.
- 5
Its genre mix is unusually specific: Adventure, Mystery, Slice of Life, and Supernatural are filtered through Historical, Adult Cast, Rural, Environmental, and Philosophy tags, making the tone closer to animated folklore anthropology than standard fantasy.
Fun Facts & Trivia
- Fun fact 1
- The season adapts material by original creator Yuki Urushibara, with Noboru Ishiguro credited as supervisor and Hiroshi Nagahama handling both direction and series composition.
- Fun fact 2
- Yoshihiko Umakoshi is credited for character design, while the title logo design is separately credited to Ichirou Izumi and Akito Sumiyoshi, a production detail that underlines how carefully the series' visual identity was maintained.
- Fun fact 3
- Mushi-shi: Next Passage Part 1 aired from April 5 to June 21, 2014, as a finished 10-episode TV season produced by Artland.
- Fun fact 4
- Its reputation is unusually strong relative to its reach: MAL lists it at 8.69 from 129,137 votes with a #70 rank, while its popularity sits much lower at #868.
- Fun fact 5
- AniList's data mirrors the critical reading of the show: 86/100 score, 1,184 favourites, and top tags led by Youkai at 100%, Environmental at 98%, Episodic at 95%, and Philosophy at 95%.
Studios
- Artland
