I think it ' s a problem of representation . I liked how in Mononoke every phenomena had its story , its origins and cause of its appearance . People and mononoke were very tightly knit , and you could see all the reasons why specific mononoke appeared before specific people . Mushishi also presents lots of different stories , but they rarely represent something . There is rarely connection between people and mushi . As I ' ve said before , mushi simply occur before rather random people , and Ginko comes to solve the problems . If the anime was not about representation but about human response to the nature I don ' t buy it because the whole concept is supernatural and just doesn ' t feel real . And what ' s the lesson ? Life is unfair , and you can ' t predict what mushi is going to do with you and your family ? As it stands , I didn ' t find enjoyable traveling of Ginko and solving random problems which rarely meant anything .