Week 1 Summaries
Episode 1 and 2 Summaries:
(Why are you reading these? For this series, they’re shoddy and incomplete… because you should go download the episodes and watch them yourself!)
Episode 1 (“A Gathering of Green”): “Someone… someone strange is coming.” That “someone” is Ginko, a strangely silver-haired and green-eyed man with a permanently bent cigarette in his mouth and an enormous wooden box on his back. Ginko has come to a remote location in an astonishingly verdant forest to “investigate” Shinra, a young boy with an incredible power: anything he writes or draws with his left hand will literally come to life. Ginko arrives just in time for a demonstration of this ability as Shinra’s character for “bird” begins flapping about spiritedly (only to be crushed in Ginko’s hand). It turns out that the letter Shinra was a refusal for Ginko: he has absolutely no desire to be investigated. After some amusing banter Shinra turns to the subject of his grandmother, Renzu. It was she who took him to live in the woods, far from human company; and it was she who was, until her recent death, almost his only human contact. She was kind but single-minded and unimaginative; the only thing they never saw eye-to-eye on was the truth of Shinra’s visions of strange, unearthly creatures dancing across his sight. These are Mushi, Ginko tells him, and explains that Mushi are the beings closest to the heart of life.
That night, as Ginko wanders around the huge old house looking for a bathroom, he stumbles upon a mysterious vision: what appears to be the ghost of a girl about Shinra’s age, floating in mid-air and making fun of him. Ginko uses the smoke from his cigarette (actually, it seems, a particularly obedient Mushi) to capture the girl and drag her to the floor. As she falls she drops the broken half of a vividly green sakazuki, a shallow bowl for drinking sake. As soon as he sees it Ginko puts everything together: the girl is Renzu, Shinra’s grandmother… or rather, half of her. Ginko has Shinra draw the other half of the sake cup with his left hand and when the two halves are put together they fill with a mysterious, incredibly clear liquid: the water of life. Ginko gives the water to Renzu and as she drinks it she becomes visible to Shinra. In an apparently celebratory mood, Ginko tells Shinra to drink some of the water as well, but as he does so he finds that his grandmother’s memories overwhelm him.
It seems that many years ago Renzu was hurrying home before sundown when she looked down and saw many small Mushi dashing across the leaves, all apparently with one goal in mind. Following them without consciously willing in, Renzu was invited into an odd ceremony in which many white-robed figures passed her a green sakazuki they told her would enable her to fulfill their request: to watch after her grandchild, who would be born with an incredible gift. But as she drank from the bowl a crow interrupted the ceremony and the bowl cracked in two. Getting up to return home, Renzu stepped outside of herself and was split into the human Renzu and the Mushi Renzu. For the sake of her grandchild, she has lived a half-life in every respect.
As he listens to this story Shinra begins to cry, and as he does so the water of life overflows from the green sakazuki and drips into the ground, making the forest even greener than it was before. Early the next morning Ginko leaves and says goodbye to Renzu, who invites him back to visit (he politely refuses, pointing out that Shinra now has a proper protector). As Ginko wanders back off through the forest, he grins roguishly and examines his new favorite possession…
Episode 2 (“Darkness of the Eyes”): “Ohayou, Sui.” “Ohayou, Biki.” In a completely dark stone warehouse at the fringe of the forest lives a young girl named Sui, who has been afflicted with a terrible disease: any light, even the slightest hint of brightness, will cause her unendurable pain. No optometrist can tell her what causes the disease, no doctor can cure it: all they can do is to lock her in the darkest place they know, with black bandages covering her tightly-shut eyes. Biki is the son of the woman who has taken Sui in, and it is his job to bring her food and play with her every day– as well as to burn the bandages over her eyes when he changes them, and to carefully disinfect everything Sui gets near. As they play in the deep darkness, Sui reveals to Biki that it is Mushi that cause her illness. She can see them when she closes her second eyelids. Biki is, naturally, a little suspicious, but Sui points out that when Biki closes his eyes, they are not really closed: he is still looking at the inside of his primary eyelids. If he wants real darkness he’ll have to close his second eyelids, to shut off his eyes themselves. When Sui does this for long enough she begins to see the river of light: a vast tide of Mushi that flows through the darkest blackness. But whenever she tries to draw nearer, she is stopped by a one-eyed man who is always sitting just on the other side: “don’t,” he says, “don’t get any closer to that river.”
The morning after this conversation, Biki wakes up and begins to shake. He has been infected. His mother brings Sui her food and says that she blames herself for the misfortune, but Sui, alone in the darkness, silently begins to cry. As Biki’s mother returns to the house she finds the doors open and an unfamiliar pack in the entryway. Ginko has arrived, and using some basic pain-killers and plenty of sunlight he has healed Biki’s illness. Biki’s was easy because it was stopped early, Ginko says, but Sui’s case will be much, much harder. As Ginko speaks Biki peeks under his silver hair but finds that he does indeed have two eyes–is he not the man Sui spoke of?
That evening as the moon rises Ginko and Biki go to the storehouse to cure Sui of her “darkness of the eyes.” When Ginko removes the bandages he finds that her eyes have been consumed by the darkness: nothing remains but two black pits. Bringing her outside Ginko has her face the moon and, with her second eyelids closed, open her primary eyelids: they are luring out the Mushi. When she does so a whitish… substance begins pouring out of her eyes, completely swamping Ginko. But he maintains his balance and after a moment of grasping orders Sui to close her eyes. Ginko has captured the Mushi, a hairy snake-like thing; with one good squeeze he puts an end to it for good. Sui’s eyes, however, are gone forever. So Ginko removes his left eye (prompting some semi-hysterical exclamations from Biki), which turns out to be a fake. But even a glass eye, when injected with the whitish stuff the Mushi excretes, can turn into a living eyeball, and as Ginko gives Sui her new eye we hear in voiceover an old woman, telling Ginko about the river of light. *Hint hint hint important plot point for later on! Hem.*
The next morning Sui comes out of the warehouse for good, but she has lost the ability to close her second eyelid: she will live a happy life, but she can no longer see the golden river in the darkness. As Ginko moves on he examines himself in a pool: his left eye is a well of blackness, just as Sui’s eyes were. Drawing on his ever-present cigarette, he leans back and sinks into the blackness…
