I was extremely interested in the Mushishi live action film right from the first rumours and announcements; not only is it one of my all-time favourite animated TV shows (I really ought to read the graphic novels sometime), the fact that Katsuhiro Otomo was in charge as director made me preorder a copy without a second thought. Unfortunately it didn’t impress me as much as I’d hoped; if anything the end result was actually quite lacklustre. Considering the quality of the source material and the collective talent on board, I have to wonder how it didn’t manage to realise its potential.

The TV show (and the graphic novel series, from what I’ve heard) was strictly episodic in structure, so any feature-length version has to splice a number of the individual stories together and smooth out the screenplay to make a coherent narrative. This is one thing that the movie does reasonably well: it features several story arcs that fans are familiar with but emphasises the background to Ginko’s childhood and its relevance to his present life in an over-arcing theme throughout the film. The cinematography is also excellent, but beyond that…I’m far from convinced.