Wikipedia
is a manga series written and illustrated by Yuki Urushibara. It was serialized in Afternoon Seasons Zōkan from 1999 to 2002, and in Monthly Afternoon from December 2002 to August 2008. The individual chapters were collected and released into ten tankōbon volumes by Kodansha. Those volumes were localized to North America by Del Rey between January 2007 and August 2010. The series follows Ginko, a man who dedicates himself to keeping people protected from supernatural creatures called Mushi.
Mushishi has been adapted into an anime television series by Artland which aired in Fuji Television between October 2005 and June 2006. It has been licensed by Funimation to its release in North America, while Madman Entertainment and Revelation Films licensed it for Australia and the United Kingdom respectively. A second anime series aired between April and December 2014, which has been licensed in North America by Aniplex of America, with two television specials airing in 2014 and an anime film released in 2015. A live-action film, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, was released in late 2006. It has also spawned a video game and many types of Mushishi-related merchandise.
The Mushishi manga has been well received both by the public and critics. In Japan, it has frequently ranked in the weekly top ten list of best-selling manga, and the entire series has sold over 3.8 million copies. Both the manga and the anime have received several awards such as the Kodansha Manga Award and the Tokyo Anime Award, and numerous publications have praised them.
, also known in English as Mushi-Shi: The Movie and Bugmaster, is a 2006 Japanese fantasy film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, based on the manga of the same name. It stars Joe Odagiri as Ginko, a traveler who dedicates himself to protecting the populace from supernatural creatures called Mushi. Otomo began work on the film in 2005 after declining a jidaigeki project. He was interested in creating a mix of live action and animation and felt the manga gave him an appropriate creative vehicle.
The film debuted at the Venice International Film Festival in 2006 and was screened at several other festivals prior to its theatrical release on March 24, 2007, in Japan. The DVD was released in Japan in 2007, in the United Kingdom in 2008, and in North America in 2009. The film has received a mixed response from film critics. Many praised Odagiri's performance and its visual but critiqued the plot and mythology as confusing. Mushishi received nominations and awards at film festivals and was among the 100 highest-grossing films of 2007 in Japan.