first review of ever time on my profile ! cuz this is the latest show ive finished ( last night ) and i gotta talk my piece :D this show ( at least this season ) is my Goodnight show. literally my eepee time snooze dreamland show but NOT bc its not interesting.. in fact it is very enthralling but as everyone always notes, its very very chill, mellow, calm, what have you. absolutely beautiful storylines, animation and character style are so non-threatening??? like so soft and homey but of course its a 2005 anime so its also got that familiar flat feeling of many 2000s anime. the storylines of each episode are truly rlly thought provoking, its never unexpected what happens? but its like its own thought piece everytime and its nice to see how they address the "moral" of each story.. on to the poorer points of the show 🤔 honestly i gotta agree with the criticisms around the character designs. ginko obviously looks amazing and recognizable and he has a great design but i cant say the same for almost any of the other characters. i understand this anime is supposed to reflect real life Edo period Japan, so no hot pink spikey hair and electric blue eyes, but i do wish there was some more variation in the villagers' designs, like there is in real life. literally no variations in body types, barely a skin color spectrum, or even facial proportions are not messed with much. some of the mushi explanations seem a little convoluted? but im like half asleep when im watching this so that might be on me lol. regardless, the points of the stories for each episode end up being clear enough for me and i really get the vibe for what the mushi's represent metaphorically without having to understand every inner working of them. ALSO! **shout out** to this guy Leon Peon in the 9anime comments, this guy leaves a BEAUTIFULLY written, concise, accurate, and stirring analysis of each episode and hes lowkey my literary idol atm let me quote some of his openers "The story of man is the pursuit of knowledge; when we encounter the unknown, we consider it our duty see it illuminated." bro ATE with that line bc it sums up the premise of the episode perfectly, and yeah he basically writes 1-2 paragraphs on each episode and they are just stirring