Anime of the Week - Mononoke - モノノ怪

Mononoke and not to be confused with Princess Mononoke as they are totally different anime!!!!  Mononoke is an absolutely brilliant anime and suits my tastes very well BUT is your taste the same as mine----you can decide.  So, in 12 episodes the anime tells the stories of the bakeneko arc of the Ayakashi (classic Japanese horror).  It kind of follows that if you like horror type anime then you might enjoy this anime---fact is---i haven't seen the Ayakashi anime yet BUT after watching Mononoke I definitely will add it to my ever growing TO WATCH list!!!!!

The main character is a medicine seller (in romanji ----kutsuri uri) and from what i remember we never learn his name and he travels feudal japan to exorcise the mononoke (various spirits).  This is not an episodic type anime so some of the stories last 2 or 3 episodes and in each of them he is confronted by some sort of spirit and before he can exorcise them he must figure out their physical form---the truth of its appearance and the reason behind it's behaviour.  Once these truths have been revealed he can exorcise the spirits.

Well no you have the basic gist of this anime BUT what I haven't told you is the style of the anime.  You can probably tell from the elaborate picture that the anime is not your usual type of animation in that it's extremely theatrical.  The anime is told in a theatrical type of way and i must say it is full of colours and imagery that I haven't seen in any other anime---making this one pretty unique.  The way it uses colours and the way the characters in the stories appear emphasise the intensity of the stories and in some scenes you really can SEE THE TERROR in their faces and even their bodies the way they become distorted and contorted.  In a NUTSHELL the creativity of this anime is to be proclaimed allow me to blow a trumpet---Watch the TRAILER and decide for yourself!!!!!!