You know, I didn’t set out to become an otaku. But Netflix is turning me into one.

You see, Netflix Canada has lots of anime on it. And at the beginning, my sole interest was cultural literacy. I wanted to maybe watch some of the anime series that the young furries talk about where I hang out. It would be nice to have something to talk about when they are going on about Phineas and Pherb. I had this whole scenario in my mind where I would ask people if they had seen whatever animes series I had just finished watching and a bunch of people would say “Of course! I love that show!” and then we would talk about it and I would feel a tad less irrelevant.

But no matter what I watched, it was something nobody seemed to know or care about. Even if it was one I had heard them mention. Nobody, thus far, has taken the bait.

This means that either kids these days just aren’t into anime (that’s what their PARENTS are into) or they are into anime but don’t wish to encourage an old phart like me to come stomping around their playground.

I would have had the same reaction to someone my parents’ age if they had tried to talk to me about video games. It’s not that I wanted to be rude or hurtful. It’s just that I would have wanted to avoid a conversation where I would end up having to explain a lot of things and which would involve them getting their old person fingerprints all over my hip, now, young person thing, thus making it less cool via association.

But that doesn’t matter any more, because I watch anime shows because they are interesting now. I watched enough of them for Netflix to start recommending them to me, and that exposed me to more of them, and if the description sounded interesting, I would give it a shot.

That’s how I found Mushi-shi, and so far, it’s my favorite.

The basic premise is that there are millions of creatures, called mushi, who exist in our world but are unseen by most people. They affect our world in ways both big and small, and exist between their dimension and our own.

The episodes follow the adventures of Ginko, a mushi-shi, or mushi master. He wanders pre-Edo Japan, and wherever he goes, there are people who need his help to deal with a mushi related problem.

What I love most about the show is its mood. It has a quiet, deep, respectful mood to it that I find very addictive and soothing. It has a deep reverence for nature and the natural world, and the stories are always about problems, not enemies.

And the stories always take the general form of the exact kind of ghost stories I love, where the supernatural element is a way of literalizing something deep and dark and psychological. A story about a harsh father and his timid daughter might have her literally starting to disappear. A mother can’t get over the loss of her son and one day he shows up again, seemingly alive and well and the same age as when he died. But there’s something a little… off… about him.

Other episodes are more like mysteries. Why is this strange thing happening? An episode I watched recently was about a woman who could seemingly predict when it would rain. Truth was, it rained wherever she went, and so she couldn’t stay in any one place for too long or it would be flooded out.

So she wandered from one drought-stricken place to another. Not the worst gig in the world. At least you are making people happy wherever you go. But the inability to stay in any one place for more than a few days would really wear you down.

Whatever the plot, it is always fascinating, moving, and enjoyable. The story is not always a happy one but the tragedies are as beautiful as the triumphs, and the whole thing has this feeling of spiritual healing that I can’t get enough of.

Plus, it’s set in Japan, a country I find fascinating. There are things about them I greatly admire. It seems like a culture where there is a lot more potential respect going around than our jackass culture. Shinto is a religion I can at least understand because I have never felt the Holy Spirit, but I have felt deep awe and a feeling of harmony in nature.

Not a lot, of course. I’m pretty indoorsy. But I have felt it.

And I believe in a form of living in harmony with nature. For me, it has a lot more to living in harmony with human nature than taking the day off for sakura, but the principle is more or less the same.

After all, Mother Nature made humanity with drives and needs (a lot of them, actually), just like She made birds with the drive to migrate and salmon with the urge to go upstream to spawn. We seek what they tell us to find just like any other animal.

We only get in trouble when we try to deal with these drives by ignoring, punishing, or isolating them. We should be concentrating instead on how people can fulfill those needs without hurting others or bringing society down.

Anyhow, so yeah, I am becoming an otaku. I am even getting the urge to learn Japanese, and I never would have seen that coming. It’s not like it’s a practical language around these parts. I would be better off learning Mandarin or Punjabi.

But maybe it’s a cumulative thing. Once you hear enough of the language, you get the urge to learn it. Most of the shows I watch are dubbed, but Mushi-shi is subtitled only, so I have been hearing a lot of spoken Japanese lately.

Next thing you know, I will be wanting to make a pilgrimage to Japan, even though I know damned well it’s nothing like the version of it in my mind.

Let’s hope I snap out of it by then.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.