Mononoke 10-12 END
Mononoke is an extensively creative and beautiful show, truly one of a kind. It is well crafted in nearly every facet, from visual direction to framing to horror to the use of color, all which serve the show very well. While the individual stories can be confusing and little is ever done explanation wise, neither of these bothered me because of how creative the show was and there is enough there to fill in the blanks for yourself. For me, the Medicine Seller is a Shinigami there to remove the Mononoke, which shouldn't exist in the human world. This is why he goes after the Mononoke that don't even seem evil, and also why he could magically appear in the Showa era in the last arc, 300 years after the setting in the previous arcs.
To classify this as horror wouldn't be incorrect, but it's a type of horror I've never seen before. Horror typically uses drab and dark colors but Mononoke is extensively colorful. It still utilizes all the horror techniques in sound design and framing but in a way I've never seen before. It's not like Kagewani or Yamishibai, it's not like the works of Junji Ito or Kazuo Umezu, it's not like Silent Hill or Fatal Frame. It's inherently unique.
The one problem I have, and this isn't the shows fault, are Crunchyrolls absolutely TERRIBLE subs. I don't know if this is on CR or Toei for providing the subs, but they are hardsubbed, the dialogue runs over other lines (for example if two characters are talking at the same time, instead of showing both lines, the one who talks second will overrun the first line even if the first line is only shown for half a second. That's not even going into typos and grammatical errors. Amateur hour is too kind for these garbage subs and they are by far the worst subs I've ever seen on a professional site.
Mononoke is truly excellent.
