Mushishi: The Next Chapter film previewed in teaser

The Mainichi Shimbun paper's MAiDiGi service began streaming the teaser trailer for the Mushishi Zoku Shou:  Suzu no Shizuku film on Thursday. The same teaser trailer debuted on the anime's official website in April.



Text: Teaser
Text: A long time ago, I heard a mysterious sound on the mountain.
Text: Creator: Yuki Urushibara (serialized in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine)
Text: Character Design/Chief Animation Director: Yoshihiko Umakoshi
Music: Toshio Masuda
Art Director: Takeshi Waki
Director of Photography: Yuuta Nakamura
Technical Adviser: Yoshihisa Oyama
Sound Director: Kazuya Tanaka
Animation Production: Animation Studio Artland
Director: Hiroshi Nagahama
Ginko: I am the Mushi Master Ginko. Greetings, for passing through this mountain.
Voice and Text: Mushishi: The Next Chapter Special Edition: Suzu no Shizuku Arc
Text: Opens in Theaters on May 16

The film is a special compilation of "Suzu no Shizuku," which was the last two-chapter arc in the main manga series. The cast includes:

• Yuto Nakano as Ginko 
• Mika Doi as Voice (Narrator) 
• Tomomi Saito as Kaya 
• Gen Ogawa as Ashirō 

While supplies last, filmgoers will receive a limited-number postcard illustrated in Japanese paper painting style by character designer Yoshihiko Umakoshi.

 Participating theaters are also selling a set of two clear file folders (one each of Ginko and Kaya) and a pamphlet.

Yuki Urushibara began the original Mushishi manga in 1995, and finished it in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine in 2008. Del Rey once published the manga in North America but it has since long fallen out of print, and FUNimation released Hiroshi Nagahama and Artland's first anime and Katsuhiro Otomo's live-action film version.


Urushibara returned to the manga with a new special story arc in 2013. A one-hour Mushishi Tokubetsu-hen:  Hihamukage anime television special premiered last year, followed by the Mushishi:  The Next Chapter anime. Crunchyroll and Daisuki streamed Mushishi:  The Next Chapter as it aired in Japan.

The manga also inspired a stage reading with the anime cast this past spring. The seventh Mushishi:  The Next Chapter Blu-ray/DVD volume, which has the last two television episodes and Mushishi Zoku Shou:  Suzu no Shizuku, will ship on July 22.

As of now Aniplex of America has announced they have exclusive streaming rights to Mushishi Zoku Shou but I hope for everyone's sake that FUNimation can somehow nab the anime and specials for the physical release.