Ginko (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iattractmushi) wrote2020-02-20 08:28 pm
iattractmushi) wrote2020-02-20 08:28 pm
Known Mushi
This post is a WIP. Please don't mind my dust as I slowly work on it... I have finished up to where the links on this post end, and I will be trying to add more pictures and the rest of the mushi soon.
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Ginko is a mushishi, or mushi Master, meaning he knows how to recognize, control, use, and exterminate mushi.
Mushi - they aren’t quite insects as their name would have the casual reader believe, but rather something far more basic and ancient.
The way that Ginko describes them is like this: "if the four fingers on my hand represent all of the animals and my thumb represents present-day plants, then people would be at the tip of my middle finger, the farthest place from the heart. The inside of my hand represents all the other levels of living things below us. As you follow the veins downward, it all winds into one large artery. About there are the fungi and the microorganisms. As you go farther down, it becomes harder to tell the difference between animals and plants. But there are things even below that. You can trace all the way down the arm and past the shoulder. And when you reach your heart, that’s where the mushi are. Some call them ‘the Green Things’; they’re very close to the original forms of life."
They can look like nearly anything, from people to snakes to rainbows to floating, glowing jellyfish, or even simpler forms like a chain of rings or a segmented line floating through the air. They do equally as many things, some useful to humans, some harmful, but most all of the things they do are utterly bizarre and meant for the mushi’s survival. They exist anywhere and everywhere, especially where life thrives. Not everyone can see them; in fact it seems that most people can't. The pattern of who can and can't see them seems to be almost entirely random, though sometimes people start seeing them after being affected by mushi.
I did these in the same order as the manga chapters, which differs from the anime order.
Kouki ('Light Wine') - Possibly an eye-squicky image.
Weakened Mushi
Gods/Masters/Guardians
Fuki, pseudo-Kouki
Rule of Nature/mushi banquet
Un and Ah
Imenonoawai ('within the field of dreams')
Manakonoyamimushi ('darkness of the eyes mushi') - Content warning for possible eyesquick.
Suiko ('mushi water')
Mugura ('creeping vines')
Kuchinawa
Shimi ('paper fish')
Forbidden Mushi
Bikuu ('mushi' and 'body cavity')
Nagaremono ('flowing things')
Watahaki (and hitotake) ('cotton breathed out' and 'person mushroom') - Warning for child death, born and unborn.
Yasabi ('wild rust')
Dragon mushi
Narazu seed ('mustn't happen' seed)
Kumohami ('cloud eater') - mentions of people freezing to death.
Tokoyami and Ginko ('endless darkness' and 'silver mushi')
Uro ('empty' or 'hollow')
Nisekazura ('false vines') - warning for animated (though quiescent) dead people.
Usobuki ('false bud')
Magaridake and Oniko ('false bamboo' and human/mushi hybrid)
Dragon Shrine - Warning for mention of drowning.
Ganpuku - Warning for eyesquick.
Ubusuna (roughly, 'to cultivate the earth')
Kagebi and Hidane ('false fire' and 'fire seed' or coal) - Warning for freezing to death? Idk.
Kagedama ('shadow soul')
Anything past this point in the comments is to be edited later, adding pictures when I manage to get some and prettying it up in general.
The different mushi will slowly be added as comments to this post, including mushi and other creatures from the manga-only chapters. Warning for spoilers, of course.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ginko is a mushishi, or mushi Master, meaning he knows how to recognize, control, use, and exterminate mushi.
Mushi - they aren’t quite insects as their name would have the casual reader believe, but rather something far more basic and ancient.
The way that Ginko describes them is like this: "if the four fingers on my hand represent all of the animals and my thumb represents present-day plants, then people would be at the tip of my middle finger, the farthest place from the heart. The inside of my hand represents all the other levels of living things below us. As you follow the veins downward, it all winds into one large artery. About there are the fungi and the microorganisms. As you go farther down, it becomes harder to tell the difference between animals and plants. But there are things even below that. You can trace all the way down the arm and past the shoulder. And when you reach your heart, that’s where the mushi are. Some call them ‘the Green Things’; they’re very close to the original forms of life."
They can look like nearly anything, from people to snakes to rainbows to floating, glowing jellyfish, or even simpler forms like a chain of rings or a segmented line floating through the air. They do equally as many things, some useful to humans, some harmful, but most all of the things they do are utterly bizarre and meant for the mushi’s survival. They exist anywhere and everywhere, especially where life thrives. Not everyone can see them; in fact it seems that most people can't. The pattern of who can and can't see them seems to be almost entirely random, though sometimes people start seeing them after being affected by mushi.
I did these in the same order as the manga chapters, which differs from the anime order.
Kouki ('Light Wine') - Possibly an eye-squicky image.
Weakened Mushi
Gods/Masters/Guardians
Fuki, pseudo-Kouki
Rule of Nature/mushi banquet
Un and Ah
Imenonoawai ('within the field of dreams')
Manakonoyamimushi ('darkness of the eyes mushi') - Content warning for possible eyesquick.
Suiko ('mushi water')
Mugura ('creeping vines')
Kuchinawa
Shimi ('paper fish')
Forbidden Mushi
Bikuu ('mushi' and 'body cavity')
Nagaremono ('flowing things')
Watahaki (and hitotake) ('cotton breathed out' and 'person mushroom') - Warning for child death, born and unborn.
Yasabi ('wild rust')
Dragon mushi
Narazu seed ('mustn't happen' seed)
Kumohami ('cloud eater') - mentions of people freezing to death.
Tokoyami and Ginko ('endless darkness' and 'silver mushi')
Uro ('empty' or 'hollow')
Nisekazura ('false vines') - warning for animated (though quiescent) dead people.
Usobuki ('false bud')
Magaridake and Oniko ('false bamboo' and human/mushi hybrid)
Dragon Shrine - Warning for mention of drowning.
Ganpuku - Warning for eyesquick.
Ubusuna (roughly, 'to cultivate the earth')
Kagebi and Hidane ('false fire' and 'fire seed' or coal) - Warning for freezing to death? Idk.
Kagedama ('shadow soul')
Anything past this point in the comments is to be edited later, adding pictures when I manage to get some and prettying it up in general.
The different mushi will slowly be added as comments to this post, including mushi and other creatures from the manga-only chapters. Warning for spoilers, of course.
Kouki
The light-pulse vein, the river of light, the source of all life.
This is the source of all mushi power--and indeed, all life. Where it flows close to the surface of the ground, plants grow and flourish. Where it recedes, all life withers and dies. When mushi are weak, they glow more brightly because they are drawing power from the light stream. I'll talk more about them later.
Kouki in a special wine cup.
Drinking the kouki is a cure for certain mushi-caused ailments; it can also be used for a variety of other things, but it can be very dangerous in the wrong hands. It looks something like luminous sake (though since that's what the kanji that make up its name mean, this shouldn't be surprising).
Ginko sitting beside the River.
Humans can see the light stream sometimes if they have been influenced by the mushi so strongly they are almost mushi themselves, or if they close their second eyelid (Ginko knows how to do this).
A girl who looked too long at the River.
However, if one goes too close to the river of kouki or looks at it for too long a time, one's eyeballs can be eaten away by it.
The light-pulse vein is usually watched over by Masters or Gods; I'll talk about them later as well.
Weakened mushi
These appear to be everywhere in Ginko's world, depending on the area he's traveling through. I suspect he sees more than we know about, given their density in any given area when he chooses to pay attention to them.
These seem to have the most variable shapes out of all the mushi; perhaps that's because any mushi can get weak and fall into this category--though many of them tend to look like flowers or snakes, perhaps because many mushi happen to look like that already.
There are a couple I would like to especially note here; one of them is more headcanon, and the other doesn't have a lot of information about it.
This type appear once, in a flashback. I believe they're something akin to will o'the wisps, in that they may lead travelers astray, should they choose to follow the light... but it's nothing malicious. They're just glowing jellyfish things that float around randomly in the forest.
Ginko's mushi-smoke.
Ginko appears to have the ability to manipulate the smoke he exhales. At one point he claims it's a 'friendly mushi' but nothing is known why that mushi in particular likes the smoke that all other mushi are supposed to hate, or how Ginko controls it, or why it doesn't hurt him when he inhales it. It's possible that this mushi is the real reason behind why other mushi don't like the smoke, and also what keeps Ginko from getting sick. In any case, it's pretty neat, though I usually don't reference it simply because so little is known about how it works. It doesn't show up again after the first episode.
Gods/Masters/Guardians
I prefer to call them 'gods' but they're known by different titles depending on the translation you're looking at.
A god is chosen by nature from the time of its birth, and recognized as such because of the moss growing on its head or back.
As you can see, every creature on earth has the potential to be this kind of god, though humans chosen to be gods seem not to do very well at it. However, if a human wants to become a god unnaturally, they would need to kill one of them and eat the creature's flesh, thereby taking the god's power and energy into their body, as well as the god's duties. They also sprout moss on their heads, but it may not be as closely connected to their bodies.
The hat of a god.
These beings are immensely powerful in their territory, able to do things like closing the mountain so no one can enter or leave. They can also put creatures (including humans) in an extended hibernation-like sleep. You really don't want to take them on lightly.
Not every mountain or stream has a god, but those that are exceptionally fertile and close to the light flow must have one. It's essential that the god control the light flow's power, regulating it so it doesn't go out of control or otherwise hurt the creatures living in the area. An unregulated light flow can have odd consequences indeed--rivers turning to sake, people getting dangerously ill, weird hybrid animals, trees that won't allow themselves to be cut down. Even odd illusions like this:
The mountain displaying odd signs.
However, a properly regulated area can be beautiful, if potentially dangerous to the unprepared. Given how fertile the land is due to the proximity of the light flow, many humans tend to be drawn to these areas, sometimes causing problems for the gods that regulate them.
A light flow area during harvest time.
The colored mist of a light flow area.
A person sensitive to the mushi like Ginko would be able to feel the god's presence, and tell when the god is looking at them. In fact, someone like Ginko who affects the mushi so deeply would be a draw to the god's attention; he tends not to stay in places like that very long. Each god is incredibly powerful in its own area, able to dominate many other species, including humans. They should not be trifled with lightly.
Gods are not immortal. I am not sure what their life span is, but it's probably somewhat longer than the normal life span of whatever species they are, I would guess. When they die, a new god is chosen by the Rule of Nature (more about them later) and the god's soul goes back to Nature. Possibly it joins the Rule; otherwise, it simply becomes part of everything.
A god going back to the Rule.
The egg of a god.
I'll be flowing... between life and the mountain. Inside the Rule. Inside the 'promise.'
Fuki, pseudo-Kouki
Some other cons are that the Fuki is passed along in the bloodstream from parent to child, and anyone not strong enough to stand the Fuki's poison dies in a way not unlike tuberculosis. Also, the hosts that are strong enough to stand it are eventually overtaken by the Fuki's desire to seek out and kill all life, and begin to spend all their time hunting animals simply for the sake of killing them. Eventually if it goes on for long enough, they lose first their soul and then their body, slowly passing over into the world of the mushi.
Possibly the worst part is that they don't die, but continually wander, more insubstantial than a ghost, without end.
Pseudo-Kouki - A very rare and special kind of sake; it's entirely possible it has only ever been made once. It looks identical to Kouki, to the point where it can even fool mushi (though not quite good enough to fool the light vein itself). Should one drink it, even people who can't see mushi normally are able to see them as long as the alcohol is in their system.
It is made with Suimitsu-tou mushi, a type of mushi that greatly resembles wild yeast.
Rule of Nature/Mushi Banquet
Nature.
Not much is known about this group. They are in charge of what god is chosen for what area, and the gods must do what Nature wants. But though Nature controls the gods, it's not known exactly what controls Nature. Perhaps it's beyond human understanding.
Occasionally, the Rule will step outside its boundaries, and choose a human that they want to become a mushi for one reason or another. When this happens, it's known as a mushi banquet.
After choosing the human, they then present that human with a special wine cup full of kouki. Should the human drink all the kouki in the cup, they become a mushi, with special powers of their own, in order to do Nature's will. If the banquet is interrupted for some reason, the human is split into two parts--one lives as a normal human, aging appropriately, with apparently no memory of the mushi world. The other half lives agelessly, as a weak and powerless mushi that only the most sensitive people can perceive.
The Rule is nothing to trifle with. It's nature, pure and simple, and it's just as powerful and unpredictable.
Un and Ah
As mushi go, these are relatively harmless. They coexist with each other; Un eat sound and Ah eat silence, but the Un are far more numerous than the Ah. Often when winter has killed off their normal food sources, as animals hibernate and snow muffles the smallest sounds, they will move closer to human habitation, in order to feed off the sounds there.
A nest of Un.
Occasionally, they will even invade the body of a human or other animals, taking over one ear in order to get even more sound.
An Un moving into a human ear.
This doesn't hurt the human, but it does make them go (temporarily) deaf in one ear due to the Un eating all the sound the human would normally hear. It can be chased out by salt sprinkled around the home or saltwater poured into the ear; salt affects them like a normal slug or snail. Once the Un is gone, the human host immediately regains their hearing in the affected ear.
Ah, however, are a different story. Because they eat silence, a human body is not a comfortable home for them. When they do invade one in an attempt to get enough to eat, the human will sprout four horns on their forehead.
Ah horns.
These appear to be some kind of way to let the humans hear the mushi world. Letting the human hear more things would seem to be the opposite of the mushi's aim, but the mushi is using the sounds to overwhelm the human. The struggle for dominance between mushi and human seems to take about a year. If the human hasn't managed to get free of the mushi in that time, they are overwhelmed by the mushi's influence and they die.
The solution seems to be a relatively simple one--put your hands over your ears. But there's a trick to it. If you do it to try and shut out the sounds, it doesn't appear to work. You have to listen for a very specific sound--the small rumblings that your own body makes, as blood pumps and muscles shift. If you can hear it, and overwhelm the mushi, it will leave you.
Ginko accepting Ah.
And Ah leaving him.
Imenonoawai
The name of this mushi translates to mean 'within the field of dreams'--a very apt name, because what they do is bring the dreams of their host out into the waking world. If a person dreams about finding a large cache of gold, they'll make it happen... but if the person dreams about all of their family, friends, and neighbors being killed off by an odd disease, these mushi will make that happen, too.
A flock of Imenonoawai.
It doesn't happen with every dream. When they first infest a person, they bring maybe one or two dreams in ten to life. As the person continues to live with them, allowing their numbers to grow within him unchecked, more and more dreams will be brought to life, often with devastating consequences.
This mushi is one that's very difficult to rid oneself of. Once you have it, it's generally thought that the only way to live with it is to regulate the mushi's effects--in all likelihood, given the medicine is toxic before a certain point in the infestation, it's literally killing off the mushi as they grow too numerous.
However, if you choose to go the drastic route and cut your pillow, the pathway by which the mushi enter into the waking world, you will manage to sever their hold on you. But you also do irreparable damage to yourself--whatever you did to the pillow, that is reflected back on your own body. So for example, if you cut the pillow in half, you would receive a life-threatening gash across your own body.
There is one other problem with going this route. Once you cut the pillow, you not only sever your connection to the mushi, but also your connection to the dream world. Sleep would become horrific, and you would not be able to rest easily.
Manakonoyamimushi
This one translates roughly to 'darkness of the eyes mushi.'
Ginko holding one.
These mushi cause intense pain in a person's eyes, if they try looking at light. If it's left untreated, the person is soon unable to live anywhere but the darkest of rooms, with their eyes tightly bandaged against even the slightest ray of light. Unfortunately, this causes the mushi to multiply, and usually they'll attempt to infect anyone else that interacts regularly with someone affected by the creatures.
The cure for this is a little odd: keeping their second eyelid shut, a person stands in moonlight and allows the naturally occurring mushi that live in their eyes to push out the Manakonoyamimushi. This creates an almost unnaturally large amount of mushi rushing out of their eyes; if the person helping them is quick enough, they'll be able to catch the Manakonoyamimushi, and cure the person.
Mushi emerging from someone's eyes.
This same silvery-green stuff can be used to do other miraculous things, like turning a glass eye into a real one in order to restore sight to someone who's lost theirs. It doesn't seem like a common practice, though; I assume that the silver mushi either has to be fresh, or has to be taken from the person whose eyesight is going to be restored.
Suiko
The name 'suiko' is made up of the kanji for 'mushi' and 'water.' This mushi is especially dangerous becasue it is virtually undetectable until it's too late. It looks exactly like normal water, with no way to tell it apart. If a person were to drink it, they soon become unable to breathe without being submerged in or surrounded by water. If they keep drinking it even after that, their bodies eventually turn to water themselves, and flow away.
A person affected by, and the long-term effects, of drinking Suiko.
After a Suiko grows old, it gathers itself together and becomes a swamp. Moving through underground rivers it takes one last journey to the sea, surfacing now and again to leave other swamps behind--its children. When it reaches the sea it dies, drawing fish from miles around to eat its body.
A swamp plant affected by Suiko.
A swamp is born, but eventually goes dry. Such is the life of a swamp. But the swamp does not always accept its fate with good cheer; when the life within its waters begins to fade, it sometimes walks away.
Mugura
Mugura emerging from the earth.
Mugura is an actual Japanese word that means 'creeping vines', perhaps fittingly. These mushi are pretty much the nerves of the land. If a person or other creature binds his or her consciousness to them, they allow that being to sense or see all the areas the mugura are in contact with in a way that isn't made clear to the viewer.
This bond is achieved one of two ways--a god does it naturally, using the mugura to help it do its duties in its area. In fact, a god's duty would be all but impossible without the mugura, as they allow the god to not only keep an eye on everything without physically being there, but also allow the god to extend its will through the mugura to help keep things in order. A regular human has to do things a slightly different way.
Pouring out small amounts of kouki in a circle, either on the ground itself but more usually in small flat sake bowls, is known as a mugura lure.
Ginko setting up mugura lures.
The kouki draws the mugura to the person sitting in the center of the circle, and if done properly, gets them to bond with that person.
Ginko bonding with the mugura.
Though it looks a bit alarming, it's a temporary bond that falls away as soon as it's broken, either voluntarily by the bonded person or forcibly by someone outside the bond (if they're powerful enough), and rarely hurts the bonded person.
Kuchinawa
This mushi eats gods. It's not interested in any other food source, so most people should be safe from it; however, it's not a good idea to test the temper of something this big.
Its cry sounds like a deep bell being rung somewhere in the distance. As it approaches, the sound will get louder. It's wise to stay out of whatever areas the cry appears to be coming from.
Shimi
An adult shimi plus some little ones.
The name 'shimi' is made up of the kanji for 'paper' and 'fish.' These mushi are basically like magical, mostly invisible silverfish. And since they eat paper at a much more rapid pace than most paper-eating pests, they're really very good at making any librarian's life hell... but that's pretty much the extent of their ability to annoy people.
Shimi eggs, laid on a scroll's surface.
Shimi wreaking havoc on a scroll full of forbidden mushi (and causing the seals on the mushi to break).
Forbidden Mushi
Little is known about these mushi aside from legends. They appeared centuries ago, during some kind of catastrophe that threatened all life on earth. Unlike most other mushi they didn't seem to be tied to life at all, but instead seemed interested in doing further damage to the land, and basically doing their best to wipe life out entirely. After a great deal of effort, a mushishi managed to trap them inside the body of a pregnant woman. She survived for a time, her whole body black with the mushi's curse, but she eventually died giving birth. Ever since then her whole family, the Karibusa, have been cursed with this mushi--once in a while, every generation or so, they'll give birth to a baby with a pure black limb. This is the mark of the mushi's curse, and the afflicted limb is useless their entire life.
The mark of the curse.
In order to trap the forbidden mushi and rid their bodies of it, as well as hopefully freeing their family from the curse, the people marked with this curse become scribes. The scribes of the Karibusa family spend their entire lives doing a very important service. They record accounts of people capturing, killing, and otherwise subduing mushi. But they have to do it a particular way... with enough training and concentration, they summon up the forbidden mushi themselves to form the kanji, and press them directly onto the paper.
Technique to seal the mushi away.
It causes them a certain amount of pain, as the mushi living within them have no desire to leave their host body or to be sealed away. The technique isn't perfect, of course... paper disintegrates, and other disasters happen. The scrolls need to be re-written, so the scribe has every one of them perfectly memorized. Moreover, the forbidden mushi themselves aren't entirely dead. If their seal is broken, they stay connected to most of their neighboring characters and travel around like strange, flat snakes. It helps with copying the scrolls, but it is a little dangerous.
An unsealed character string.
Bikuu
The bikuu mushi living in someone's nasal cavity.
The kanji that make up this word mean 'mushi' and 'body cavity.' This mushi is relatively harmless, in that it doesn't kill the people affected by it. It's a parasite that takes over its hosts' bodily processes, speeding them up to match the mushi's life span, which is one day. As a consequence, the host lives as fast at the mushi does, and grows old and dies as the mushi does, only to revert back to their original age and be revived the next day.
A person affected by the bikuu aging rapidly.
Pollen being released from a dying bikuu.
In order to infect more creatures, the bikuu generally take up residence in flowers. When a creature inhales the flower fragrance, the bikuu are able to take hold in that creature's nasal cavities.
The flower home of a bikuu.
The cure is as simple as it is strange--if one takes a pin and gently taps a hole near the root of the mushi at the top of the nasal cavity, the mushi will easily release its hold on the person.
A bikuu being removed.
However, this mushi is a little dangerous to those who have previously been under its spell; the mental state they are held in while under the mushi's influence is somewhat hard to let go of so easily. A person under the influence of a bikuu mushi lives carefree, without thought or worry; their own thoughts move too fast for them to process, and they're easily distracted by seeing the beauty in every tiny thing. Often someone who has been cured won't be able to handle living as a normal human anymore, unable to deal with the endless amount of time a single human life holds.
Nagaremono
The name means 'flowing things.' They're not really dangerous; this one happens to look a great deal like a rainbow, and appears to be one of the more common nagaremono. It's made when light hits water that's been infused by kouki, much in the way a normal rainbow is formed, but this rainbow is a lot more vibrant, and it doesn't matter where the sun is--even if it's behind the nagaremono rainbow, something that would be impossible for a normal rainbow. Also, the colors are reversed, with purple-blue at the top of the curve and redish at the bottom.
If you happen to find one, and you touch it, it will attach to you. This means that for a time it will appear near you whenever it rains; however, it is the nature of such things to travel and flow, and it will leave you eventually. Afterward, someone under the influence of a rainbow like this will always feel parched, unable to quench the ever-present thirst no matter how much they drink; and when it rains, they'll be unable to prevent themselves from immediately going outside and running around in the rain.
But if you do happen to find one... it's certainly an experience you'll never forget.
Watahaki
This mushi's name is made up of the kanji that mean 'cotton' and 'to breathe out (or vomit).' It's a mushi that infects a woman by landing on her clothing and then somehow getting inside her body--more specifically, her womb. When she becomes pregnant, or if she's pregnant already, the mushi then destroys her womb. It then kills the unborn fetus within her, and takes its place. When the woman gives birth, the 'baby' looks more like a shapeless green ooze.
Parent watahaki rooted under a house.
It then escapes to either the attic or under the house, and a few months later, produces a 'child' known as a hitotake (the kanji mean 'person' and 'mushroom'). This 'child' looks just like the unborn one that was killed, and it is presented to the parents by the mushi. Whether the parents accept the 'child' or not, the hitotake then sends whatever nutrients it can back to the parent watahaki by way of invisible filiments, much like fungi outgrowths send nutrients back to the parent fungi.
The hitotake continue appearing about one every six months, and are each presented to the parents. They grow unnaturally fast for human children, yet their mental development is abnormally slow. After about two or three years, the first child presented to the parents appears to get sick. It will develop green spots all over its body that no doctor will know how to cure. Unfortunately, this means that the hitotake has reached the end of its life; if it is allowed to die naturally, it will release a cloud of spores with its death which will go on to infect other women.
If it is found by a mushishi before or after this happens, most cases end when the mushishi kills all the hitotake. This destroys the watahaki's food source and the mushi dies completely. However, if the other children are allowed to live after the eldest has been killed in some way, they undergo a remarkable change--rather than simply living and taking in nutrients as before, they begin to learn human things as a survival instinct, like how to talk. It also appears to decrease their lifespan in some way, perhaps in an attempt to get the spores spread before they're killed.
If they manage to release their spores, it doesn't look quite like what you'd think--more like a liquid than anything powdery. They're supposed to hibernate for a while, but perhaps it's different if the hitotake have learned how to be human. At least, the one that Ginko ran into was very talkative after he caught the spores in a jar.
Yasabi
Yasabi attached to a wooden post.
Their name basically means 'wild rust' or 'field rust,' and since they look like a sort of rust when they're sitting still, it's a very fitting name. Yasabi are a nearly harmless mushi. In fact, they're in many ways essential to life; in Ginko's world, they act as agents of decay, helping to break down dead bodies much like maggots or other normal bacteria do. And because this mushi exists, it's entirely likely that this is actually taking the place of many of those creatures that do the job in our world.
When a yasabi finds a meal (aka a dead body) it attaches to it, and, sending out a sound that only others of its kind--or mushishi with really good ears--can hear, it beckons more yasabi to the feast, and thus they all work together.
However, like many mushi, there is a serious problem if there are too many of them. If they have been summoned to a place without any food, they'll start attaching themselves to anything--wood, metal, even living creatures.
A person afflicted by yasabi.
They don't appear to harm living things in any permanent way when this happens, but they do slowly make it harder to move. The more yasabi you have attached to you, the more difficult it is to walk around and function as a normal person. If you can't see mushi, your skin starts to feel strangely hard without anything appearing to be the matter with it. In canon, Ginko dispersed them by using a girl who had unusual qualities to her voice. The yasabi liked her, and would travel to her when they heard it.
Though if there's no handy person with a voice like that, there's one other way to get rid of them; yasabi don't like salt and sea water. Simply going for a swim in the ocean will likely cure you.
Dragon mushi?
There is very little known about this mushi; the name isn't even said in canon. It's connected with the legend that if a snake lives for a thousand years in the sea and another thousand years in the mountains, it will become a dragon.
The mushis' journey starts in the ocean; thousands of snake-like mushi congregate and mingle together, creating a strange mist.
During this time period, the mushi separate. Half of them remain in the sea and the other half leave, going up to the mountains. Both of them live quietly for about a thousand days (or three years), and then they return to the sea, mingle together, and create one enormous mushi.
The mist created by the mushi during both their meetings has an odd effect on anyone caught in it; though it looks extremely thick from the outside, once you're in it you can see with ease where you're going. That is, if you want to return to the world you can... however, those that don't want to go back for whatever reason won't be able to see clearly through the mist. Also, once you're inside the mist you're also on the mushi's frame of time; it can feel like only moments or days pass, but out in the real world months and years are passing you by.
Narazu seed
In a certain tiny village there exists a legend: that whenever there is a natural disaster, such as a drought, the ancestors of the village create a bountiful harvest, and allow the village to live through the disaster. However, the ancestors never do anything for free; in return, they choose one villager, the weakest of the people living there, and take that villager's life. The resulting bountiful harvest is called a Parting Harvest by those who benefit from it. The chosen villager is always known by the extra tooth that grows from the roof of his or her mouth.
The mushishi also have a legend: that there exists a seed, called the Narazu (the word means 'not happening' or 'mustn't happen') seed. If this seed is planted, it makes things grow with unnatural abundance, but it also takes the life of one of the creatures that benefit from the bounty. Because of its nature, it's dangerous to use it over and over again; it would end up destroying the balance of life and death, if given too much power.
Narazu seed
There is yet another legend; that one of these Parting Harvests, instead of taking life, granted one man immortal life. Who is to say how that may have happened, though it is a fact that the Narazu seed could do such a thing, if it ever existed in the first place. It's rumored that this immortal man travels from place to place, always returning to his village with new and better ways to grow plants there.
...but of course, they're only legends.
Kumohami
The name of this mushi translates to 'cloud eater.' Normally these are a perfectly harmless mushi, responsible for hail when there isn't a cloud in the sky (to normal people, that is). To those who can see the mushi, they look like pinkish clouds, but nothing more ominous than that.
Kumohami emerging from a child.
In rare cases, however, when there is a long period of time without wind, the kumohami will drop down to earth and go into hibernation, waiting for the wind to return. Because they can't eat or go anywhere without it, they don't have much choice. In even rarer cases, if the mushi happened to drop into a place like a cave where wind doesn't reach, their hibernating forms will petrify and turn to rock.
In this specific case, an inkstone maker found the kumohami stone and made it into an inkstone.
Whenever the inkstone was wetted and rubbed with an ink-stick in order to make ink, a little of the kumohami woke up and tried to return to the sky.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, many people who used the stone ended up inhaling the kumohami. The only way to get rid of a kumohami that has infected a person is to go high into the mountains, so the mushi leaves your body for its natural habitat. Because most of the people infected lived at a low altitude, however, the kumohami had no way to escape their bodies and ended up freezing them to death by trying to feed off the moisture in the human body and release it as snow and hail. In the end, Ginko was able to save the children that had been affected and convince the one who owned the inkstone to release the rest of the kumohami into the sky.
Tokoyami and Ginko
Tokoyami (meaning 'endless' or 'eternal darkness') and ginko (silver mushi) are two different mushi living as one. Tokoyami seem to be on the rare side; ginko seem to be even rarer than that. It could be that no one lived near a tokoyami long enough to see the ginko before Nui; it could be that that particular tokoyami was different for some reason.
Ginko's main purpose seems to be turning creatures--fish, humans, mushi--into tokoyami. It appears to be a rather gradual process, however; a creature needs to be exposed to the ginko over a long period of time, or all at once but in an intense way, before they gain the distinctive white hair, pale skin, and green eyes. The missing eye appears to be universal as well, though which eye it is tends to change from creature to creature.
A person exposed to the ginko/tokoyami enough to change.
The tokoyami emerging at night.
A pond shining with ginko's light.
A fish being turned into tokoyami
Once the change has started, it seems that it's inevitable that the complete change to tokoyami is only a matter of time; however, there is some evidence that if a person is removed from exposure to the ginko quickly enough, they can live a long life even if they've already experienced the first stage of the process.
However, getting away from the tokoyami is no simple feat. It is a mushi that eats memories; if you can't remember your name, it won't let you go. But if you manage to remember a name, any name at all, it will release you... without any memory of your life before it caught you.
The ginko mushi (with Yoki kneeling beside it).
Uro
Their name means 'empty' or 'hollow'. These mushi are attracted to enclosed spaces. Rooms without any windows and with the doors shut, cocoons without anything in them... any enclosed space might have an uro inside it at any time. If the space is opened suddenly while the uro is there, it will go back to the place uro dwell, caves deep inside the earth that have no exit, and take whoever opened the space with it.
These mushi are the basis for the mushishi mail system. An uro keeper spends his or her time gathering empty cocoons that had two pupae in them. The two strands of silk are essential for what they're trying to do.
Placing the cocoons in water, they then unspin the silk of the cocoon, carefully, and the uro becomes disorientated and swims out. Catching it, they they re-weave the two threads into two separate cocoons and seal them both to keep the uro within. For a little while, the uro is happy with this arrangement, even though it means it can only pass through those two cocoons. It even carries letters from one cocoon to another.
Uro being placed in a cocoon.
Letter being sent.
A mushishi mailroom.
After a while, though, the uro starts to wear a hole in the cocoon and letters start getting destroyed or lost. Eventually, the uro cocoons stop working altogether as the uro escapes back into its home; so people need to replace the cocoons now and then.
Every once in a while, the uro will invade a tree.
The trunk swells up and becomes permeable, almost like an allergic reaction to the invasion. Mushishi use these trees to get into the uro's home, a place known as the Uro Passageway. People who stay there too long lose their memories, but if they move quickly enough to get through it it's a good shortcut.
Most of the Passageway is unmapped. It's impossible to say how large it is, or how many people are down there, wandering aimlessly, without their souls.
Nisekazura
The name means 'false vines' for obvious reasons. These mushi live in forests and feed on sunlight. If they're trapped in a place without much sunlight they'll be weak and looking for a way to improve their chances of survival; they will often take over the bodies of animals and people who fall into the valley, using them to gather sunlight, including the bodies of the dead. These dead bodies don't do much; they simply sit around in the sunlight and let their host mushi absorb the light. I assume the affected person will eat and drink like normal when prompted, or they'd attract too much attention, as this animation can go on for months at a time, if not years.
A nisekazura in its host body.
Nisekazura in the sun.
When they are stronger they turn black, and when enough of them reach this point, they will gather together, form themselves into a bridge, and leave the valley. When they do, the dead people and animals they were using go back to being normal dead bodies. This bridge is strong enough for humans to walk on, but there's a catch--because of the properties of the nisekazura, if you walk forward on the bridge you're fine. A single step backward, however, causes the vines to break and you to fall through them, usually to your death.
Usobuki
This mushi's name means 'false bud'; it's a mushi that supposedly looks like a flower, and it's responsible for a very unusual, and apparently rare, phenomenon.
Usobuki on the ceiling.
In the middle of winter this mushi creates a 'false spring', causing trees to blossom and releasing a scent that wakes creatures from hibernation. The mushi then feed off the creature's energy, and eventually start releasing a scent that sends any animal caught in this false spring back into slumber--even if they weren't sleeping to begin with. This state of deep hibernation continues until the mushi is able to release another scent to wake the sleepers when spring actually arrives. Afterward, the mushi shrivels up into a chrysalis-like husk.
The creatures under the influence of this mushi don't seem to come to any harm; in fact, it seems they can remain this way for years, if the mushi isn't found to fix it, though they probably need someone to look after them.
As it turns out, despite the name, the mushi don't look like flowers at all--at least, not when they're making the false spring happen.
Magaridake and Oniko
This mushi's name means 'false bamboo', and it very much lives up to its name. It makes its home in a bamboo forest, taking the form of a pure white bamboo.
This is actually beneficial to the bamboo--this mushi acts as a symbiote rather than a parasite. It strengthens the bamboo with nutrients the plants wouldn't otherwise be able to get, making the forest greener; in return, it takes different nutrients that it needs from the bamboo's roots. It seems to be a mutually beneficial arrangement. As the grove it has chosen gets bigger, it sends out shoots of its own, resulting in more white mushi-bamboo--its children.
The main problems posed by this mushi is when someone chooses to drink water from the parent magaridake. They are then trapped within the mushi's bamboo grove, unable to get out of the mushi's sphere of influence.
The effect of the magaridake on water from the stalk.
If the mushi is chopped down, this effect disappears, and the mushi walks away.
Another thing that can result from this mushi (or any mushi, really, but this is the only example we get in canon) is an Oniko. This is a very rare type of hybrid between a mushi and a human, and no one really knows how or why it happens.
A woman embracing a white bamboo.
The resulting Oniko.
In a case like this, the children must drink water from their parent stalk. Much like a plant, they don't actually need to eat; they get all their nutrients from that water (and possibly the sun). However, should the parent stalk get chopped down, they quickly wither and die. If the magaridake should return to an area where they are buried, however, it will revive any of its children as bamboo shoot-babies shortly after its return.
Dragon Shrine
This mushi doesn't seem to have a name. It's a mushi with curious properties; when someone is placed in the shrine (alive, so they have to drown) they are then later reborn as the child of one of their relatives. The relative has to swallow a little pill that comes up from the shrine, and it's not made clear how the pill allows them to have 'their' person.
However it happens, this mushi appears to be one that eats all the time someone has spent on earth, and returns them to their embryonic state. So an old man would be a very good meal for it; a young child, not so much.
The mushi seem to dislike moonlight and probably sunlight as well; if you go out to the Shrine on cloudy nights, you run the risk of giving an unintended sacrifice to the Shrine.
The shrine pulling someone down with tendrils.
Ganpuku
This mushi is an unusual one--it restores sight to blind people, and otherwise makes a person's vision better than ever. However, as time goes on, it does more and more things--first it allows someone to see through objects, and eventually far distances. The longer they look in one direction, the further they can see. Then, if their eyes are closed, it allows them to see a person's whole life--their past, their future, and their eventual death... but nothing can be changed. Even if the person is told what will happen, their fate still happens to them no matter what. After a time, the eyes start seeing through the eyelids even if they're kept closed... and eventually, they start showing their owner his or her future. In the end, once the eyes turn fully into the mushi themselves, they leave their host--which means the person completely loses their eyes forever.
How the Ganpuku appears to the person whose eyes it is entering, when it first enters their eyes.
Ubusuna
This mushi is completely harmless. In fact, not having it can do you harm! It's a form of natural protection unique to one area--it's name means something like 'to cultivate the earth'. Humans and other animals get the mushi inside their body by eating local plants and other foods grown or picked in the area.
As long as the person stays in the area their mushi came from, the mushi then protect them from other mushi that will make them sick, as well as giving them a certain amount of energy. A child who was weaned from its mother too soon will sometimes have developmental difficulties due to a lack of ubusuna in their system, and a person who goes away from the place their ubusuna were native to will discover they sicken and tire easily, symptoms that miraculously go away whenever they return 'home.'
A bad mushi trying to make someone sick.
Kagebi and Hidane
This is a very cunning and dangerous mushi. Kagebi means 'false fire'--it's the part of this mushi that everyone can see. It looks like a blue flame, either floating in the air or burning on the ground. The hidden part, the hidane, means 'fire seed', which is very similar to the Japanese word for coal.
This mushi can change its color to look like a normal fire, but either way it is very dangerous. It eats the body heat given off by humans, so it tricks someone into trying to warm themselves by its fire, and unless the human is paying very close attention to the temperature of their fire, the mushi can usually make a very good meal off them--which means they freeze to death while trying to get warm. Anyone who eats food cooked by a kagebi gets frostbite on their insides.
To add to the cunning of this mushi, their larval form is of a weed. It spreads fast, threatening human crops and already-tilled fields; as a further threat, it also releases a poison that kills crops and sickens animals and people.
The hidane weeds reveal themselves when they are uprooted, with white roots that squirm around.
Hidane larva releasing poison.
There are far too many to pull up by hand and the mushi always grow back twice as fast as people pull them up. As an act of desperation, humans usually end up burning them. Unfortunately, this is the absolute worst thing they could do; fire is how hidane go from their larval form to their adult form, and become kagebi. The only way to destroy the larval form is to set it aflame with false fire, or to put it another way, set fire to the fields with the kagebi itself.
A kagebi hatching from a burned weed.
Anyone who freezes to death by a kagebi-infested fire becomes a host for kagebi larva. Kagebi can 'nest' in living hosts too, which is not at all comfortable for the human or animal in question; they grow plants in their stomach and cough up poison and leaves. The only way to destroy that kind of infestation is to eat food cooked by a kagebi and endure the frostbite and burning that results.
Kagedama
The name of this mushi means something like 'shadow soul.' It's a mushi that lurks under old trees, waiting for some creature to take a nap in the far-too-tempting shade. Once one does, it slithers up their body and enters their ear, making its way into their brain.
Once this happens, the host is no longer able to sleep as they once did. The mushi either keeps them awake or grants them the ability to keep going on only a few moments of sleep each night; either way, the result is that each night the host loses more and more of their memories. The mushi eats them one by one, and removing them from the host's brain during those few moments of sleep.
The kagedama removing memories.
The more the host thinks about certain memories, or does certain things, the less likely it is that the mushi will eat those memories. But it is very important to keep doing new things, making new memories every day, so the mushi has a continual supply of new food; otherwise, the mushi may start eating the memories that allow the host to keep functioning and caring for itself.
Unfortunately there is no cure for this, since the kagedama's only weakness is sunlight. When it is completely inside someone's brain, there is no way to use the sun to destroy it.
Tenpengusa
[Picture of the tendril]
If it catches a creature that is too big for it to eat, the mushi will drop the would-be meal back down to earth, and most likely to the creature's death.
[Fuki falling]
Should the creature (or person) be lucky enough to survive the fall, they will be deeply under the influence of the mushi and unable to be seen by normal people.
[Fuki glowing.]
If the person doesn't work to become more attached to people, and their loved ones don't work to accept them as they are, they are at great risk of turning into something very much like a mushi themselves.
Sezuri-kai/Yado-karidori
[Sezuri-kai flying.]
They live flying over the ocean, eating various oceanic detritus like dead seaweed. However, if some sort of disaster threatens the ocean, they come ashore and hide in abandoned shells until the disaster passes. There is no way to know for sure what sort of disaster it could be. The mushi hide from disasters ranging from a red tide, to an exceptionally high tide, to a big storm.
[Sezuri-kai hiding in a shell.]
While hiding, they constantly chirp to warn others of their kind about the danger; if a human puts one of these chirping shells up to their ear, they forget how to talk. Thankfully it's temporary; one only needs to listen to other humans speak and they will eventually recover their voice on their own.
Yukimushi
Yuki-narashi - this is a mushi that likes to live in the footprints of animals, including humans; this makes it hard for rescue parties, and hunters in the winter time. Its name means something like '(to) level (or even out) snow'.
Yuki-dango-mushi - a mushi that travels by rolling on top of the snow, producing snowballs that seem to travel by themselves. If their transport gets too large, they'll try to hit trees to lighten their load; sometimes this causes avalanches. Any humans unfortunate enough to be in the area can also become targets. Their name literally means 'snowball mushi'.
Tokoyuki-mushi - a very rare form of Yukimushi, this mushi clings to a living being with little barbs, slowly sucking out the animal or person's heat. It also causes snow to continually fall on the creature, or any building the creature might be inside. These mushi naturally disappear with the spring, but if a human lets the infection get too bad, they could suffer badly from frostbite. It's possible to remove them sooner, through gentle application of heat, but the person suffering will find that even human skin temperature feels like a hot brand, so it can be difficult to persuade them to put up with it. This mushi's name means 'never-ending snow mushi'.
Shoujou-no-hige
The mushi's name means 'drunk's beard'.
Suimitsu-tou
This mushi's name is something like 'sugar nectar sucker'.