Mononoke Review

Mononoke looks like nothing else on this list. Every frame is designed as a flat, patterned surface, a moving woodblock print in saturated colour with textures laid over the image like paper, and the effect is disorienting and beautiful in equal measure. The structure is a set of five mysteries, each a haunting that the medicine seller cannot end until he has learned what the spirit is, what actually happened, and what the victims are hiding, which makes each arc a locked room investigation into human guilt with a ghost as the detective's instrument.

The stories are genuinely frightening and genuinely sad, the Zashiki Warashi arc especially. The medicine seller himself is deliberately unknowable, which is either the show's most elegant choice or its most frustrating, depending on the viewer. The pace is slow and the visual style asks a lot. Those who meet it on its terms find one of the most distinctive works the medium has produced.