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Possibly set in Meiji/late 19th century Japan, Mushishi is a series of related, yet separate short stories featuring Ginko, a mushishi. A mushishi or "mushi master" is a cross between a researcher/scholar/doctor/shaman who travels across the countryside searching for mushi in their many forms. Ginko wanders from town to town to find people, young and old who are affected by the mushi.
A young girl's nightmare becomes the search for the truth, a search that leads her to the secret and extremely dangerous world of Contractors and the Hells Gate. Hei and Mao try to protect Kana from the Contractors who are trying to silence her forever, while Kana clings to the hope of finding her father and piecing her life together again. <<Based off an anime by the same name.>>
After recently moving to Onomichi, Hiroshima, high school student Tasuku Kaname is thrown into despair at the possibility that he may have been outed for being gay. Convinced his life is over, his despair turns into shock when he sees a woman jump out of a window of a nearby house. Tasuku races to the house in a panic only to discover that it's a public meeting lounge owned by the woman he saw before.
In the midst of a blazing hot summer beset by water shortages, middle-school girl Chinami faints from heat exhaustion. Upon waking up, she finds herself in a mysterious town by a beautifully pristine river whose waters hide many secrets...
She Got Off the Bus at the Peninsula:
Mitsuko Kunizaki has inherited a small grocery store from her grandmother. Being a single mother to a little boy, she intends to close it down and move on with life. However, in the solitary store that sits next to the last bus stop at the tip of a peninsula lie some long-buried memories that slowly reemerge as Mitsuko arrives at what used to be her home.
A collection of short stories. Aside from "Grass Cricket" and the commentary pages before each chapter and at the end of the volume, these were reprinted in Filament.
Collection of stories
A man sets out on a journey to go away from his repetitive and boring life. He finds unbelievable things, terrible things.
Rather more representative of the Nishioka siblings' writing style than Kami no Kodomo, this is a collection of one-shots that explore the thoughts and feelings of ordinary people in an odd, surrealistic manner replete with atypical and symbolic illustrations. More than one reading may be required if you are to completely grasp the core message behind each of these stories. The first story, A Broken Soul (translated here as A Broken Heart) was featured in the anthology Ax: Alternative Manga.
The twisted and deeply disturbing tale of a sociopathic serial killer...
Mushishi