In the bitter cold of winter, Ginko walks gingerly across the snow-covered ground in the forest and finally sees his destination i.e. a village surrounded by the mountains and forest. Upon reaching the place, Ginko is treated to some hot tea by Shirasawa, the representative of the village who asked for his assistance. Being located at the base of the mountains, the village represents tranquility at its extreme where there aren't even any sounds of blowing wind. The whole village is plunged into total silence especially on snowy nights like what they are experiencing now. Due to this phenomenon, the villagers started to go deaf in at least one ear. As the doctors could not find a cause to the problem, Shirasawa thought that supernatural forces may be at work thus the need to enlist Ginko's help.
Ginko examines a patient's ear and finds it filled with a green and slimy mucus. He declares this to be the work of mushi by the name of Un which eats away sound. Un lives in the forest but due to the snow blanketing the sound within their habitat, they came to the village to seek sound.
He goes in search of the Un and finds them in huge numbers on the ceiling of the attic. Ginko explains that when Un eats up the sound, they will then attach themselves to mammals. The patient remarks that Un looks like a snail whereby Ginko states that there is a similarly-shaped structure within the ear. The Un would enter this structure to reside as a parasite and eat up the sounds which enter the ear. However, it would not destroy the ear over time. Having said that, Ginko pours warm salt water into the patient's ear which causes the Un to emerge from within and disintegrate immediately. He reminds the patient to spray the salt water on his roof to prevent the Un from gathering there again.
After treating the affected villagers, Shirasawa brings Ginko back to her place. On the way, she reveals that her grandson is the only patient left but his condition is rather different from the villagers. Shirasawa asks Ginko not to tell the villagers about his illness which makes the latter baffled.
Meanwhile, Maho, the grandson of Shirasawa is muttering to himself and telling something to shut up as he hears lots of noises around him. Just then, Shirasawa enters the room and explains to Ginko that Maho's condition started last winter where horns started growing on his forehead. In addition, he lost the ability to hear as before but could hear lots of strange sounds he had never known of. No matter what they tried to do, Maho would complain of these sounds which got on his nerves.
Ginko deduces that this could be the work of another type of mushi by the name of Ah which works in tandem with Un by eating the silence which the latter leaves behind. As such, it is no wonder that Maho cannot hear the sounds around him. However, the strange thing is that Ah exist in smaller numbers as compared to Un and there isn't an effective treatment method. As such, the patient would usually die by the next winter since he/she will be tortured mentally by the incessant noises as a result of this condition. Shirasawa gets frightened after hearing this since Maho contracted the illness exactly one year ago and he might die if he's not treated soon.
Ginko then takes out a green sheet from his luggage and sets up a tent while lighting some incense within. The space within the tent is filled with the incense's fumes thus making it possible for Ginko to have a chat with Maho. The boy reveals that the mushi got noisier when Ginko arrived which leads the latter to joke that this must be due to him being a natural attraction for mushi but he can drive them away temporarily with the smoke. Ginko explains that humans have a lower hearing ability as compared to other animals so there are lots of sounds which they cannot pick up. In this case, the loud sounds which Maho is hearing are the mushi's voices when they gather in large numbers and these cannot be heard even by animals which have the ability to hear a wide spectrum of sounds. As such, the Ah in Maho's ears are eating away the silence and filling it with its sounds thus causing him so much misery.
When Maho is asked about the growth of the horns on his forehead, he reveals that he has been covering his ears frequently ever since his mother died last winter thus resulting in the horns' appearance. Maho was trying to copy his mother's actions since she did that all the time. Ginko is curious as to why Maho's mother was doing that but Maho doesn't know the reason. He also relates the fact that she had the same condition as him and she said something on her deathbed while covering Maho's ears. Whenever Maho tries to recall her words, loud sounds would flood his ears thus making it impossible for him to start thinking. Ginko feels that it is a stroke of bad luck for Maho to suffer in the same way as his mother but there should be a way to resolve the problem.
Ginko asks Shirasawa about her daughter Matsuno so as to find a clue to curing Maho. Matsuno was under so much pressure due to the illness and longed for a place without sound to live in. However, just before she passed away, Matsuno revealed to Shirasawa that the sounds disappeared and she was actually missing them at that juncture.
The next day, Ginko is pondering over the reason for Matsuno's behaviour of covering her ears even when the Ah should have left her body due to her impending death. Just then, Maho sneaks out of the house to go for a walk and asks Ginko to keep it a secret since he will go crazy if he stays indoors all the time.
As it starts to snow, Ginko regrets letting Maho go out and decides to look for him. As he trudges through the forest, Ginko comes to the conclusion that the ear can only pick out some sounds at one go and if that type of sound is turned up to the maximum, that may mean that the ear cannot hear it anymore. Thus, he realises that this might be the reason why Matsuno said that she could not hear anything even if the Ah might still be inside her ears.
Ginko spots a light coming out from a cave and finds Maho waiting inside for the snow to stop. However, he cannot hear Maho's voice after a while and finds the ceiling of the cave filled with mushi. Ginko finds the Ah among the Un which enters his ears swiftly but he doesn't seem to be bothered by it while Maho is terrified by this. Ginko tells Maho to cover his ears like what Matsuno did to him which leads to the Ah melting and flowing onto Maho's hands.
Ginko explains that Matsuno wasn't trying to cover her ears from the noise on her deathbed. When people use their hands to cover their ears, the surrounding doesn't become entirely silent thus Matsuno was trying to hear the sounds as a result of this action. Shirasawa remarks that the sound is somewhat like an earthquake whereby Ginko states that this is the sound of the hand muscles. Since the weakness of Ah is the sound of other living things, it would try to eliminate such sounds within its host body. In the end, either the Ah would melt away or the host would die after a period of one year. With regards to Matsuno's case, she discovered the solution too late and could not do anything to battle against the Ah. Maho then covers his ears and the Ah flows out from within thus leading the horns to fall off from his forehead.
Ginko prepares to leave the village with Maho's horns as payment for his services and he gives the smaller ones to Maho as a keepsake. He advises Maho to get used to the quiet world around him until spring arrives since he might find it hard to adapt from his noisy world in the past year. However, Maho is happy that he was able to listen to the same sounds as his mother since they sound beautiful to him on hindsight...
First of all, the winter scenery was breathtaking and felt very realistic. It was the first time that I've seen such a high quality winter scenery visual from an anime and the falling snow didn't seem too artificial to me. I'm impressed with the level of effort put into this production and hope that more of such masterpieces can be found in the later episodes.
With regards to the concept of Ah and Un, it's quite easy to relate to just as in the case of opposites attract. Since Un eats up the sounds, Ah could then eat the silence left behind thus illustrating the dependency relationship they have on each other. I have to admit that I couldn't grasp the concept fully when I watched this episode for the first time but when I wrote this review, my doubts about the concept were gone after this second viewing.
Last but not least, I thought that the info about covering up your ears and hearing some sounds like an earthquake or lava flowing from a volcano was very interesting. I mean, this action must have been done by everyone at one time or another but now that someone has brought it up in this manner, it suggests that the author was very observant to use daily activites for explaining her theories about mushi. I feel as if I'm learning something new every time I'm watching this anime. This is really one of the better productions these days with a strong story, nice visuals and charming lead character who seems like a mystery personified but something should be done about the theme song which isn't particularly impressive especially after hearing it for a couple of times.
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