The meaning of life may be within the medley of artistic expressions in a mushi... it is both about that which isn't and that which lives... art and nothingness... Zoku Shou has some themes that are possibly even more transcendental than the previous season... love, loneliness, existence... the music, the colour, all complement to create a canvas of beauty...
Someone recently thought it might be too slow... but, the deliberate pace is wholly intended... if it was any faster it would not create the same atmosphere, a similar mental state, the wholeness that it results in... do note that the pace is set within the music too.
Essentially, it is narrative... it is the art of storytelling... the wonder of a legend, but combined with all else - and darkness - it creates this state which it intended to convey.
Then there is pathos too... contained within a constant mystery of these creatures, mushi, some would think hallucinations... their interaction with what could be, what is possible within a certain logic.
It is mostly tragic, but within it what could be glimpsed as an alluring beauty... it is nature as it changes, as it moves.
The only narrative left now, Mushishi Zoku Shou: Suzu no Shizuku, I yearn for...