Of Swords and Parasols

Gingitsune is about Makoto, a tenaged girl who is the next successor of her family's shrine. The shrine has been owned by her mother's family for generations, and her father, Tatsuo, is the current head priest. Because Makoto is the shrine's "True Successor," she can see and communicate with the shrine's herald, a 7-foot-tall fox spirit named Gintaro who is several hundred years old and very grumpy. Only the successor can see the herald of a shrine, and Makoto "met" Gintaro when she was 3, and he largely functions in the role of an older brother or uncle to her. One who constantly gets dragged into whatever Makoto is currently getting herself into, despite his complaining. Tatsuo knows about Gintaro and believes in his existence, and tries to please Gintaro even though he can't see or hear him. Eventually, the family is joined by Satoru, the successor of another, much larger shrine, and one of his shrine's herald's, Haru. Like Makoto, Satoru became his shrine's successor at a very young age, but he was raised by relatives who were angry that the shrine was left to him, and who were emotionally neglectful, though apparently not outright abusive. Like Gintaro, Haru is a fox spirit, but a much younger and smaller one, and she's much more possessive of Satoru than Gintaro is of Makoto. (Outwardly so, at least.)

The series is a very laid back, slice-of-life series. There's lots of emotional stuff going on with all the leads, and a large variety of relationships develop, none explicitly romantic (there's some crushing, as these are teenagers, after all, and one of Makoto's friends has a boyfriend, but that's about it). Much of the action is driven by Makoto and her frinedship with two girls in her school, Hiwako and Yumi, as well as Makoto, Satoru, Gintaro and Haru learning about other shrines and their heralds. (I really wish I were more surprised that fandom has chosen to primarily focus on the two male characters who interact in a total of two episodes-one of whom only has lines in those two episodes, I believe-and barely notices all the other relationships, most of which involve one or more of the female characters, but that's fandom for you. It's not that I don't see the appeal or didn't find the interactions entertaining, much less dislike the pairing, it's just that, IMO, in no way were they more important, interesting or entertaining than the rest.) I've seen the series compared to Natsume's Book of Dreams, which is probably pretty accurate, though I haven't seen the anime, and only read a bit of the manga. (I did like what I read of the manga, I just haven't made it back to it.)

The anime apparently only adapts the first few volumes of the manga, so hopefully there'll be a second season.

I also watched the Mushishi OVA, the plot of which revolved around an eclipse caused by mushi and a pair of twin little girls, one of whom was cursed mby a mushi to not be able to endure sunlight. It was very very pretty and enjoyed stomping onthe audience's hearts a lot. Somehow I didn't know there was going to be a second season of Mushishi until the last minute of the OVA told me so.