Princess Mononoke: A Mystical Anime Saga

A dazzling, mystical, and historical anime saga unfolds, depicting the war between medieval Japanese people and the forest deities.

Synopsis

Set in 15th century Japan, a small Emishi village is suddenly attacked by a massive, enraged boar – a forest deity transformed into a demon. Ashitaka, the chief’s son, kills the boar but is bitten during the battle, injecting him with its venom. Examining the festering wound, the village wise woman determines that the young man is doomed. Human medicine is powerless against a demonic curse. To make the most of his remaining time, Ashitaka leaves the village to track the boar, hoping to discover what drove the deity mad and whether his village is in danger of further attacks. His quest soon leads him to a settlement of ironworkers and gunsmiths led by Lady Eboshi. To smelt metal, the ironworkers are cutting down the forest, incurring the wrath of the forest deities, led by the wolf goddess Moro and her human adopted daughter, San.

In the American dub of “Princess Mononoke,” the main characters are voiced by Billy Crudup (Ashitaka), Claire Danes (San), Minnie Driver (Lady Eboshi), Billy Bob Thornton (the monk-spy Jiko-bo), and Gillian Anderson (the wolf Moro).

Genesis of a Masterpiece

After the release of “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” director Hayao Miyazaki considered several projects for his next film. Among them was a Japanese take on “Beauty and the Beast,” where the Beast was not a cursed prince but a sinister forest spirit, a “mononoke” in Japanese. The idea didn’t progress beyond initial sketches, but Miyazaki remembered it. Over the following years, through numerous script iterations, he transformed it into an epic, mystical, historical tale of the conflict between humans and forest spirits, in which a human girl raised by wolves fights on the side of the “monsters.” Thus, “Princess Mononoke,” released in 1997, was born – arguably the best film ever created by Japanese animators.

The wolf Moro in the film was voiced by the famous Japanese transvestite actor Akihiro Miwa, whose voice bears little resemblance to a woman’s. This was a controversial decision by Miyazaki, not supported in foreign dubs of “Princess Mononoke,” where actresses usually voiced the role.

What Makes it a Masterpiece?

What makes “Princess Mononoke” a masterpiece? It’s easier to list its weaknesses because the film has only one flaw: its deep immersion in Japanese history and mythology, which may deter “lazy and incurious” viewers from other countries. However, a university degree isn’t required to understand the film, and it explains everything essential for viewers to know. Even in Japan, not everyone knows what was happening in the country in the 15th century, as this chaotic period, unlike later and earlier eras, is rarely covered in Japanese films, books, and series. Moreover, “Princess Mononoke” contains considerable historical fiction. For instance, the Emishi people, genetically and linguistically distinct from the Japanese and related to the Ainu people inhabiting the Kuril Islands, were destroyed or assimilated centuries before the film’s events. Nevertheless, those who know nothing about Japanese history and confuse emperors with shoguns should first do some homework. Believe me, “Princess Mononoke” is worth it.

The film cost a record 2.35 billion yen ($23.5 million) for Japanese cinema and grossed a record 14.5 billion yen ($145 million) in the Japanese box office. A few months later, this record was broken by “Titanic.”

Beyond Environmentalism

The film’s main theme is often cited as a call to protect the environment. However, this is an oversimplified understanding of a film far removed from the saccharine simplicity of “Avatar” and “FernGully,” as well as “Nausicaä.” In reality, “Princess Mononoke” is a profound and tragic realization that there are inevitable wars and irresolvable conflicts. Usually, cinema (especially family animation) teaches viewers that every conflict has a peaceful solution and that whoever starts the war is the undisputed villain. But who is the villain in “Princess Mononoke”? The divine animals are blameless because they defend their native forests from human invaders. But the humans are also right in their own way. Lady Eboshi leads a settlement where runaway peasants, former prostitutes, harem slaves, and even lepers live. She gives hope to people who had nothing to hope for in 15th century Japan, and her ironworkers live happier lives than many of their contemporaries, but only as long as they continue to cut down the forest and mine ore. They cannot stop, as it would lead to their ruin and death.

“Princess Mononoke” was the first animated film to win the Japan Academy Prize for “Best Film.”

Perhaps the villains are the imperial mercenaries who try to exploit the conflict to kill the supreme forest god and present his severed head, a valuable magical artifact, to the emperor? They seem like unprincipled scoundrels, but they also have a justification. Magic could help the ruler reunite the country, torn apart by feudal strife. This is precisely what eventually happened a century later, only instead of magic, high-quality firearms purchased from foreigners were used. And the country definitely benefited from the order that was established.

“Princess Mononoke” was the first Studio Ghibli film to include scenes drawn with computers. However, the film was mainly hand-drawn, and Miyazaki personally worked on 80,000 of the film’s 144,000 celluloid frames.

A Pessimistic Masterpiece

As you can see, each side has valid reasons for war, and none can compromise because yielding would be an admission of defeat. Although the film ends on a positive note, there is little optimism in its finale. It is clear that we are seeing only a brief respite before the coming storm, and it is obvious that the forest gods and monsters are doomed. Wolves face complete extermination – Japanese wolves have been considered extinct (or rather, destroyed by hunters) since the early 20th century. The small islands proved too cramped for two large predators. It’s a bitter pill, steeped in the pessimism of a wise man who has observed national and world politics for over half a century (like “Porco Rosso,” the film was partly inspired by events in Yugoslavia after the end of the Cold War). However, Miyazaki has found so many ways to sweeten it that, despite all its tragedy, watching “Princess Mononoke” is not torment but enjoyment.

Miyazaki considered naming the film “The Tale of Ashitaka,” but producer Toshio Suzuki convinced the director that a film with the word “princess” in the title would sell better.

A Symphony of Excellence

The merits of this excellent Studio Ghibli creation are endless: a tense and unconventional plot, a perfect balance of dialogue and action scenes, stunning animation and graphics, and magnificent music. And, of course, colorful characters – not the most multifaceted in anime history, but the complexity of “Princess Mononoke’s” dramaturgy more than compensates for this. The film can be compared to an elegant chess game – each piece moves according to strict rules, and the beauty of the position on the board is determined not by individual pawns and queens but by their sophisticated combination. The same principle, by the way, underlies Homer’s “Iliad,” which has much in common with “Princess Mononoke.”

This is Miyazaki’s first directorial work in which no one takes flight. The director knew that everyone expected this from him and did not want to seem entirely predictable.

One of the film’s most striking virtues is its colossal emotional range, from deliberately crude working jokes to encounters with the majestic supreme forest deity, imbued with genuine mystical feeling, enigmatic even to his fellow spirits. In world cinema, something similar can only be seen in productions of the level of “Andrei Rublev,” which also managed to encompass the fullness of human experience.

And, of course, as in all later Ghibli works, the attention of the director and his subordinates to detail is striking in “Princess Mononoke.” Although viewers see the Emishi village only in a few initial scenes, Miyazaki essentially created an entire parallel, non-Japanese civilization just to introduce the main character to the public. And this civilization seems so convincing that it is hard to believe that scientists know little about the Emishi and that the world of this tribe was invented by the director rather than drawn from history textbooks. The only indication of the fictional nature of the Emishi depicted in the film is the moose that serves as Ashitaka’s mount. These animals are not amenable to such training, and moose exactly like those in the film do not exist in nature. Miyazaki invented a new biological species!

Although “Princess Mononoke” is aimed at a family audience, schoolchildren, and their parents, it contains frightening, violent scenes. However, they are drawn without any trashy love of blood for blood’s sake. Like many talented directors who have decided to depict war, Miyazaki did not consider himself entitled to “retouch the picture,” to soften the terrible scenes for the sake of the viewers’ peace of mind. “Princess Mononoke” was created to show the tragedy of total war, and easing the film would have been a betrayal of the dark material.

A Global Phenomenon

If Miyazaki could still be ignored outside of Japan before the release of “Princess Mononoke,” after this film, the director began to turn into a global celebrity. The film even made it into American distribution. Although its box office there was predictably modest (it is not easy to convince the broad American public to go even to a brilliant foreign film), it was a crucial breakthrough for Studio Ghibli and for all Japanese animation. If previously anime abroad interested only its devoted fans and interested critics, then “Princess Mononoke” proved that Japanese animation can no longer be ignored even by those moviegoers who previously fundamentally watched nothing but American cinema. Because missing such a film would be a crime against oneself – and against all screen art.