My thoughts on Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) (Blu-Ray)
So this movie was one of the first anime I’ve ever watched. In my freshman year, three years ago, my English teacher Mr. Shuck was a nerd. He loved movies, TV Shows, comic books, video games, and anime. He kept his collection of DC Comic books in classroom, and we were allowed to read them if we finished everything and/or it was reading time. At the end of the year, we didn’t have any assignments, so at the end we watched anime. First, we watched the Attack On Titan pilot, but the class quickly objected because the kids in the back couldn’t read the subtitles. Then, we watched the first three episodes of Sword Art Online. When I think about it, Sword Art Online is a much more appealing anime to people new to anime than it is to anime veterans. Next, we watched Princess Mononoke and then Spirited Away. Because of this, Mononoke Hime is a very memorable anime to me.
I recently noticed a Blu-Ray + DVD combo pack of Princess Mononoke while shopping and bought almost without a second thought. It’s been almost four years since I last watched it and wanted to see how it held up now that I’ve seen plenty of anime.
I should first go to say that Blu-Ray’s high-definition greatly compliments Miyazaki’s films. The mix of hand-drawn art, digital art, and 3-D objects in Princess Mononoke go together seamlessly, and it’s almost hard to tell which elements are 3-D, digitally drawn, and hand-drawn. I should also go to say that Princess Mononoke has one of the few dubs in all of anime that I’ve found tolerable. This is most likely because Studio Ghibli is owned by Disney. The voice actors try to compliment the personality of the characters rather than the look of the character or the voice of the Japanese actors. This is typically where most dubs slip up, as the dub voice actors usually try to either sound like the Japanese voice actors or how the character looks.
Now that I think about it, Princess Mononoke is technically a Disney Princess. In that case, she’s my favorite Disney Princess.
Miyazaki’s storytelling doesn’t really replicate any other anime I’ve seen. It’s actually quite refreshing. I believe I remember Miyazaki claiming that he writes his stories based on his life rather than other anime. This somewhat reminds me of how Shigeru Miyamoto would base his games off of his adventures outside or life experiences, rather than other games. Sure, it makes Studio Ghibli films seem odd, but it also makes them feel new.
My only criticism of the film is that the nature vs. man story has been told many times. I recognize it most in the movie Avatar, but to Miyazaki’s credit, Mononoke Hime came first. In this story, Ashitaka helps the people of Iron Town make their metal for a little bit, then takes an adventure on the nature side and meets a pretty girl that speaks for the trees. The people of Iron Town destroy the trees and war wages. Ashitaka, seeing both the point of view of man and nature, tries to make peace with both sides. Wow, this really is like Avatar. Studio Ghibli, you should get on this case.
The plot goes much deeper than what it has similar to Avatar though. Iron Town is both a place of technology and freedom. While the town does rebel against the laws of nature, its citizens are victims of towns that tried to abide to it. Most of its men are weak people that might not have made it in other towns, and all its women were once prostitutes.
While Mononoke’s side of nature is portrayed as the right one, it’s side also lacks technology and freedom. The boars fight even they’re gonna die, Mononoke’s wolf mom dies even though the Forest Spirit could’ve saved them, and Mononoke hates all humans even though she clearly doesn’t hate Ashitaka. The two sides aren’t merely tree-huggers against revolutionaries, but instead a side of abiding to the world’s natural order for the sake of free will against a side of rebelling against the world’s natural order for the sake of freedom. Neither one is clearly wrong, which is shown by Ashitaka going from side to side.
The movie has many homages to Japanese mythology. While I don’t really know much about Japanese mythology, I’ve heard that this movie is really dope for experts of Japanese mythology. If you’re an expert of Japanese mythology, you’ll probably like this movie.
Miyazaki’s storytelling is so strange and unique that, despite multiple watches, I have failed to fully grasp this movie’s meaning. Later, I will very likely watch YouTube videos discussing this movie in order to hopefully better grasp this film’s meaning.
