User:TechnoSquirrel69/sandbox/Princess Mononoke

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Main article: Princess Mononoke

Misc[edit]

  • Kim and Jarman 2008 is misrepresented in article, read and rewrite
  • Replace disparate news sources with book sources where appropriate

Production[edit]

  • Miyazaki directed On Your Mark as a side project during the early production of Mononoke (Green 140)
  • Started April 1994, got writer's block, completed proposal in April 1995 and started storyboards, animation began in July (McCarthy 185)
  • Preliminary ideas back in 1980, revisited after Whisper of the Heart (Cava 120)
    • Originally similar to Beauty and the Beast (?), Miyazaki published sketches and concept later (?) (Green 136)
    • Originally was kind of Beauty and the Beast but set in Japan, indicative of how much Miyazaki changed his core ideals and became more serious (Denison 3)
    • Was more explicit in the defeat of tyranny, final is more complex and ambiguous (Green 137)
  • Greenberg sees inspiration from Panda and the Magic Serpent again (136–137)
  • Record-breaking production costs in Japanese animation: ¥2.35 billion, $19.6 million (Schilling 5)
  • Ghibli's first use of computers and digital painting (Napier 177)
  • Trip to Yakushima island, Miyazaki and four other art directors, (Cava 120) Kazuo Oga went to Shirakami mountains, massive trees previously inspired Nausicaa (McCarthy 186)
  • "the most stress-inducing film the director had created", more expensive, longer, Miyazaki's obsession (Napier 178)
  • some exhausted veterans left Ghibli after the film (Napier 178)
  • Miyazaki was overworked (animation, music, voices, marketing) and "exploded" according to Suzuki, "given his body and soul" (Napier 178)
  • "Physically, I just can't go on. I suffer from everything from poor eyesight to shoulder tension and hip and thigh pain." (McCarthy 189)
  • Miyazaki "retired" in 1998, but returned shortly after (Napier 195)
  • difference in marketing: Ghibli rather than Miyazaki film, Suzuki becoming famous in the industry (Napier 179)
  • deal between Tokuma and Disney arranged by Suzuki, helped boost popularity in Japan (Napier 179)
  • Napier calls the deal "purely practical" for the mutual benefit (Napier 180)
  • Almost called The Tale of Ashitaka, Miyazaki convinced by Suzuki when he used the title in a press conference (Napier 182–183), McCarthy and Starting Point say "The Legend of Ashitaka" (McCarthy 182)
  • Inspired to include leprosy-afflicted people after visiting sanatorium Tama Zenshoen (Napier 184), "In the middle of no matter what kind of misery there is joy and laughter. In human life which tends toward ambiguity I have never seen a place which shows this with such clarity" (Kano 201 in Napier 184)
  • On inclusion of darker themes: "children actually understood the movie and what we were trying to say more than adults... I wanted to be honest with the young audience, to tell them that human society is not fundamentally blessed" (Cava 121)
  • Miyazaki intended to avoid typical characterizations, and avoided making a true antagonist (Cava 124)
  • Cavallaro also highlights animation: "a production utilizing actual people and places could never as effectively interweave serious political concerns and purely imaginary elements without somehow sacrificing either its realism or its fantastic dimension" (124–125)
  • Several cultural aspects that needed additional dialog in order to be translates, such as the sybolism of Ashitaka cutting his topknot (Cava 125)
  • 144,000 cels, 80,000 key frames (Schilling 5)
  • Effective use of atmosphere, visual motifs such as wind flowing through grass, juxtaposition of pastoral views and sudden violence (Cava 126)
  • Miyazaki's sense for fine detail in the movement of the animals, Yakkul (Ashitaka's steed) obviously fears the tatarigami but quivers slightly and with a subtle facial expression (Cava 126)
  • CGI department started in 1995, expanded greatly, CGI director Yoshinori Sugano worked on Pom Poko (Cava 126)
  • They wanted CGI that could blend in with the cel animation, worked with Microsoft to develop software for the task (Cava 126), software is Toon Shader (Cava 127, Cav15 136)
  • Production focuses on hand-drawn and uses digital techniques only to enhance it, backgrounds being subtly shifted with digital compositing (Cava 127)
  • More advanced digital techniques (Cava 127–129)
    • 3D rendering in the opening sequence (existing image shows it)
    • Morphing between frames to smoothly transition
    • Particles to give the daidarabochi its stars
    • 3D model of the background and the hand-drawn art is texture-mapped onto it
  • Even though there are 16 millions colors with digital painting, deliberate restriction to the palette chosen by color designer Michiya Yasuda
  • Last Ghibli film to be photographed to film, later films straight to digital media (Cava 130)
  • unusual detail paid to animating side characters and watercolor backgrounds (forest in particular) due to high budget (Denison 7)

Themes[edit]

  • "At heart, [...] film about environmentalism and spirituality" (OLB 109)
  • themes of spirituality are "less ambiguous" (?), "through respect for the spirit world that true humanity is gained" (OLB 109)

Conflicts of nature and technology[edit]

Napier noted the film presents several themes similarly to Miyazaki's manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which he had completed in 1994,[1] namely "environmental catastrophe, the role of technology and warfare, and human interactions with nonhuman species".[2]

[An interview??], Miyazaki stated "[in Princess Mononoke], I meant to state my objection to the way environmental issues are treated [...] I didn't want to split off the gloval environment from human beings. I wanted to include the entire world of humans and other living creatures".[3]

Notes
  • extreme polarization of nature and humanity, characters from both sides are monstrous (Denison 4)
  • "inevitably going to be conflicts between technological advancement and life in the wild" (OLB 109)
  • "traditional is best but progress is inevitable" (OLB 109)
  • "Miyazaki never handles good and evil as binary opposites" (Cav15 42)
  • similarity to Nausicaa manga which completed in 1994 (Napier 176–177, 182), "Environmental catastrophe, the role of technology and warfare, and human interactions with nonhuman species" (182)
  • Japan traumatized by 1995 Kobe earthquake ("It seemed as if nature itself was seeking vengeance on human civilization") and Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas incident (Napier 181)
  • Forest is similar to the forbidden paradises of previous works; Miyazaki rejects the ideal in this film, but acknowledges that humans are still not worthy and their presence makes paradise impossible, tinting the end of the film with doubt that humans and nature can live together (Green 140)
  • Comparison with Tarzan, both raised by animals and some amount of "revenge" on technology, "While Princess Mononoke insists on difference, Disney attempts to erase it.", anthropocentric (Nap05 247)
  • Humans and nature are treated evenly, not blind misanthropic environmentalism (Napier 185)
  • Forest is based on Sasuke Nakao's historical ecology writing (Nap05 242)
  • "Nature is beautiful, sacred, and awesome... also vengeful and brutally frightening" (Nap05 244)
  • "the film forces the viewer out of any complacent cultural position where technology and industry can be dismissed as simply wrong." (Nap05 246)
  • Miyazaki, Hayao (2021) [2014]. Turning Point: 1997–2008. Viz Media. ISBN 978-1-9747-2450-5.

Humanity and spirituality[edit]

  • village elder bows to Nago even though it was threatening (OLB 109–110)
  • Eboshi "disdainful of the spirit world" (OLB 110)
  • Totoro shows living in harmony with spirits, Mononoke shows conflict (OLB 110)
  • Kami also have internal conflict, apes ridicule Moro and attempt to re-plant trees (OLB 110)
  • "movies assist audiences in negotiating major changes in identity" (Belton 20 in Nap05 231)
    • "elegy" for a lost Japan that was more connected with nature, crossroads of history (Nap05 232)
  • more nuanced villains, comparison to Conan, Cagliostro, Laputa (Napier 177)
  • "Given what humanity has done to the planet, do we have a right to keep on waging war against the nonhuman Other?" (Napier 177)
  • work to "comment on Japan’s emptiness and confusion in the postbubble era." (Napier 181)
  • Shishigami, though gentle, may not be "sentimentally benevolent" and just as against humanity as the other animals (Nap05 244)
  • Kodama are "both cute and uncanny" (Cava 125)
  • Possibly interesting discussion of Shintoism in (Yanagihara) starting from "THE JAPANESE HAVE"
    • Anything could be sacred, possessed of kami
    • "In Shintoism, the sacred and the natural are often the same."

(?) Tempered optimism and gray morality[edit]

  • Ashitaka's curse represents "absurdity 'that is part of life itself'" (Cava 121)
  • comparison to Marco and Howl, also cursed (Napier 182)
  • Eboshi's leadership is complex: "The combination of Eboshi’s compassion in employing the lepers with the fearsome nature of the work she has them do strikingly illustrates the kind of moral compromises that being a leader, or simply being human, can force upon us." (Napier 184)
  • Iron Town is hard-working and honest, but even that ideal treatment of people harms the forest whoooooo so complex! (Green 137)
    • Shows how industrial Tataraba comes into conflict with more agricultural samurai (Cava 122)
    • She holds no inherent malicious intent toward nature and its spirits, as evidenced by the garden she keeps in Irontown, until they begin attacking her people. (Thevenin 2013)
  • Employing women to work on rifles also goes against the view of women as polluting forces (Napier 184)
  • Challenges notion of homogenous Japanese people (minzoku) and shows "cultural dissonance" (Nap05 232)
  • Two ideas of how to live in a cursed world: (Napier 186)
    • "Live!", on the poster, never give up no matter what
    • "See with eyes unclouded", even in complex conflicts between humanity and nature, "observe all sides with clarity and objectivity"
  • dissonance between two philosophies, one where killing is unacceptable, and one where you must kill to protect others and survive (Cava 121)
  • "Ultimately the movie offers a vision of life as a densely interwoven design, rather than a simple allegory of dichotomized opposites" (Napier 185)
  • According to the Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert, "It is not a simplistic tale of good and evil, but the story of how humans, forest animals and nature gods all fight for their share of the new emerging order."{{sfn|Ebert|1999b}}
  • wars in the former Yugoslavia, which he cites as an example of mankind never learning, making it difficult for him to go back to making a film such as Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), where he has been quoted as saying "It felt like children were being born to this world without being blessed. How could we pretend to them that we're happy?" {{sfn|Jolin|2009}}


  • Ambiguous characters:
    • Jiko seems friendly to Ashitaka, but still talks Eboshi into killing the Shishigami (Cava 124)
    • All of the animal spirits dmeonstrate their strengths to a fault; the boars and stubborn to the point of suicide, Moro is "[dogmatic]" and unable to imagine peace with the humans (Cava 124)
    • About the intellectual institution of the forest "even this superior context accommodates traces of a dangerous dogmatism" (Cav15 41)
  • Contrast with previous works, pessimistic view on the "boy in the jungle" archetype (Green 135)
    • Contrast with Shuna's Journey, which Greeberg calls the "narrative frame of Princess Mononoke" (137–138)
    • Role reversal where instead of the more "advanced" culture being the protagonist, Ashitaka goes into the modern world that is still a "jungle" (Green 138)


  • In a speech in 2016, Miyazaki explained that he was inspired to portray people living with leprosy, "said to be an incurable disease caused by bad karma", after visiting the Tama Zenshoen Sanatorium near his home in Tokyo. {{sfn|Kitano|2016}} According to media and literature scholars Sierra et al., Eboshi is driven by her compassion for the disabled, and believes that blood from the Great Forest Spirit could allow her to "cure [her] poor lepers". {{sfn|Sierra et al.|2015}}


  • Film about love but that "involves loss of many kinds" (Nap05 236)
  • Ends on highly ambiguous note, comparison to Miyazaki's previous films which are always hopeful at the end (Nap05 236)
    • Might still be hopeful though, given his next films, "at least partly a means for the director to work through a sense of cursedness" (Napier 194)
  • Cavallaro says that the film is open-ended, "not all of the visions presented in Miyazaki’s movies are hopeful", and that the industrialization of society can be "contained, but by no means arrested" (Cav15 147–148)
  • "But even in the midst of hatred and slaughter, there is still much to live for. Wonderful encounters and beautiful things still exist" (Miyazaki 1999 in Cava 2006)
    • ^ is indicative of the general theme in his filmography, and the depiction of Ashitaka's curse is to make "the joy fo liberation" even more vivid (Miyazaki 1999 in Cav15 170)

(?) Feminism/Female characters/Heterogeneity of society[edit]

  • Female characters are "rounded and complex figures" (OLB 110)
  • Eboshi destroys but also prostitutes, etc (OLB 110)
  • "examples of earthy, working-class women – spirited, capable" (OLB 110)
  • San hates humankind, rejects own humanity (OLB 111)


  • San and Lady Eboshi survive until film's end {{sfn|Napier|2005}}{{page needed|date=January 2024}}
  • Diverse range of characters not typical for depictions of this period, women, outcasts, non-ethnic Japanese, kami (Nap05 233)
  • "gentleness, perseverance, and tolerance suggest an idealized version of the romantic young Miyazaki" (Napier 182)
  • Subverts norms of masculine power and patriarchy (Nap05 238)
  • Contrast again with previous films, previous female characters have agency and independence but are still conventionally cute in a feminine way (Nap05 238)
  • These characters are almost gender-neutral, traists conventional of both genders, highly ambiguous (Nap05 238)
  • Blood on the face scene appears in most promo material, primordial and aggreesive sexuality, bestial and feminine Otherness (Nap05 239)
  • Moro does have nurturing qualities but is a ruthless fighter until the end (Nap05 239)
  • one of his most complex and fascinating characters, Lady Eboshi" (Napier 183)
  • Miyazaki says Eboshi is his favorite character (Napier 183)
  • important that Eboshi is female, along with several other dominant female characters in the film, "forces the audience members to reconsider their notion of the conventional villain role" (Napier 183)
  • Takes care of the sick but out for blood with the shishigami (Nap05 239)
  • Women can be used as a proxy of tradition in jidaigeki, Eboshi is a tragic character because she is not evil, but brought to destruction through her protectiveness of people (Nap05 240–241)
  • "use of the fantastic and the uncanny aligned with nonhuman actants and nature that is the second major destabilizing strategy" (Nap05 242)
  • San is a representation of Miyazaki's anger with the world, "Neither fully human nor fully animal, San is alone." (Napier 183)
  • Women in modern Japan were associated with the premodern and the supernatural in order to assign them an otherness and uncanniness (Nap06 244) Napier says Mononoke is about the other exacting revenge, and San and Eboshi are examples (Nap05 245)
    • San is sometimes gender-neutral, but the ferocity and links to spirits links to "premodern archetypes of... shamanesses, mountain witches" (Nap05 245)
    • Eboshi represents the complexities of progress, film's ending acknowledges by leaving her alive that it is inevitable (Nao05 245–246)
    • Eboshi "unscrupulously depletes the forest", but also shelters prostitutes and people with leprosy (Cava 124)
  • Contrast with previous works where female characters have some traditional feminine qualities or portrayed as attractive, "Princess Mononoke uses female characters who exist in their own right, independent of any male interlocutor." (Nap05 246)
  • Women are not "domesticated by marriage or a happy ending", but strive towards their own goals of success and fulfillment in their own ways (Nap05 246)
  • San echoes Nausicaa in her "environmentalism" but diametrically opposed pacifism, she is the "cynical incarnation of Nausicaa" and shows how good people can become violent (Green 139)
  • Eboshi like Kushana's expert war leading, but closer again to Nausicaa in the way she protects the weak (Green 139)
  • She has nothing against nature itself, the war is "nothing but a territorial dispute" (Green 139)


  • San represents the connection between the environment and humans, but also demonstrates that there is an imbalance in power between the two. {{sfn|Pike|2014|p=159}}

Style[edit]

  • Contrast with traditional depictions of Japanese history, emperor is potentially out of his depth, primary authoritative figures are female (Nap05 246)
  • first attempt at a jidaigeki (Napier 176)
  • not first "adult" film, Porco Rosso (Napier 180)
  • Inspired by Hojoki (1223), short thirteenth-century work (Napier 180)
  • Led the tone to be "grimmer" than previous films (Napier 180–181)
  • Miyazaki admired the jidaigeki of Akira Kurosawa (Napier 181)
  • Muromachi period (Napier 182), usually known for high culture in Kyoto, but this is completely oppposite (Nap05 233, Cava 121–122)
    • Appealed to Miyazaki because people started to tame nature, rather than worship or fear it (McCarthy 185)
  • Subversion of many jidaigeki traditions: "the sacredness of the emperor, the nobility of the samurai" (Napier 183)
  • "problematizes archetypes and icons" (Nap05 232)
  • different from traditional historical view of Muromachi period: beautiful but wild and dangerous (Napier 185)
  • Guns are the main weapons instead of swords (Nap05 235)
  • Contrast in choice of setting with previous films, not nostalgic, "refuses to sentimentalize... history" (Nap05 237)
  • "gives voices and faces not only to marginalized humanity but also to nature itself" (Napier 185)
  • Still very much fantasy, historical elements are tools for the narrative (Nap05 237)
  • Historical epic blended with stylized fantasy, goes beyond realism (Napier 185)
    • "personal mythology", uncertain parallels with Japanese lore (Cava 122–123)
  • Exaggerated history to frame the eco-fable, Tataraba is taken primarily from Chinese culture (Turning Point 64 in Denison 4)
  • Takahata: "dangerously liable to give the audiences misconceived impressions of history" (Kano 218 in Napier 185)
  • Comparing to the works of Ludwig Tieck, Miyazaki's fantastical elements create an uncanny blend of the natural and supernatural,
  • Napier repeatedly emphasizes that animation is the perfect medium for the themes of ambiguity and transformation (186)
  • "sophisticated animation allows for a distinctive variety of nonhuman faces" (Napier 186)
    • Shishigami is different from traditional portrayals of nature as "noble/vulnerable or cuddly/vulnerable", "simultaneous beauty and grotesqueness" (Napier 187)
    • Distinct contrast with Disney, example of Bambi, "facial features designed to appeal to human ideals", "world of idyllic innocence... sentimental viewpoint" (Napier 187–188)
  • the only Miyazaki film not to have any flying, characters are bound to their commitments, "destiny as an exacting burden" (Cava 121)
  • Use of color contrasts with pastels of other films, "deep greens and browns" (Nap05 243)
  • Cavallaro talks about "ma", sense of emptiness, calm in between moments of action, timelessness, in the scene with the daidarabochi turning into the shishigami and healing Ashitaka (Cav15 65–66)
  • Shinto ideals in the way Miyazaki portrays every aspect of the world to be living (Cav15 70–71)
  • Miyazaki "[eschews] anthropomorphism", a "stamp of humanity" on nature, which Miyazaki rejcts, contrast with Western notion that audiences cannot connect with non-human characters (Cav15 78–79)

Release[edit]

  • over 2000 fans lined up in Tokyo for first screening (Napier 177)
  • "instantly successful" across a large swath of Japanese audience (1/10 of the population) (Schilling 3)
  • $150 million in original run (Schilling 3), McCarthy reports over 160 (186)
  • sold 2 million video copies in three weeks locally, 4 million by end of 1998 (McCarthy 186)
  • did not perform well in America due to large mismatch with their expectations of animation (Napier 179–180)
    • Prejudices against anime and lots of gore (Cava 121)
    • About $3 million (Cava 121)
  • Big marketing campaign in the US to reframe it for Anerican audiences, localization work by fiction author Neil Gaiman (Denison 1)
  • Briefly became highest of all time before losing to Titanic (Green 136)
  • first film after "high-profile deal betweeen Tokuma Shoten and Buena Vista International", released on Miramax label which implies perception of sophistication (Pett 175)

Music[edit]

  • "[generates] spectacle for the amazement and wonder of the viewer" (Niskanen 52 in Denison)
  • Hisaishi uses more Japanese pentatonic scale alongside Western scales (McCarthy 189)
  • Worked more collaboratively with Miyazaki, previously was just image album then record later, Suzuki and Miyazaki visited his studio multiple times (McCarthy 189)
  • Hisaishi "sees himself as a contributor to the process of creting the movie's world" (McCarthy 189)
  • Contrast between bombastic moments with lots of music and silence (McCarthy 189–190)

Reception[edit]

  • Film was "as much a departure for Miyazaki as it was a distillation of his thematic interests and style" (McCarthy 201–203 in Dension 2)
  • "Most haunting moments" daidarabochi and kodamas, maybe pull full quote (OLB 111–112)
  • "proof that animation can be as sophisticated and complex as any live-action piece" (OLB 112)
  • "it expressed the director's increasingly complex worldview, putting on film the tight intermixture of frustration, brutality, animistic spirituality, and cautious hope" (Napier 176)
  • "visual marvel. As in most narrative visual art, Miyazaki’s genius is most apparent in the film’s quietest moments" (Yanagihara)

Legacy[edit]

  • themes struck a chord in Japan and increased Miyazaki's influence, "Princess Mononoke became not simply a hit but a cultural phenomenon" (Napier 177)
  • "it is with Princess Mononoke that Miyazaki became a celebrity of sorts." (Napier 177)
  • broke records previously only held by Hollywood in Japan, "demonstrated thr commercial power of anime" (Denison 1)
  • highest-grossing film in Japan (Napier 177)
  • "Considered by many to be Miyazaki’s most important work" (Napier 182)
  • "cultural phenomenon reflective of a general trend towards the globalization of anime" (Denison 1)
  • "took its toll on Miyazaki. Exhausted" and retirement (OLB 112)

References[edit]

Book and journal sources[edit]

  1. ^ Napier 2018, pp. 176–177.
  2. ^ Napier 2018, p. 182.
  3. ^ Miyazaki 2021, pp. 85–86, cited in Denison 2018, p. 3
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