On 9 November 2021, I decided to pay another visit to the spectacular animation output of Japan's famous Studio Ghibli. The movie that I chose to watch this time was Princess Mononoke.
Princess Mononoke was directed (and written) by Ghibli's legendary Hayao Miyazaki, with English fantasy author Neil Gaiman providing the script's anglicized version after American film-maker/screenwriter Quentin Tarantino had turned down the opportunity to do so and had suggested Gaiman instead, and was released by Miramax International in 1997, with an official English dub version produced by Walt Disney Studios. It comes with a hefty running time (for an animated feature) of just over 2 hours (137 mins, to be precise), but sadly this felt even longer when I watched it. I even paused my DVD of it halfway through, to take a break for a while before returning to it (which I'm glad I did, as the second half was far more interesting and visually arresting than the first half).
Set approximately seven centuries ago, during Japan's Muromachi period of feudal history, this movie tells the story of warring between a variety of Japanese human factions and the forest creatures, the latter of which are presided over by various giant animal deities and above all by the human-faced deer-like Forest Spirit.
The three principal human protagonists are as follows: Prince Ashitakia (voiced in the English dub by Billy Crudup after Leonardo DiCaprio had initially been considered), badly wounded in one arm by a demonic wild boar deity when attempting to save his Emishi village from its raging onslaught, who sets out to seek a cure for his now-cursed arm in the great western forest where the Forest Spirit reigns before the wound's infection spreads and kills him. The enchantress-like Lady Eboshi (Minnie Driver), whose avowed intent is to raze the forest and kill the Forest Spirit so that the area can then be mined for iron to be used in manufacturing weapons. San (Claire Danes), nicknamed Princess Mononoke, who was raised in the forest by wolves and the giant wolf deity Moro (Gillian Anderson) after being abandoned there as a young child, and who swears to protect the forest and all of its animals and supernatural entities against humanity (whom she hates) by whatever means are necessary. 'Mononoke' is a Japanese word referring to vengeful supernatural beings, and used as a description of San, due both to her upbringing by the forest's lupine deity and to her rage against her fellow humans for desecrating and devastating the forest.
Eventually, Ashitaka and San encounter one another and, following a few fiery initial confrontations, forge an uneasy alliance against Eboshi. However, there is such a profundity of detail and battles along the way (not to mention a surprising amount of blood, gore, and horror for a PG-rated animated movie – not for children, that's for sure!) that my interest gradually waned.
I can't fault the gorgeous animation, especially the stunning verdant vistas of woodland, mountain, and forest, at which Ghibli excels, nor the ethereal dream-like music accompanying it. Yet, surprisingly and disappointingly, when the Forest Spirit finally appears on the scene it actually proves somewhat underwhelming (its impressive multi-tined antlers notwithstanding), except when it transforms each evening into the gigantic and much more awe-inspiring Night Walker.
I won't give away the remainder of the plot, but if you can stay with it through the laboured first half, the much more exciting second half will definitely retain your interest. Ideally, much could – indeed, should – have been trimmed from the movie's early portions, which would have speeded up the proceedings considerably, and at the cost of losing only various peripheral, unimportant segments.
In short, Princess Mononoke is one of those movies that works better for me as a memory rather than as a movie, because my mind automatically edits out all of the dull sections and lingers instead upon the highlights, of which there are a fair few. Overall, however, I have to confess that this is a film I endured more than enjoyed.
If you'd like to see excerpts from some of its most spectacular scenes, be sure to click here to watch an official Princess Mononoke trailer on YouTube.
Finally, here's an interesting tit-bit for fellow cryptozoologists: Yakul, the striking ungulate (hoofed mammal) ridden as a steed by Prince Ashitaka, is referred to in the movie as a red elk, but no such creature exists in reality (it was created specially for this movie), and instead of bearing antlers like elk and other real deer do, it sports a very impressive pair of long serrated horns, like antelopes. I've read some online attempts to liken Yakul to an African antelope known as the lechwe. In my opinion, conversely, apart from being burlier he bears a much closer overall resemblance to the enigmatic chiru or Tibetan antelope Panthalops hodgsonii. True, this species is not indigenous to Japan (it is confined principally to China, with small numbers in Bhutan and Himalayan India), but it does at least inhabit the same continent, Asia – unlike the African lechwe!
Anyway, compare the following still from a scene depicting Ashitaka and his 'red elk' steed Yakul (together with San and some of her white wolf companions) with two illustrations of the chiru and its horns, and see what you think:
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