PRINCESS MONONOKE

is a Japanese animated film by Hayao Miyazaki that was first released in Japan on July 12, 1997 and in the United States on October 29, 1999 in select cities and on November 26, 1999.
Roger Ebert placed the movie sixth on his top ten movies of 1999 [1]. ''Mononoke'' also became the highest grossing movie in Japan until ''Titanic'' took over the spot several months later. Overall, ''Mononoke'' is the third most popular anime movie in Japan, next to 2001's ''Spirited Away'' and 2004's ''Howl's Moving Castle'', both also by Miyazaki.
It was rated PG-12 in Japan, PG in the UK, M in Australia and PG-13 in the U.S. for images of violence and gore.
It is a ''jidaigeki'' (period drama) set in late Muromachi period of Japan, and centers on the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who need its resources, as seen by the outsider Ashitaka. is not a name, but a general term in Japanese for a spirit/god/monster of the natural world.

Production

3D rendering was used to create the demon snakes, and composite them onto Ashitaka, who is hand-drawn.

Princess Mononoke is overwhelmingly hand-drawn, but incorporates some use of computer animation.^[1]
When released, ''Mononoke'' was the most expensive animation ever made, with production of the film cost ¥2.4 billion (approximately US$20 million). Miyazaki personally checked each of the 144,000 cels in the film,^[2] and is estimated to have redrawn parts of 80,000 of them.^[3]
Computer animation was used during 5 minutes of footage throughout the film, and a further 10 minutes used digital paint, a technique which is now standard. The computer animated parts are designed to blend in and support the traditional animation, and are mainly used in images consisting of a mixture of CGI and traditional elements.
This is the only anime directed by Hayao Miyazaki that does not feature a flying sequence, his well-known trademark.

Plot

Ashitaka is the last Emishi prince ^[4], who saves his village from an assault by a demon. After killing the demon, Ashitaka finds out that the demon was the Boar God Nago suffering under a curse. Having received a demon mark on his right arm during his battle with Nago, Ashitaka is cursed by the Boar God's hatred and pain. After consulting the shamanistic wise woman of the village, it is found that a lump of metal was in Nago's corpse, which was likely the source of the curse. Though currently limited to just his arm, the curse will eventually spread throughout Ashitaka's body, and then Ashitaka will die.
Ashitaka cuts his hair, signifying his permanent departure from his village,^[5] and sets out from his home to head to lands to the West, where Nago originated. He rides out with his steed Yakul, his loyal red elk. Since it was considered taboo to see off one who is banished, only one person dared to say goodbye to Ashitaka: his 'little sister,' Kaya (according to Miyazaki, actually his bride-to-be; calling herself his 'little sister' was a term of affection^[6]), who gives him her crystal dagger so that he would not forget her.

Setting

Overall

This story takes place in Japan during the Muromachi Period, which is considered to be the transition period between the medieval period and the early modern period. It is notable that the power of the shoguns greatly declined in this period. The landscapes which appear in Princess Mononoke are said to have been inspired by the ancient forests of Yakushima, off Kyūshū, and the mountains of Shirakami-Sanchi in northern Honshū. ([2] in Japanese)

Emishi

Ashitaka comes from a tribe called the Emishi, which used to be natives of northern Honshū, that had been resisting subjugation by the Japanese emperor for centuries. However, the Emishi were defeated by the samurai of the Yamato clan, which proceeded to become the rulers and government of the Empire. The Emishi thus went into hiding, around the Northeast part of Honshu, Japan's largest island. By A.D. 1300, the Emishi were completely integrated into Japanese society. However, Ashitaka supposedly comes from a tribe of the Emishi that had resisted integration and still lived in exile.

Irontown

Irontown gets its name from its purpose: to dig up iron, refine it to steel, and make top-quality weapons. Their latest invention is the ishibiya gun, a cross between a musket and a grenade launcher, shooting an iron ball at high speed, able to penetrate wood, animal, and samurai armor. They also have a sort of a primitive flamethrower, usually used in conjunction with the ishibiya guns for maximum effect.
To get iron, the townsfolk strip the mountains bare of forests. The wood is used to fuel their giant smelter, which is used to extract the ore. This plan is complicated with the presence of the animal spirits within the forest, who fight with their lives to protect the forest. This includes many acts, such as night ambushes, surprise attacks on supply trains, and skirmishes with the humans that go outside of Irontown.
Irontown cannot even trust its own species, as neighboring samurai warlords desire control of Irontown. They are not stupid, and they know that the future lies with iron and steel. They frequently demand quotas of iron whenever they feel strong, and when Irontown refuses, they attack. However, Irontown is strong enough to defend itself.
Irontown itself grew prosperous because of one woman: Eboshi Gozen. When Irontown first was built, the people simply used the iron sands at the beaches where Irontown was built. Unfortunately, the iron sands were soon used up, and the men looked enviously toward the unreachable iron within the mountains. There existed a large boar, Nago, who was the master of the mountains. He and his clan could not be defeated, and all of Irontown's strong and able men were wiped out. That was when Eboshi came, with the ishibiya troops lent to her from the Emperor. After a great battle over the entire mountains, the boars were wiped out, and then Irontown became prosperous.
Eboshi, then began to endear herself to the people of Irontown. She bought the contracts of prostitutes to free them, and took in lepers as well, and gave them jobs in Irontown.

Characters

Ashitaka

Ashitaka is an Emishi prince who was meant to become leader of his tribe. While rescuing his village from Nago, the demon boar god, Ashitaka’s arm is afflicted with a curse that will eventually consume and kill him. Under the effect of the curse, Ashitaka gains superhuman strength, but causes him to grow weaker as time passes. Ashitaka is exiled by his village and sent westward to find the cause of the demon’s corruption as well as a cure for his curse.
After arriving at Irontown, Ashitaka is caught up between the town’s war with the mountain gods. Amidst the battle at Irontown, Ashitaka meets San and soon becomes enamored with her. Ashitaka takes San back to Moro and attempts to negotiate a ceasefire between the warring sides. He is unsuccessful. Ashitaka’s curse is eventually removed and, though San and Ashitaka have grown close, they go their separate ways at the end of the film: to the forest and to Irontown respectively.

San (Princess Mononoke)

San, the Princess Mononoke

San is known as Princess Mononoke—the teenage girl, princess of spirits and beasts. When San was a baby, her parents were attacked by the wolf goddess Moro. Her parents threw San to Moro as a sacrifice to save their own lives. Moro raised San as her own daughter, and in turn San treats Moro as her mother and Moro's two natural pups as brothers.
San’s primary concern is protecting the forest and the animals she lives with. San rejects her own humanity and even thinks of herself as a wolf. She has attempted to assassinate Eboshi of Irontown many times, as San believes that Eboshi’s death will result in the end of Irontown and human growth into her woods.
After the war, San tells Ashitaka that even though she loves him, she cannot forgive the human race for what they have done to the forest, and she will continue to live apart from them. San returns to the forest and Ashitaka remains in Irontown.

Lady Eboshi

Eboshi, leader of Irontown

Eboshi is a strong woman, who wants to help her people of Irontown. She uses her money to buy and free prostitutes. Eboshi also takes in lepers, treating them as humans instead of parasites, and helps them with their wounds.
Eboshi is the leader of Irontown, a mining town up in the mountains. Eboshi employs mainly outcasts to do the work in Irontown, namely prostitutes and lepers. Eboshi has many enemies including San, the samurai, men, and Nago the Boar God. Eboshi and her ishibiya troops are responsible for the cursed iron bullet in Nago which eventually affect Ashitaka.

Shishigami (''The Forest Spirit'')

Shishigami, the "Forest Spirit" in its daytime form

Shishigami is the ancient spirit of the forest. During the day, Shishigami resembles a great stag with many antlers and the face of a baboon. During the night, however, Shishigami becomes Daidarabocchi (the Nightwalker in the English version), a god resembling a human made out of stars with a long pointed face and tentacle-like spikes on the back. After Eboshi shoots off his head, he becomes a god of death which resembles a large humanoid made from a dark tar-like liquid. In the subtitled edition, Shishigami is referred to as the "Deer God", rather than the "Forest Spirit" in the English dub.

Releases

Theatrical run

Japanese Movie Poster.

The film was extremely successful in Japan and with both anime fans and "arthouse" moviegoers in English-speaking countries. In those countries, it was widely interpreted as a film about the environment told in the form of Japanese mythology. Disney's Miramax subsidiary purchased U.S. distribution rights, but wanted to cut the film for American audiences (and for a PG-rating). However, Miyazaki balked at this, and the film was instead released uncut with a rating of PG-13. Miramax also chose to put a lot of money into creating the English dub of the movie with famous actors and actresses, yet when they released it in theatres there was little or no advertising and it was given a very limited run, showing in only a few theatres and for a very short time. Disney later complained about the fact that the movie did not do well at the box office. In September of 2000, the film was supposed to be released on DVD in the U.S., but Miramax announced that only the English dub would be included on the disc. Outraged fans demanded the Japanese track be put on the disc as well, and the threat of poor sales prompted Miramax to hire translators for the subtitles, which held the DVD release back by almost three months. When the film was finally released on DVD it sold very well, due to no limitation in availability. According to Ultimate Disney [3], the film is due for a two-disc Special Edition treatment in the near future.
The film was promoted with the tagline .

Box office statistics

Box office gross:

★ 'Japan': ¥18,650,000,000

★ 'USA': $2,298,191

★ 'Spain': €598,040
Total admissions:

★ 'Japan': 13,530,000

★ 'France': 500,380

★ 'USA': 467,344

★ 'Spain': 156,816

★ 'Italy': 26,989

Translations

The United States and United Kingdom DVD releases have both the English and Japanese soundtracks, together with subtitles for both the English dub and a more literal translation.
At Miyazaki's insistence, the film was uncut for the English release,^[7] so that only the soundtrack was altered. The English dub of ''Princess Mononoke'' is a translation with some adaptation by Neil Gaiman, author of ''The Sandman''. The main changes from the Japanese version are to provide a cultural context for phrases and actions which those outside of Asia may not be familiar with. Such alterations include references to mythology and specific names for groups, such as Jibashiri and Shishigami, that appear in the Japanese version, that are changed to more general terms, such as Mercenary and Forest Spirit, in the English version. The rationale for such changes is that the majority of non-Japanese viewers would not understand the mythological references and that the English language simply has no words for the Jibashiri, Shishigami and other terms. However, some critics (Michael Atkinson, Mr. Showbiz) have said that the translation from Japanese to English and the alterations in which it has resulted have weakened the film somewhat.
The English dub received mixed reviews from critics.^[8] While most of the reaction was positive, others criticized the dub for most of its casting choices,^[9] notably Billy Bob Thornton as Jigo and Claire Danes as San, claiming that they detracted from the experience. Despite this love-hate atmosphere, the dub has been hailed as one of the best ever done^[10] alongside ''Spirited Away'', which has been met with the same criticism.^[11]
The film has also been recently dubbed in Mandarin as well. There are not a great number of differences, and the translations seem to be accurate enough. Still, there are three translations mentioned of 'Princess Mononoke/ Mononoke Hime', while most of the other names use either Chinese or sound translations.

Credits

Crew

★ Original story, screenplay written and directed by: Hayao Miyazaki

★ Supervising animators: Yoshifumi Kondo, Masashi Andō, Kitaro Kosaka

★ Art directors: Kazuo Oga, Nizō Yamamoto, Naoya Tanaka, Yōji Takashige, Satoshi Kuroda

★ Camera supervisor: Atsushi Okui

★ Audio director: Kazuhiro Wakabayashi

★ Music composer: Joe Hisaishi

★ Music performance: Tokyo City Philharmonic Orchestra (Conductor: Hiroshi Kumagai, Piano Player: Joe Hisaishi)

★ Japanese theme song performer: Yoshikazu Mera

★ Japanese soundtrack production: Tokuma Japan Communications

★ Editor: Takeshi Seyama

★ Assistant editors: Megumi Uchida, Masako Tamura, Kyōko Mizuta

★ "Princess Mononoke" production committee: Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Studio Ghibli

★ Chief executive producer: Yasuyoshi Tokuma

★ Executive producers: Seiichirō Ujiie, Yutaka Narita

★ Associate producer: Seiji Okuda

★ Production manager: Nozomu Takahashi

★ Producer: Toshio Suzuki

★ Production: Studio Ghibli

★ Japan distributor: Toho

★ U.S. distributor: Miramax Films

★ English language translations and song translations: Stephen Alpert

★ English language script adaptation writer: Neil Gaiman

★ English language voice casting and director: Jack Fletcher

Cast

The movie stars the following actors:

Character	Japanese voice	English voice
Ashitaka	Yōji Matsuda	Billy Crudup
San	Yuriko Ishida	Claire Danes
Moro	Akihiro Miwa	Gillian Anderson
Lady Eboshi	Yūko Tanaka	Minnie Driver
Jigo/Jiko Bou	Kaoru Kobayashi	Billy Bob Thornton
Toki	Sumi Shimamoto	Jada Pinkett Smith
Okkoto/Okkotonushi	Hisaya Morishige	Keith David (Narrator in English version)
Gonza	Tsunehiko Kamijo	John DiMaggio
Kohroku	Masahiko Nishimura	John DeMita
Kaya	Yuriko Ishida	Tara Strong

★ Iron Town Women – Sherry Lynn, Tress MacNeille

★ Tatara's Women Song – Jennifer Cihi, Leslie Ishii, Mary Elizabeth McGlynn

★ Additional voices by Pamela Adlon, Lewis Arquette, Corey Burton, Keith David, Debi Derryberry, John DiMaggio, Alex Fernandex, Jack Fletcher, Julia Fletcher, Pat Fraley, John Hostetter, John Rafter Lee, Tress MacNeille, Matt McKenzie, Michael McShane, Matt K. Miller, Marnie Mosiman, Adam Paul, David Rasner, Dwight Schultz

Awards

★ 'Best Picture'; The 21st Japanese Academy Awards

★ 'Best Japanese Movie', Best Animation, and Japanese Movie Fans' Choice; The 52nd Mainichi Movie Competition

★ 'Best Japanese Movie' and Readers' Choice; Asahi Best Ten Film Festival

★ 'Excellent Movie Award'; The Agency for Cultural Affairs

★ 'Grand Prize' in Animation Division; 1st Japan Media Arts Festival (by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Ministry of Education)

★ 'Best Director'; Takasaki Film Festival

★ 'Best Japanese Movie'; The Association of Movie Viewing Groups

★ 'Movie Award'; The 39th Mainichi Art Award

★ 'Best Director'; Tokyo Sports Movie Award

★ 'Nihon Keizai Shinbun' Award for Excellency; Nikkei Awards for Excellent Products/Service (details)

★ 'Theater Division' Award; Asahi Digital Entertainment Award

★ 'MMCA Special' Award; Multimedia Grand Prix 1997

★ 'Best Director' and Yujiro Ishihara Award; Nikkan Sports Movie Award

★ 'Special Achievement' Award; The Movie's Day

★ 'Special Award'; Houchi Movie Award

★ 'Special Award'; Blue Ribbon Award

★ 'Special Award'; Osaka Film Festival

★ 'Special Award'; Elandore Award

★ 'Cultural Award'; Fumiko Yamaji Award

★ 'Grand Prize' and Special Achievement Award; Golden Gross Award

★ 'First Place', best films of the year; The 26th "Pia Ten"

★ 'First Place'; Japan Movie Pen Club, 1997 Best 5 Japanese Movies

★ 'First Place'; 1997 Kinema Junpo Japanese Movies Best 10 (Readers' Choice)

★ 'Second Place'; 1997 Kinema Junpo Japanese Movies Best 10 (Critics' Choice)

★ 'Best Director'; 1997 Kinema Junpo Japanese Movies (Readers' Choice)

★ 'First Place'; Best Comicker's Award

★ 'First Place'; CineFront Readers' Choice

★ 'Nagaharu Yodogawa' Award; RoadShow

★ 'Best Composer' and Best Album Production; 39th Japan Record Award

★ 'Excellent Award'; Yomiruri Award for Film/Theater Advertisement

References in popular culture

★ In Naruto, the character Kiba Inuzuka's facial markings resemble San's.

★ In The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Irwin makes a reference to Princess Mononoke, by calling Mandy 'Princess Wanna-know-ke'.

★ Characters in The O.C. also use 'Princess Mononoke' as a pejorative term.

★ On TLC's "What Not to Wear" Stacy London has made references to Princess Mononoke when criticizing boots by saying, "Princess Mononoke wants her boots back" or "Princess Mononoke lives!"

★ The defunct Essex band Crydebris recorded a song titled 'Mononoke-Picture' for their 2004 EP 'The Severing'. The track can still be found on their MySpace.

Soundtrack

Main articles: Princess Mononoke: Music from the Motion Picture

References

1. The Animation Process
2. Transcript on Miyazaki interview
3. Mononoke DVD Website
4. Princess Mononoke FAQ at Nausicaa.net
5. Mononoke Hime Annotated Script with Japanese Text
6. Interview with Hayao Miyazaki, Mononoke-hime Theater Program, July 1997 (transcribed and translated at Nausicaa.net)
7. A god among animators
8. Reviews of Princess Mononoke (1997) Rotten Tomatoes
9. Lost in the Translation
10. Princess Mononoke (1997)
11. Spirited Away: English Language Analysis

External links

★ Princess Mononoke official Miramax site (archived)

★

★

★ Mononoke Hime page at Nausicaa.net

★ Neil Gaiman on writing the English-language script

★ もののけ姫 (''Mononoke Hime'')

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