Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫, Mononoke Hime^?) is a Japanese animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, released in 1997. It was produced by Studio Ghibli and distributed by Tōhō. Princess Mononoke was Studio Ghibli's eleventh feature film and the sixth directed by Miyazaki.

Set in Muromachi period Japan, it centers on the struggle between the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans who desecrate its resources, watched by the outsider Ashitaka. Actually, Mononoke (物の怪（もののけ）, 'Mononoke'^?) is not a name, but a description that can be translated into this context as "vengeful spirit"; so the title of the film could literally be translated as The Princess of the Avenging Spirits.

The film was released in Japan on July 12, 1997, while in the United States it was released two years later, on October 29, 1999. It was an almost instant box office success, having in turn a media impact making it the highest-grossing film in Japan of 1997. The film was also the highest-grossing film in Japan until the release of Titanic in November of that year. It also ranked first among the highest-grossing films in Japanese history until 2001, when Spirited Away, another film written and directed by Miyazaki, was released. It was dubbed into English and distributed in the American continent by Miramax, and, although the film did not enjoy the same success as in its country of origin, it achieved positive sales, considerably increasing Ghibli's popularity and influence outside of Japan.

Plot

Ashitaka's homeland

The last Emishi prince, Ashitaka, saves his village from an attack by a Tatarigami, a demon that destroys all living things just by touching it. Using his bow, Ashitaka kills him, being wounded by him, leaving a dark mark on his arm. Looking at the corpse of the monster, Ashitaka discovers that it was actually the boar god Nago, who was corrupted into a tatarigami. Ashitaka consults the village elders, fearing for his life as he suspects that the wound left by the demon on his hand has transmitted his curse. They discover a huge iron ball in Nago's body and understand that it was the cause of his suffering, which drove the god to madness. The old woman of the village explains to the young man that although his wound only covers his arm, it will spread through his body and bones until he dies. The curse is a double-edged sword, because in the moments where it is carried away by hatred, it will gain superhuman strength in exchange for it spreading faster. When this happens, his arm fills with wriggling black worms, similar to the ones Nago had.

The old woman, after reading Ashitaka's fortune, predicts that only if he travels west in search of Nago's homeland and finds the place where the mysterious iron ball came from will he have any chance of finding a cure. She also warns him that during her journey she must "see with eyes devoid of hate". In accepting her fate he must also accept his exile from her homeland, to which she can never return, leaving the Emishi without an heir. Ashitaka mounts Yakul, his loyal red elk, and prepares to leave without looking back, as it is frowned upon in the village to say goodbye to someone going into exile. Only one person says goodbye to Ashitaka, her younger sister Kaya from her, who gives her a crystal dagger that belongs to her so she doesn't forget about her.

Trip to the Iron City

As he journeys west, Ashitaka watches samurai pillage a defenseless village. Faced with such injustice, he tries to distract them using his bow, but at that moment the curse is activated and gives the arrow supernatural power. Although he only intended to distract the samurai, the curse causes his shot to go with such force that he tears off the arms of one of them and decapitates another. After this, Ashitaka discovers that when the curse emerges, the mark spreads faster.

In the next village he meets a strange monk, Jigo, who was saved by Ashitaka during the previous attack. After showing him the piece of metal extracted from Nago, the monk tells him that he may find answers in a place called the "iron city". Meanwhile, on a hill not far away, a pack of wolf clan kamis assault a caravan carrying rice to the iron city. One of the wolves is ridden by a young woman, Princess Mononoke. The leader of the pack, the goddess Moro, and mother of the other wolves in the group, is shot by Lady Eboshi, the ruler of the iron city, and because of this, the goddess falls rolling down the hill.

On his way to the iron city, Ashitaka passes downriver from the hill where the battle took place and where the current has brought some of the merchandise, as well as the dead and wounded. The boy discovers the pack, where he sees Princess Mononoke trying to soothe Moro's wound and tries to talk to her, but she just tells him to get out of her. Some kodamas, or forest spirits, appear and Ashitaka asks for their help. They guide him through the forest and lead him, and two surviving wounded men he helps, to the iron city.

The Iron City

Ashitaka eventually reaches the iron city, where he meets Lady Eboshi, who reveals much of the details regarding the reason for his curse. The iron city has long been at war with the forest gods over cutting down trees to extract the metal from the mines. The gods and animals, furious at the destruction of their habitat, have waged war against humans. Thus, in a battle between the clan of wild boars and humans, Eboshi injured Nago with her arquebus, causing said curse. Ashitaka is angered by Eboshi's destructive behavior, especially since she has affected him. Later, she realizes that Eboshi has created a community in the iron city where socially rejected groups, such as lepers or prostitutes, are treated with dignity, a situation that can only be maintained if the extraction of the metal continues.

San, the princess of wolves (Princess Mononoke), has attempted several times to assassinate Lady Eboshi, reasoning that the city would fall without her leadership. While Ashitaka is in town, San makes one of these raids, ready to challenge Eboshi to a duel. Ashitaka realizes that the duel is a trap by the townspeople, and she stops him. After knocking them both unconscious, she picks up San and tries to leave town. One of the women, wanting revenge for the death of her husband, accidentally shoots Ashitaka from behind; even so, he continues to walk with San in tow, despite losing a lot of blood from her. She finally uses the force of her curse to open the city gate (which normally takes ten people to open) and leaves the iron city riding Yakul.

In the woods

As Ashitaka leaves the iron city taking San with him, he loses the force of the curse and falls from Yakul. The two wolves "brothers" de San try to devour it, but San stops them. On one hand, she is furious that Ashitaka interrupted her attack on Eboshi, but on the other she is confused that he didn't seem to be on Eboshi's side and is surprised to see a human help him. San asks him to explain if he wants to stay alive. Her explanation infuriates him even more, since she considers herself a wolf and is willing to die for her cause. As San is about to deliver a killing blow, Ashitaka tells her that she is beautiful, before falling unconscious. A group of monkeys appears, ready to eat Ashitaka to, according to them, acquire her strength, but San stops them.

San, finally feeling compassion for him, decides to take him to the great sacred pool hidden in the heart of the forest. He leaves Ashitaka lying on a small island in the center of the lake and plants a small stalk next to his body as an offering. He then tries to free Yakul, but the deer rejects the offer and stays with his master.

Before dawn a gigantic black silhouette is seen whose height exceeds the treetops walking towards the lake; Jigo remains hidden next to a group of jibashiri ("those who run at ground level") and explains to them that this is the night walker, form that he has the Shishigami (spirit of the forest) during the night and that at dawn he will transform into a deer with a human face; he also reminds them that they have the mission to hunt him down and decapitate him by imperial decree, a decree that also states that this act will not be considered a sin nor will it entail divine punishment. While they keep watch, they discover that the boar god Okkoto and his herd arrive at the Shishigami forest after several months of travel. His goal is to kill all humans and protect the forest or die trying, to achieve what Nago failed.

Finally at dawn, the forest spirit transforms and appears at San's request. The Shishigami heals Ashitaka's bullet wound with a touch from his mouth, but not his curse. After several days of being cared for by San, Ashitaka has recovered enough to walk on his own; Moro strikes up a conversation with the young man explaining that the curse produced by her shooting will soon kill her, but not before she kills Eboshi first. When Ashitaka tries to convince her that the best path is peaceful coexistence, Moro relates how he adopted San from her after her parents threw her at her feet so he could run away from her while he devoured her, preferring to adopt her; she subsequently warns him to leave the forest or she will kill him. Moro despises humans, but not with as much passion as San.

War

Ashitaka is very concerned about San and the well-being of the forest, but on the other hand he sympathizes with the people of the iron city. He tries to mediate the conflict and find a solution that satisfies both sides, but both Eboshi and San are blinded by hatred and ultimately fail to stop the war from starting. The decisive morning Ashitaka is already sufficiently recovered to leave the forest and San has recently left with Okkoto's pack to take care of him, and seeing that he will not be able to say goodbye to her, he asks one of Moro's sons to give him the crystal dagger as a parting gift.

The war takes place on three sides. A powerful samurai, Asano, has sent his troops to surprise attack the city, demanding half of all the iron. Meanwhile, the Okkoto clan prepares its forces for its own war. Lady Eboshi knows that her main enemies are humans and not beasts or gods, since these are more treacherous and her weapons are more powerful than claws or fangs. Eboshi allies with the Jibashiri, the emperor's agents who have come to the city led by the monk Jigo to defeat the boars and kill Shishigami. The emperor believes that the head of the forest spirit will grant him immortality and is willing to pay a large amount of gold for it. Eboshi leaves the women to defend the city, as she is sure that they are strong enough to defend themselves. She makes this decision partly because she knows that her men are good hunters, but also because she knows that they would betray her once her work is done.

Wild boars, despite their large numbers, are booby-trapped by humans. Only Okkoto, seriously injured, survives and escapes accompanied by San. To kill the Shishigami, the Jibashiri use the skins of the boars to trick and confuse Okkoto's blind sense of smell. When he smells and hears them, he believes that they are the spirits of his warriors who have returned from the dead and seeks the Shishigami to revive them. Before Okkoto can reach the island, the Jibashiri attempt to finish him off, causing his hatred to overwhelm him. He then turns into a demon, with many red worms of hate coming out around his body. San tries to drive these worms out of the boar, but a hunter knocks her unconscious, while she is engulfed by Okkoto's demon worms, who runs into the sacred lake.

Ashitaka senses that San is in trouble and with one of San's wolf brothers, rescued from the battlefield, goes into the forest to find her. While searching for her, he meets Lady Eboshi and tells her that the samurai Asano is attacking the iron city. Eboshi's men head back towards the city, but she continues to hunt for Shishigami. When Ashitaka finds San, Okkoto has already reached the holy island. The prince tries to save San from the worms, but Okkotonushi throws Ashitaka into the water. Moro, who was unconscious due to the progress of the infection caused by the projectile that injured her, wakes up and runs towards Okkoto, yelling for her to let go of her daughter. Moro manages to pull San out of the boar's darkness, using what little strength he has left to save San instead of fighting Eboshi. Ashitaka takes San from Moro's mouth and plunges her into the water to free her from the cursed worms left in her body.

The Spirit of the Forest

It is almost sunset and the spirit of the forest manifests in its deer form, Eboshi orders that no one attack it until it is in the middle of its transformation into the Nightwalker, at which point it will be weak. Even so, the woman shoots him as he heads towards the Boar, although this does not kill him and he continues until he relieves the old boar by taking his life and the curse, while Moro faints again. After this the spirit begins to change into the Night Walker but, despite Ashitaka's attempts to stop Eboshi, in the middle of his transformation he fires a shot that decapitates him. Without his head, the spirit becomes corrupted with the same curse as Ashitaka and the boars, flooding the forest with a slime that kills everything it touches, at the same time Eboshi is bitten by Moro's head, thus losing an arm.

Everything turns into a chase by Ashitaka and San against Jigo and the hunters, who insist on escaping with the spirit's head, chased by the mud and by the boys who wish to purify the spirit by returning its head. Jigo escapes against the clock waiting for sunrise, at which time the spirit will die, but finding himself cornered they can only give his head to San and Ashitaka. The boys face the corrupt spirit and deliver his head seconds before dawn, being quickly devoured by the curse, and instantly the spirit begins to purify itself and at dawn it transforms into a substance that floods the entire area purifying and reviving the land that moments before it killed and seconds later it vanishes forever.

Conclusion

San and Ashitaka wake up healthy and unharmed, only surrounded by beautiful mountains covered with flowers representing the cycle of life, in which bodies feed the earth; Although Ashitaka is now free from the curse, he notices that a stain has remained on his hand, reminding him forever of the meaning of what he lived and felt.

San proceeds to say goodbye to Ashitaka, maintaining that despite loving him he is a human and she is a forest dweller who cannot live anywhere else. Ashitaka tells San that he will dedicate himself to building a new city on the site together with the inhabitants of the iron city, but despite this he will always be with her and they will see each other continuously. Lady Eboshi, after surviving, decides that the new city will be better and all its citizens will work so that their progress does not exact such a high price in nature.

Characters

Cosplay from San and Ashitaka, Animethon 2016.

• Ashitaka (тики ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти ти, Ashitaka^?): He is the last prince of the Emishi tribe, whose faithful companion is Yakul, a red elk. Miyazaki has commented that he did not want Ashitaka to be a typical hero, saying that he is a "melancholic child with a destiny," also declaring that Ashitaka's curse "is similar to people's lives [at that time]." Ashitaka's English voice actor, Billy Crudup, said he liked Ashitaka because he was "an unexpected hero. He is not the usual wild and brave boy. He is just a young and serious boy who is trying to live a good life and protect his people."

• San (▪, San^?): The “princesa Mononoke”, a young woman who was adopted and raised by the goddess Loba Moro after she was abandoned by her people in the forest. He despises humans and wants to kill Lady Eboshi for usurping the forest to the gods. Despite his hatred for the people, he comes to feel affection for Ashitaka.

• Lady Eboshi (أعربية, Eboshi Gozen^?): It is the ruler of the city of iron. Woman of strong and proud personality, boasts not to fear men or the gods. Nor does he recognize the authority of the emperor in his city, having a revolutionary vision and showing an atypical attitude. Eboshi acts as the main antagonist of the film. Miyazaki commented that Eboshi is a character that resembles a shirabyōshi. Eboshi's English voice actress, Minnie Driver, said she was interested in "the challenge of interpreting a woman who supports industry and represents the interests of man, in terms of achievements and greed."

• Jiko-bō (أعربية, Jiko-bō^?): A mercenary monk who forges friendship with Ashitaka on his journey west. Miyazaki said he was not sure whether he should make Jiko-bō "a government spy, a ninja, a member of a religious group or just a very good guy." Finally it ended up adding a little of every thing.

• Kōroku (▪, Kōroku^?): An inhabitant of the city of iron. It is rescued by Ashitaka and never stops seeing the latter as an ally.

• Gonza (, Gonza^?): It is Lady Eboshi's dedicated personal bodyguard.

• Moro (日本語, Moro no Kimi^?): She is a mud goddess of the forest and adoptive mother of San.

• Okkoto-nushi (主rics to, Okkoto-nushi^?): A blind boar god.

Voices

The dubbing studio for Mexico was Estudios Tokio, in Mexico City, while the dubbing studio for Spain was Euroaudiovisual, in Madrid.

Character	Seiyū	Folding Actors	Voice actors	Voice actors
Ashitaka	Yōji Matsuda	Carlos Enrique Bonilla	David Robles	Billy Crudup
San	Yuriko Ishida	Jahel Morga	Eva Díez	Claire Danes
Moro	Akihiro Miwa	Ruth Toscano	María Luisa Rubio	Gillian Anderson
Lady Eboshi	Yūko Tanaka	Diana Perez	Pepa Castro	Minnie Driver
Jigo	Kaoru Kobayashi	Juan Alfonso Carralero	Roberto Cuenca Martínez	Billy Bob Thornton
Toki	Sumi Shimamoto	Gabriela Michel	Amparo Valencia	Jada Pinkett Smith
Okkoto	Hisaya Morishige	Arturo Acosta	Paco Hernández	Keith.
Gonza	Tsunehiko Kamijō	César Arias	Carlos Ysbert	John DiMaggio
Kouroku	Masahiko Nishimura	Erick Salinas	Luis Bajo	John DeMita
Kaya	Yuriko Ishida	Anaís Portillo	Pilar Martín	Tara
Hii-sama	Mitsuko Mori	Love Santini	Matilde Conesa	Debbie Derryberry
Women of the Iron Tower	Takako Fuji Ikaku Yamamoto	Alejandra de la Rosa Magda Giner	María José Maestro Maria Rosa Guillén	Sherry Lynn Three MacNeille

Production

The forest Shiratani Unsui, in Yakushima, served as inspiration for the film.

In the late 1970s, Miyazaki drew sketches for a film about a princess who lived in the forest with a beast. Miyazaki began writing the film's plot and drawing initial storyboards for the film in August 1994. However, he had difficulty adapting his initial ideas and visualizations, as various elements had already been used in My Neighbor Totoro, as well as the social changes that have occurred since the creation of the first sketches and scripts. This event would lead him to agree to create the promotional video for the song On Your Mark by the musical duo Chage and Aska. According to Toshio Suzuki, this allowed Miyazaki to start the making of the film again with new spirits. In April 1995, animation supervisor Masashi Ando devised the character designs based on Miyazaki's storyboard. In May 1995, Miyazaki drew the initial storyboards. That same month, Miyazaki and Ando visited the ancient forests of Yakushima on the island of Kyūshū, which previously also served as inspiration for the landscape of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and the mountains of Shirakami-Sanchi. in northern Honshu. They were accompanied by a group of art directors, background artists, and digital animators for three days. Animation officially began in July 1995. Miyazaki personally supervised each of the 144,000 cubic centimeters (144,000 cubic centimeters) of film, and was an estimated 80,000 of them had scenes redesigned. Storyboards for the film's ending were completed just months before the Japanese release date.

The Yakushima forest acts as a tourist attraction for the fans of the film.

Inspired by Irish-American director John Ford, who is known for his Midwestern films, Miyazaki created the Iron City as a "close-knit city of people" and populated it with "characters from marginalized groups and oppressed minorities who rarely appear in Japanese films", being also "wistful, ambitious and strong" characters. Miyazaki has said that he did not want to create a precise story about medieval Japan, but instead wanted to "portray the beginnings of the seemingly intractable conflict between the natural world and modern industrial civilization." The landscapes featured in the film were inspired by the forests of Yakushima. Although the film is set during the Muromachi period, the time period Princess Mononoke's royal depiction represents "a symbolic clash of three proto-Japanese races (Jōmon, Yamato, and Emishi)."

Princess Mononoke was produced with an estimated budget of ¥2,100,000,000 (approximately US$23,500,000). Its scenes were mostly hand-drawn, but also incorporated computer animation for a few minutes of the footage. The computer-animated scenes were designed to blend in and support traditional film cell animation, and are primarily used in visuals that consist of a mixture of computer-generated graphics and hand-drawn drawing. Another ten minutes of the film use digital painting, a technique used in all subsequent Studio Ghibli films. Most of the film is colored with traditional paint, based on the color schemes designed by Miyazaki and Michiyo Yasuda. However, the producers agreed to install computers in order to complete the film before the Japanese release date.

Reception

The film was a massive hit in Japan and among fans of anime and arthouse films in English-speaking countries. In those countries it was widely interpreted as a film about the environment, told under the framework of Japanese mythology. It is interesting to note that Miramax, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, chose to invest a large sum of money in creating the English dub with famous actors and actresses. However, when it was released theatrically, there was little to no publicity, giving it very limited distribution in a few theaters and only for a very short period. Many anime fans didn't find out that the movie had been in theaters until it was too late. Disney later apologized for not further publicizing the film, apparently hoping that even under those conditions it would do as well in the United States as it did in Japan. Since then, DVD sales have been much better for not having limited availability.

Among other merits, it served as inspiration for the final episode of Disney's Fantasia 2000.^{[citation needed]} In addition, it ousted home country of the highest-grossing film in history to Titanic, by James Cameron. Later, Mononoke Hime herself would be superseded by Miyazaki's next feature film, Spirited Away. This film was awarded the Golden Bear at the 52nd Berlin Film Festival in 2002.