Review: Princess Mononoke

For a while now I’ve been hearing rave reviews about Hayao Miyazaki’s films. He certainly has an impressive track record, having created the three most popular animated movies in Japan. Apparently his anime work is greeted with positive reception everywhere, for this movie was placed in Roger Ebert’s own top ten favorite movies for 1999. It’s about time I finally watched it for myself, but it’s left me with a strange aftertaste, and I’ll tell you why.

The movie opens with a dramatic scene that shows off the superior animation quality in the form of a worm-covered boar demon. The main character and hero of the movie, Ashitaka, is introduced. He makes short work of the beast as it advances on his home village, but not without being cursed himself. Afterwards the village leader explains to him that he must leave forever because the curse is going to agonizingly rip through his soul, eliminating every remnant of his being before killing him shortly after. In her own words he is now completely dead to all of them, and may god be with him as he leaves to the West on some hopeless quest for self justification. Ashitaka replies simply, showing no fear at all, leaving in what appears to be some kind of manly, stoic demeanor. He wouldn’t have even said goodbye to his family if it weren’t for his younger sister seeking him out as he rides away into the night.

Frankly, Ashitaka is one of the most brick-like characters I have ever watched. It takes well over half the movie for him to display any kind of feelings at all. Quiet, brooding, and mysterious characters are always great side additions to someone a little more exciting, but Ashitaka isn’t there to complement anyone. He is the main character, and his empty lack of reflection on everything that happens in the story ended up encouraging my own empty lack of reflection. However, the problems don’t end there. The other half of his personality is being Mr. Perfect. Mr. Perfect never explains what he’s doing or why he’s doing it, but he always resolves every situation without any sort of doubt or difficulty. He is the walking antithesis of conflict. In fact all his presence ever really does is delay some sort of inevitable action. This character doesn’t feel like he should be the focus of anything. He’s flawless and emotionless and what’s left is this feeling that the story might have been better off without him. The main events of the movie are set in motion and concluded without his significant involvement. The only thing that’s changed by his presence is that two characters who are destined to kill each other are forced to wait a little longer.

This movie could have been a lot more enjoyable if the focus was on someone else. It’s like every character besides Ashitaka is interesting and has some kind of inner conflict or apparent goal. Granted, all of the characters are as flat as a slab of concrete, but at least some of them could drive the story somewhere. Perhaps the story could have followed San, the savage human girl raised by monstrous, intelligent wolves. Or maybe it could have focused on Lady Eboshi, a woman hell bent on destroying an entire magical forest to advance her manufacturing of advanced guns designed by lepers, all so she can conquer Japan and, presumably, the rest of the world. Even Jigo could make a more interesting story as an undercover agent posing as a monk who, ironically, is tasked with killing gods.

Unfortunately, despite these exciting events, this leads into my other complaint: This story is random and full of holes. I’m picky about plot. When someone tells me that a movie is great I expect some kind of reasoning for the events that take place within. As the movie progressed I found everything increasingly less believable. No, I don’t mean believable as in magic and gods; I mean believable as in characters and actions are motivated by some kind of evidence. Early in the movie Mr. Perfect pays for a bag of rice with a gold nugget, impressing everyone in the town he’s passing through. Why would someone from a tiny village that was exiled from the Japanese empire be sporting gold, and why wasn’t it ever mentioned later on? Is it just a stab to emphasize Ashitaka’s flawlessness? The lying monk whose job is to kill the forest spirit, a powerful and benevolent god, was asked to do so by the emperor. Why? To kill the forest? Why does everyone want to destroy the forest to begin with? For natural resources? While that does make a little bit of sense, it’s never clearly confirmed or denied. Instead you’re left with this epic battle between Iron Town and nature in which everything is destroyed.

The entire movie is comprised of seemingly random events that were all designed for the purpose of making it to the end and looking really dramatic along the way. I mean really, LEPERS are designing Lady Eboshi’s guns? One second Ashitaka displays freakish demonic strength and the next he’s out cold for days. The very climax of the movie came from absolutely nowhere! Upon being beheaded, the benevolent holy forest spirit god whatever who disapproves of war turns into a giant raging blob of doom that indiscriminately kills everything in it’s path. Mr. Perfect returns its head so it can become normal again, but it would have happened about thirty seconds later without his help anyways. Iron Town and the forest are both leveled, but that’s O.K. because the revival of the forest spirit plants new seedlings so it can all grow again. San leaves Ashitaka because she can “never forgive the humans for what they have done,” and Lady Eboshi vows to rebuild Iron Town “even better than before.”

Basically what I’m trying to say is that after everything that happens its all back to square one. Perhaps in the future Ashitaka convinces everyone to live in harmonious peace, but it doesn’t matter because it didn’t happen in this movie. I was left with a feeling that the story’s net change was zero, and I hate watching anime that ends this way. Sure, people died and stuff got trashed, but there is no PLOT ADVANCEMENT! Every time I see a story that ends this way (like Trigun, for example) it makes me want to smash my head into my computer monitor until I faint. But I guess the visuals were great, and the music too: top notch for this medium! Great really, it’s so great! If you like Naruto or Inuyasha or Death Note or whatever then this movie is probably some kind of godsend. Really, I think you should watch it and then you should watch everything else created by Miyazaki and demand more and more and more and more and more and more! There’s nothing like endless waves of mediocrity constantly pumping out of the studios to keep us all entertained. Who cares about little details when we can just keep getting more of it?!?! We say screw quality because that takes TOO LONG. Quick somebody get me more anime that I can inject into my veins and get high on big shiny eyes, impossibly attractive characters, and cool demons and shit FUCK YEAH!