Princess Mononke - Let's See You Top This Disney! (Review This W/O)

I never met a write-off of Lynus’ that I didn’t like. Even when I try my hardest not to join them – the gravitational pull sucks me in. Needless to say, Lynus is a superstar; so make sure to give him props for hosting this the “Let’s See You Review This” write-off.

The Premise: You choose someone and have them review a movie, sounds easy enough doesn’t it?

The Setup: I was excited when the illustrious, glamorous, vamp Psychovant chose me to pick a movie for – she seems like a class act so I knew I wouldn’t be stuck with something like “Look Who’s Talking Part II”. So going on the fact that I liked action, comedy (romantic and goofball) and wasn’t really into horror – Psychovant set me up with Princess Mononoke. So the first thing I did was run that through the epinions ever so trusty and reliable database and found 103 reviews – immediately I’m starting to think why the hell have I never heard of this? Oh no – it’s anime. Truthfully, I’m not a big anime fan – I can appreciate it as art but I was raised on Disney cartoons, what can I say? As luck would have it, every time I mentioned the word Mononoke (say fast and mysterious) people raved about how wonderful it was, so I opened my charkas and my mind and sat down to enjoy.

Princess Mononoke is the story of a young warrior who goes by the name Ash*taki. One day the young and studly Ash*take encounters a wild boar running through the forest destroying everything in site and to protect his village he slays it. As luck would have it, Ash*taki messes around and gets cut by the boar and now has been infected with his “evil boar juice” an injury that the village soothsayer tells him will eventually kill him.

So the soothsayer is pretty much like you got to live the village, this isn’t going to work out. So, now he’s got this horrible wound that keeps growing and he’s got to leave his family behind. So he takes off in search of the forest spirit to be made whole again. Along the way young Ash*take catches up with Lady Eboshi – seemingly nice, but really just wants to get rich and destroy the forest. There is also the matter of Princess Mononoke – a young girl raised by wolves who would only be too delighted to destroy Lady Eboshi. Somehow, Ash*take must walk the fine line between both sides and rid himself of “evil boar juice”.

Princess Mononoke is definitely a story that has some adult themes it does however contain invaluable life lessons about nature and dangerous advances in technology so parental guidance is advised. There are a whole host of characters in Princess Mononoke each with their own strengths and foibles and each carrying a different lesson. The strengths of the movie lie in its lessons and the amazing animation that rivals just about everything I’ve ever seen. The movie has drama, humor, sexual innuendo, romance, sadness – it really runs from one end of the spectrum to the other in eliciting emotions from the viewer.

Originally a movie written by Hayao Miyazaki the movie was adapted into English by Neil Gaiman and the version I viewed was dubbed over with English-speaking actors (including the voices of Billy Bob Thorton, Claire Danes and Minnie Driver). I know for some people dubbing is poison but it really didn’t take away the beauty of the movie. Speaking more than one language, I understand that sometimes poeticism is lost in translation but that is to be expected – some things in Japanese just won’t have the same oomph when translated to English. I do remember watching the movie and thinking that it was however, very poetic and spiritual and yet my boyfriend who was “not gonna watch some sissy cartoon” sat down for the over two hours of action that the movie had to offer.


In addition to teaching you an invaluable lesson about nature, technology, humanity and compassion – Princess Mononoke really is breathtaking. Having said that anime wasn’t really my “thing” this movie has piqued my interested and made me want to see a few more films. There seems to be no stone left unturned and all the details are wrapped up – you finish watching this film satisfied. There are so many little treasures in this film that I hesitate to go into too many details because I feel that they should be appreciated for the first time while watching the film and not while reading about it.

- Final Thoughts -

I owe a truckload of thanks to Psychovant for making me watch this movie. I was enthralled, enchanted and totally wrong about anime. I would recommend this movie to someone who likes action or someone who is down to earth or in touch with nature if you will.