Princess Mononoke

Released: 1997
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Writer: Hayao Miyazaki

Princess Mononoke is the tenth film by Japanese animation film studio ‘studio Ghibli’, that following its release in 1997 became japans biggest grossing film of all time.
It is set in feudal Japan, during a time of disorder. The main protagonist ‘Ashitaka’ receives a cursed injury while defending his town from a giant boar. He discovers that the curse will spread and eventually kill him. The plot then revolves around his journey into the lands to the west of his village in search of the god of the forest who can heal his affliction. On his quest the attempts to prevent an approaching war between the creatures of the forest and the people of ‘Irontown’ a small, fortified town that has had to cut back the forest for the wood needed to support themselves.
Princess Mononoke is a fantasy adventures the centres around conflict, everything from heated arguments to pitched battles and plenty of competing interests, including cursed monsters, angry gods, ambitious people, and a selfless hero. But remarkably, there is no villain. Even though it comes across as a simple progressive plot the film carries a powerful moral: it states that man’s tampering with nature brings about as much savagery as it does progression. The fact that the film has no single villain adds to the message that this is a real problem and that the blame cannot be placed on a single individual.
The film is in a two dimensional hand drawn style like most other anime (Japanese animation) but the interesting thing about the picture and indeed all of Ghibli’s work is that it is done using traditional cell based animation techniques. This technique is mostly seen as out of date given the increase in computer animations; this is also reflected in the films cost. When released, Mononoke had cost 2.4 billion Japanese yen, making it the most expensive anime ever made. The film was the first that Ghibli had used computer animation in, and features a total of 5 minutes of computer animated footage throughout the film, and a further 10 minutes used digital paint, a technique which is used throughout all subsequent Studio Ghibli films. Despite this Mononoke goes through grate lengths to blend the two in as subtle fashion In fact the CGI serves as support for the majority of the cell based animated film.
Princess Mononoke is in my opinion one of the best animated movies ever made, it harnesses the beauty of traditional animation while at the same time is still able to use computer advancements to further the story without conflicting with the films hand drawn style. I would recommend anyone even if they are not a fan of anime to look past the style of drawing and see the film for all else that it has to offer. All together I conceder it an amazingly well put together film