Let’s talk about Princess Mononoke, when director Hayao Miyazaki just had it with people.
Mononoke. What’s it mean?
Nowadays, there’s a Japanese word that means supernatural creatures or phenonema-- phenomena.
They’re called yōkai 妖怪.
It’s an old word, but it only became all the rage recently in the Meiji Period.
Before that, supernatural creatures were called all kinds of different names like yūrei 幽霊
or bakemono 化け物.
But even before that, in ancient times, they used this old word “mononoke もののけ.”
It didn’t mean something so clear like supernatural creatures.
Mononoke were mysterious forces.
You can’t see them. You can’t touch them.
They were that spooky presence that seemed to hang around in scary places like forests,
mountains, and your hallway.
Mononoke had a negative vibe, something you should fear.
Back then, the natural world outside your home or village was scary, especially places
far from civilization like forests, oceans, and mountains.
Imagine walking alone at night in the woods.
Who knows what kind of creatures or spirits lurked around you.
I get scared just taking the trash out at night.
Mononoke was the name people gave to these scary things out in the world that could attack
them at any time.
They eventually updated the word’s meaning to become more like spirits that could possess
you and cause you to get sick or die, but the older meaning probably applies best
to the movie.
The movie is about a conflict between two really different groups.
On one side, you have terrifying monsters that will kill you without hesitation, and
on the other side, you have the animals of the forest.
The humans fight against what they think are dark, mysterious forces.
People in the movie are scared of the woods.
When Ashitaka emerges from the forest carrying the wounded, the villagers at first are like,
“Oh crap, are they mononoke?”
This is why they call San “Princess Mononoke,” because she’s on the side of the forest.
It could also be them insulting her, like “hey look at this brat, a human fighting
against her own side. I bet she’s a vegan.”
When are we?
When the movie starts, we’re dropped into a fight between a boy and a demon boar,
which is how every movie should start.
You may think it’s some wonderful fantasy land.
It’s actually Japan right at the start of the Sengoku Period, a time when famous samurai
went around fighting for land and glory.
So yes, it is a wonderful weeb fantasy land.
Ashitaka is one of the last Emishi, an ethnic group whose ancestors were the first peoples
in Japan.
Real quick, if you haven’t seen my videos on it, the first people in Japan were the
Jomon, who called the Japanese archipelago home for thousands and thousands of years.
Then the Yayoi came over to couchsurf for a bit, but they were terrible guests and eventually
took over the place.
One Yayoi kingdom called the Yamato beat all the other Yayoi.
Their state would later become the Japan that we know.
They called anyone outside of their control Emishi.
The Yamato state eventually wiped out the Emishi.
Well, some Emishi moved north to Hokkaido and merged with some other peoples
and became the Ainu.
The Ainu still exist today, but that’s enough about them,
at least that’s what the Japanese government said.
Knowing what happened to the Emishi, and knowing that Ashitaka comes from the last Emishi village,
it helps us recognize the plight of the forest.
The Japanese eliminated the Emishi, and they would do the same to the animals and spirits
of the forest as well.
The Boar.
When Nago the boar spirit attacks Ashitaka’s village,
the old man in the watchtower calls him a “tatarigami 祟り神,”
which means “curse spirit” or “curse god.”
A tatarigami is a powerful spirit that seeks revenge on those who wronged it,
and it’s not fond of quaint countryside villages.
One famous tatarigami is Yamata no Orochi 八岐大蛇, a giant snake with 8 heads and 8 tails.
He’s real terrifying, but probably has issues moving in a straight line.
Nago’s hatred for humans makes him a demon, and like any good anime,
this demon sprouts tentacles.
True to the name “curse spirit,” the tentacles touch Ashitaka and curse him to die.
But it does give him superstrength, so he can pursue his favorite hobby of
removing samurai heads with arrows.
Nago and all the other animal spirits, and the kodama are examples of kami 神, which
is usually translated as spirit, god, or phenomenomon.
In the Shinto religion, the Japanese believe that the world is full of kami.
This was explained in one sentence by a famous philosopher.
Every rock and tree and creature, has a life, has a spirit, has a name-- wtf?
Okay not totally true, but true enough.
Basically anything significant is a kami.
A weird looking tree? That’s significant. Probably a kami.
Your student debt? That’s significant. Probably a kami.
So the humans destroying the forest would not only destroy the normal animal and plant life,
it would destroy the kami who live there as well.
Ashitaka.
Ashitaka’s story borrows a lot of imagery from old stories about Yamato Takeru ヤマトタケル,
a legendary prince from Japan’s foundation myths.
In fact, a lot of the animals in the movie are in these legends.
In one story, Yamato Takeru killed a god of the mountain, in the Ashigara Pass,
who was in the shape of a deer.
In another, a god in the shape of a boar challenged him to a fight, but he didn’t accept.
In another, he was lost in the mountains and a white dog guided him out.
This white dog could’ve been a wolf because the Japanese use the word dog to refer to wolves all the time.
In another story, the prince was exhausted and refreshed himself by drinking from a spring.
So did I mention that Ashitaka is an Emishi.
This is important. He’s not Japanese.
He is an outsider to everyone in the main story.
That’s why his clothing, his village, and his beliefs are so different.
He even uses a sword that looks like a warabitetō, which really gives me a WAP,
because it’s a real sword type that came from the Emishi.
Ashitaka cuts off his topknot before leaving the village.
Look, topknots were a big deal okay?
A status symbol.
For example, it used to be a symbol of the samurai, and a samurai would cut off his topknot
if he ever chose to leave everything behind to, say, become a monk.
Ashitaka cutting off his topknot means a similar thing.
He leaves behind his status as the future leader of the village.
Ashitaka refuses to tell people where he’s from because he doesn’t want the Japanese
to come absorb his village too, the last Emishi village.
Being Emishi, Ashitaka is not on the side of Irontown or the emperor or the samurai.
But he’s also not on the side of the forest spirits either.
They’re Japanese gods, not Emishi gods.
He doesn’t worship them.
This makes Ashitaka a neutral outside observer.
San and the Wolves.
We first see San and the wolves when they attack the people of Irontown.
One of the men calls them inugami 犬神, which means “dog kami,” or “dog spirit.”
Inugami do exist in Japanese folklore, they’re these supernatural creatures that look like
dogs, but they can possess humans like a ghost.
Obviously, these wolves can’t possess people, but it shows you how scared the townsfolk
are of the forest and its mononoke.
Also, the word inu 犬 means dog, but the Japanese often use the word dog to refer to wolves.
San calls herself a yamainu 山犬, or mountain dog.
Wolves are seen as guardians of mountains and mountain villages.
San sees herself as a wolf, so it makes sense for her to protect the forests and the mountains.
Ironically, wolves are also supposed to protect crops from boars and deer.
Farmers would pray and give offerings to wolf spirits to protect their crops.
San was raised by wolves, which gives her massive street cred in the Studio Ghibli reunion.
Being raised by wolves is not a new idea.
There is a legend that one leader of the famous Fujiwara clan, Fujiwara no Hidehira 藤原 秀衡,
was also raised by wolves after he was abandoned in the forest as a baby.
To be fair, he was a terrible baby.
There’s also a belief that giving babies wolf milk would make them grow up strong.
Moro, the mama wolf, has 2 tails.
This could be a reference to the nekomata 猫又, a supernatural cat that also has 2 tails.
These cats can grow big and have no problems killing people.
They can even throw fireballs.
The tails could also be a reference to the kitsune 狐, the fox.
In folklore land, the fox is a magical creature that likes to shapeshift into humans.
They also grow a new tail every 100 years, growing wiser and more powerful with each new tail.
The most powerful kitsune have 9 tails.
Lady Eboshi.
Lady Eboshi wears men’s clothing.
She even has a topknot, which only men are supposed to have.
It fits with how she governs Irontown.
The town is egalitarian, where the women work at the forge instead of the men.
The word eboshi 烏帽子 means those black hats you see Japanese men wear in old paintings.
They came in all different shapes and sizes.
Commoners wore the soft kind, but court nobles and samurai wore the hard kind that often
stood up in weird shapes so they could qualify to ride on roller coasters.
Lady Eboshi herself doesn’t wear an eboshi though, she wears a hat in the shape of a
type of straw hat called torioi gasa 鳥追笠, though her hat doesn’t seem to be made from straw.
This type of hat used to just be a good way to shade your face from the sun, but nowadays
are worn by female folk dancers.
A long time ago, there used to be female entertainers called shirabyōshi 白拍子, who sang and
danced wearing men’s clothing, they even carried a sword.
This may point to Lady Eboshi’s past, maybe she used to be a shirabyōshi dancer.
It would fit the theme, since the townswomen are former adult entertainers.
Jikobō.
One thing about Jikobō, or Jigo in the English version.
He wears these sandals that only have one tooth, called tengu geta 天狗下駄,
named after the tengu, creatures with dangerous and powerful magic that can really ruin your day
but you just can’t take them seriously because of their ridiculous noses.
They also like to disguise themselves as mountain monks.
Remember, Jikobō is also a monk.
Those sandals are a little clue that you shouldn’t trust the guy.
And also his mustache. You can’t trust anyone with that mustache.
Kodama.
The kodama 木霊 does exist in Japanese folklore, but they don’t look like this.
These cute and creepy little spirits with their adorable little butts came out of the
amazing mind of director Miyazaki.
He said he was influenced by a manga called Mudmen, made by Morohoshi Daijirō.
The manga was about the mudmen of the Asaro tribe in Papua New Guinea.
You can see the kodama’s faces look like the masks in the manga.
Those masks also clearly inspired San’s own mask.
The character in the manga also wears face paint, similar to San.
The traditional kodama are spirits that live in trees.
If you cut down a tree that has kodama living in it, you would become cursed and may even die.
Sometimes, blood would gush forth from the cuts you make to such a tree.
Sometimes kodama will appear as floating lights around trees.
Spirit of the Forest.
So the Shishigami シシ神 looks like a deer with the face of a human,
or at least a human that just woke up.
It’s often translated as Deer God, or “Dear god that’s a crazy ass head,”
but this is not accurate.
It means more like beast god, a god of all the beasts in the forest.
So Spirit of the Forest is probably a better translation.
The Shishigami may have been based on the Kasuga Deer Mandala paintings that became
popular in the late Heian Period.
They just look similar.
Deer are seen as messengers of the gods.
They’re especially associated with the god Takemikazuchi 建御雷,
who is worshipped in the Kasuga Shrine.
Today, the path to the Kasuga Shrine actually goes through a deer park where adorable deer
roam free for tourists to feed.
You don’t believe they’re messengers of the gods?
Well, listen to this.
If you bow to them, they will bow back.
That settles it. They’re truly polite messengers of the gods.
Or they just want food.
The paintings show a tree attached to the deer’s back, covered with wisteria vines.
Wisteria is a symbol of the Fujiwara clan.
Fujiwara means “field of wisteria.”
The Kasuga Shrine was built by the Fujiwara and became their main shrine.
On top of the tree lies a mirror showing 5 local Shinto gods depicted as Buddhist gods,
showing that Buddhism and the native Japanese beliefs were intertwined.
In the movie, the Shishigami doesn’t have a tree attached to its body, but it does have
big ol antlers that look kinda like tree branches.
The weird kinda-human-looking face is actually a thing in Japanese folklore.
There are a whole bunch of creatures with the body of an animal but the face of a human.
Like the kudan 件, a cow with a human face.
The hōkō 彭侯, a dog with a human face.
Or the Linfamy, a god with a human face.
At night, the Spirit of the Forest turns into the Nightwalker.
In Japanese, it’s called the Deidarabotchi デイダラボッチ.
These are gigantic humanoid creatures.
These giants are a lot bigger than the one in the film.
They’re so big that their footsteps leave behind whole lakes.
They can move mountains.
It’s said that Mount Fuji was created by a deidarabotchi when it scooped up dirt from
the surrounding area and put it in a big pile, which became Mount Fuji.
Alright.
This isn’t a full analysis of the movie, just a list of interesting folklore references.
Let me know if I missed anything interesting.
And check out these folktales videos.
If you like.
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Pikapoolvince who is pika-cool, and KP Wong who does no wrong.
Thanks so much you guys.
Alright, I love you, and spread the knowledge!