FINAL PROJECT
ENG 102
PRO: DR SMITH
STUDENT : ZIYIN LI
Princess Mononoke
During the time i was working on my final project for eng102 class. I spend around two days to do alot reasearch for my final project. Finally, i have decided to write about a japanese cartoon movie.The movie is call “princess Mononoke” and in japanese version is call “ Mononoke-hime”. This movie is a 1997 japanese animated historical fantasy feature film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli.The “Princess Mononoke” was extremely successful in japan and other countries withc both anime fans and who love to watch art film in different speaking countries. So that means “Princess Mononoke” is an very popular film in the whole world. In those countries, it was widely onterpreted as a film about the environment told in the form of japanese mythology. As the time when people were wathcing the film then they will have a overview of the old japanese culture. The famous american film critic Roger Ebert placed the movie sixth on his top movies of 1999. During the time, “Prinecss Mononoke” also becam the highest grossing movie in japan.Overall, “Princess Mononoke” is the third highest grossing anime movie in japan. The whole story of this film is amazing because the whole film is all supernatural type film. The setting of “Princess Mononoke” is aperiod drama set specifically in the late Muromachi period which mean around thousands years ago from now of japan but with numerous fantastic elements. Which is also a medieval transformantion into the modem period, the power of great general “yi zheng” substantially weakened. In the scene the place is said to be located off the coast of kyushu, and the yakushima island is located in the ancient forests and the northern state of shirakami mountains.In this film, the story concentrates on involvement of the outsider Ashitaka in the struggle betweent the supernatural guardians of a forest and the humans of the Irontown who consume its resources. One of the main character the outsider ashitaka came from Ezo tribes, they are primitive peoples in northern, and they against the japanese imperial family for along period of time.But they lost at the end and some of them are still living in the northern of a small village and the outsider ashitaka is one of them from the story.The main theme of the whole film is there are no good things and evil things in this struggle adn the sympathies of the film makers keep switching.There can be no clear victory, and the hope is that relationship between humans and the nature is cyclic.Also the film director Miyazaki want to show his audians how the film “ Princess Mononoke” can work for us, if humans are in the destruction of the enviroment, and whether humansare really peaceful with nature and other issues. For me, There are many reasons that why i decided to talked about “Princess Mononoke”, first of all, i really love Hayao Miyazaki’s all cartoon movies and the “Princess Mononoke” is the one attrac me the most because the whole film is all about supernaural and comes witch alot fantastic things and interesting characters in the film.Also there is an other reason is which i think “Prinecess Mononoke” can related the class about “ supernatural” the most and also i think this movie have many similar ideas like what i have learned from this class before.
At the begaining of the film, the story was started with one of the main character and named Ashitaka. Who was the last Emishi prince in his village. In one day morining, when people were working on their farm then there was a big monster named Nago came to the village and try to kill all the human in this village. The character Ashitaka was the person who was battling this monster Nago at the began. During the fight, Ashitaka is wounded on his arm by Nago.After the boar is killed, the village wisewoman told him that the wound si cursed and will spread to the rest of his body, eventually killing him. That was the key how the whole story began and it is also the reason why Ashitaka have to all the way travel to the west. After that he prepared to go to th west and find out what happened on his arm, so he cuts his hair, signifying his permanent departure from his village, and leaves on Yakul, which is his red elk. Some time later, Ashitaka passes by a village being attacked by samurai. During the time he was traveling, he stand by at another farm and he saw there was many soldiers were killing famers and he trired to help them. But there is something wrong witch his arm again because when some of the men attack him, forcing Ashitaka to defend himself. His cursed arm displays supernatural powers, primarily superstrength, causing his arrows to remove limbs and even the head of one man. That’s means he can’t conctrol his own arm. Later after the fight, Ashitaka went to a nearby town and he meets Jigo there. a wandering monk who aids him in buying rice. That evening, the monk tells Ashitaka that the he might find help in the Deer God forest in the mountains of the west populated by giant animal gods. The monk also adds that the forest is a no go zone for humans. After that night, Ashitaka decided to keep traveling. Later on, he stoped by A nearby town in the mountains of the west, called Iron Town,continually clears the nearby forests to make charcoal to smelt irosand, leading to battles with the giant forest beasts attempting to protect their diminishing forest. In one such battle, three giant wolves which are all supernatural wolves, led by the wolf god Moro, attack villagers transporting rice. They are accompanied by San, a human girl adopted by the wolves whom the people of Iron Town call "the Wolf Girl" and she is also the most important person in the whole film.who also named “princess mononoke” in the story. In the attack Moro and several villagers are injured. The day following the battle, Ashitaka finds two injured villagers near a river. While rescuing them, he sees San treating Moro's wounds, when ashitake tried to say something to her and she disappears quickly. He returns the villagers to Iron Town passing through a forest full of bestial gods, including diminutive tree spirits called kodama. Also in the forest is the Forest Spirit (Shishigami in the original Japanese), described as a "god of life and death", who takes the form of a deer-like kirin during the day and a large shadowy “night walker” at night.
Ashitaka is given a warm welcome when he reaches Iron Town because he saved their people and he is also a good lookin guy so all the women in the iron town are likes him. During the time he was staying there, He learned from the leader of Iron Town, Lady Eboshi who is another important person in the film, that the giant boar which cursed him was once a forest god called Nago and that Eboshi had shot the boar, driving it to madness. On hearing this,he realized that why there are many madness on his arm. Ashitaka is filled with rage and must restrain his right arm from killing Eboshi. He is dissuaded from doing so by lepers whom Eboshi has taken under her care and employed as gunmakers. She also employs former prostitutes in her famous ironworks in order to free them from brothels. At the same night, Iron Town is then infiltrated by San, who attacks Eboshi. Ashitaka intervenes using his curses power to stop the two sides' fighting and takes San back to the forest, but is severely wounded when he is shot through the chest. With his curse's power, he manages to open the gate and leave the town, but collapses soon afterward. San presents Ashitaka to the Forest Spirit, who heals his wounds but does not remove the curse. San soon learns that the boars, under the leadership of the boar god Okkoto, are planning another attack on Iron Town. Eboshi prepares for the assault and sets out to destroy the Forest Spirit. The head of the Forest Spirit is believed to grant immortality. Jigo, who is now revealed to be a mercenary-hunter, plans to give the head to the emperor; in return the emperor promises to give Iron Town legal protection against the envious daimyos. coveting the town's prosperity. Eboshi, however, suspects (correctly) that the emperor's agents are also assigned to take control of Irontown at the most opportune moment. Meanwhile, Ashitaka recovers and falls in love with San. However, Moro, who is poisoned by the bullet Eboshi shot into her, warns him that he cannot save San.
During the battle, Iron Town and the Imperial agents set a trap for the boars, devastating their army, as the sametime while Jigo's hunters corrupt Okkoto with a poisoned iron ball, the same as Nago.then became a monster and Badly wounded, Moro attacks Okkoto to save San, who was trapped on his snout while trying to stop him from turning into a demon.when all of them arrived to the rive then the Forest Spirit appears and kills both Moro and Okkoto because they were transformed to a monster and the Forestspirit though San is saved. While Ashitaka cleans the demon worms from San, by the sametime,Eboshi wasn’t give up about her plan and she thought she could hill the Froest spirit. So she shoots off the Forest Spirit's head while it is transforming into the night-walker and in turn loses her arm to Moro, who revives long enough for one last strike against her sworn enemy. Jigo collects the head as the Forest Spirit's body turns into a "mindless god of death" that begins covering the land in a lethal black that kills everything it touches. The hunters scatter and the population of Iron Town is forced to flee to the surrounding lake as the god destroys the town in search of its head. During the time when the forest spirit was searching his head,Ashitaka and San chase down and take the head from Jigo and return it to the Forest Spirit.when the Forest spirit get his head back then everything became changed. Such as, it collapses into the lake, and the land becomes green again and all the lepers and accursed,that means everything became look like natural or like how the real forest looks like before.including Ashitaka, are healed. Unable to give up the life each of them is used to, Ashitaka and San were helping each other as much as possible. At the end of the film, Ashitaka decides to live at Iron Town, which a reformed Eboshi vows to remake as "a better", much simpler village. The film ends with a Kodama appearing in the rejuvenated forest, signifying that a new life has finally started again.
There are also many interesting archetypes in this film too.The film is not a kind long but there are many different types of characters in the film and all of them have some different archetypes too. Now i am going to talk about two main characters in this film and also explain their archetypes as much as i can. For example, in the story the first main character that came out is Ashitaka and after i watched the film i findout that his archetype is wanderer.According to the Wikipedia,the meaning of wanderer is Itinerant people, who wander from place to place with no permanent home, or are vagrant. Which just a perfect archetype to the main character Ashitaka. The reason why i say that because in the film Ashitaka is a young Ezo.in order during the fight he want to protect his tribe and to be cursed, currse with time due to weak , leading to death. So he decided to go to the west , looking for ways to lift the cure. That is how the film began and also can shows that the character Ashitaka have to go all the way to the west to find out the reason why he was cursed. During his travling, he went to many different places and meet many different kind of people too. Such as, he went to the village and killed some soldiers then he meets Jigo. After Ahsitaka met Jigo, he was keep on travling to the west. Then he meets Mononoke and all her family memebers from the forest. He saved people from Iron town and he also moved there and meet many people in that twon. From those details in the film, it is very clear to see that Ashitaka is a kind person that who always move to different places to another and i can tell that Ashitaka’s archetype is wanderer from those details. There is another important character’ arhcetype that i want to talk about is Princess Mononoke. During the research and i find out that her archetype is orphan. According to the Wikipedia, An orphan ( is a child permanently bereaved of his or her parents. In common usage, only a child (or the young of an animal) who has lost both parents is called an orphan. However, adults can also be referred to as orphans, or "adult orphans". The reason why i think Mononoke’s archetype is wanderer because from the film the character Mononoke’s background and her personality i can say that her archetype is orphan. For example, according to the film, sang’s parents were all died because the destruction small forest was attacked by the wolf god, to save your life so be abandoned.Mona the small san wolf as God is his daughter, but also as the Mona small Sang for his mother.Little concern is to defend mulberry forests and animals live together, she even refused to acknowledge that they are human, that she is a wolf. She has repeatedly tried to assassinate the leader of urban black hat lady, because the small black hat Sang believe that once killed and the town people would end the destruction of forests. Ashitaka then let her slowly realize their human side. From those details and her background it is very clear to see that the Princess Mononoke’s archetype is orphan. There is also another archetype that i fond from the film is the Magician and the character is the Forest spirit. According to the wikipeida, the word Magician means Magician (paranormal), a person who performs feats using supernatural means or a character in a fictional fantasy context who performs supernatural feats. The reason why i think Magican can be the Forest spirit’ archetype because the Forest spirit is the beast in th mountains of the ancient gods of forest and also has the supernatural power. Sometimes in order to have a lot of great deer antlers the image to show up, and have feet like birds and baboons face. He has the ablility to provide biological vitcality, but also allows them to death. He also has the ability to heal huaman wounds. From those infromation in the film, it is easy to see that the Magician is the Forest spirit’ archetype.
There are also many interesting symblos that i found from the film. The film is all about supernatural, so there are many symblos that have the supernatural meaning in this film. For example, there are many “pigs” that are appeared in the film and those pigs are comes with some supernatural meaning in the film. Such as the oldest pig this this film is call kyushu, rule of town almost over 500 year lod giant boar. Eyes are blind.with the family holding the black hat against the forest after being turned into demons, led the family to come to crusade against mankind. Although the protoss have hostile relations with the wolfs, for violations of human hate this forest are both the same. it is also can be akind of emotion that those supenatural animals have now because at the same time more and more small family of mental deterioration of the situation was extremely anxious. Another symblos is the word “ wolf”. In this film, the meaning of the word “ wolf ” it is not only can be animal, it is also comes with another supernatural meaning. In this film, the word “wolf” is akind wolf who has three hundred years old knowledges in the forest. Who can also speak human languages and the wolf who saved san’s life. It shows many emotions that animals have and some different types of love that they shows to eachother. The third symblos that i think is very important in this film, is the word “ Forest”. The reason why i say that because according to the wikepida, the word “forest” means a forest (also called a wood, woodland, wold, weald, holt, frith, or firth) is an area with a high density of trees. But in this film the word “ Forest” in this film it is not only about natural enviroment. It has many others meaning, such as, wealty, power, greed, and family. The reason why i say that because huamn are destruction the forest because they want to build their weapons and fight to others or earned more money from the forest. During the time they were attracking the animals we can see their greed on their face and mind. But to those animals, the forest is the only place that they can live and to them the forest is their home.so they can do anything to protect their forest even their life.
In conclusion, during the time i was working on my final project on “Princess Mononoke”. I realized that i learned many new things that i didn’t know befoe. After i watched the film over and over again, i never felt boring about this film and everytime i wathced the film i always had a different feeling that came out about this film. The more times and the more research that i did for this film then some deep or different concept that might come out from my mind. But the most feeling about this film is sadness. The reason why i say that because during the time i was watching the film, there are some parts of the film can make people think more about the relationship between human and the whole natural. At the end of the film, the most sences are all about killing eachother and death. They are also many deep concepts in this film, such as human’ greed, warm, how to protect natural evrionment in the earth etc. In my own opinion, i think the director the film Miyazaki wants to use his film “ Princess Mononoke” in the destruction of the environmentm, and whether peopke really peaceful coexistence with nature and other issues. That is also can be alesson what i l learned from “ Princes Mononoke”.
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