Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli's Monster Princess

by Rayna Denison (Editor), Chris Pallant (Editor), Laz Carter (Contributor)

Princess Mononoke (1997) broke domestic box office records in Japan, keeping pace with the success of Hollywood films like Titanic (1997), making it the first of Studio Ghibli's films to be transnationally distributed as part of a new deal with Disney subsidiary Buena Vista International. Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the release of Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, Rayna Denison curates this new collection critically reflecting on the film's significance within and beyond Japanese culture, engaging critically with the production, and re-production, processes involved in the making of Princess Mononoke; re-evaluating the film's importance within Japanese animation culture; considering the relationship between the film and Japan as well as examining Princess Mononoke's significance within a range of global cultures.

In doing so, the book reveals the way Princess Mononoke's production sits at a turning point in Japanese animation history. By revisiting this undeniably important text, the collection reveals much about the tensions in anime production at that time, and about important cultural and social issues including environmental protection, representation, gender, economics and ideology.

256 pages, Hardcover

Published January 11, 2018

Reviews

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinated by the film, I was looking specifically for an in-depth analysis of the cultural inspirations. This collection of essays sadly doesn't quite deliver that; there's only a single brief, disappointing section covering that. However, keep reading and there's plenty of interesting discussions: the technical development of the film; the international anxieties and inter-personal politics behind the production and distributions; the many complicated issues around translation that you may not have thought about - such as treading the line between literal translation and indigenization; the conflicted nature of anime's reception in the anglosphere; and, most interestingly for me, the role and position of Princess Mononoke's female characters within Miyazaki's seemingly feminist ouvre (which instead often reinforces traditional gender roles and norms).

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly I got this mainly to read the second chapter about the animism, historical narratives and archaeology that inspired the film but the other essays were also interesting. The cover art design is terrible though.