A masterpiece in anime

Rating: 9/10 (9 April 2007)

There have been many times where after watching an anime, I have found myself seriously questioning the value of the medium. Whether due to misogynism, gratuitous violence, or tentacles, I walk away wondering what is going on in Japanese culture. Princess Mononoke, like Miyazaki's other works, is not a vehicle for shameless fan-service, nor does it rely on the tired and implausible concept of mecha as its selling point, unlike so much anime I have seen. Instead, it deals with the age-old tension between human attempts to shape the environment for its own ends and the life-and-death power of nature.
Despite its clear point, Princess Mononoke does not stray into obvious lines of good and evil or try to drop the message on the viewer like an anvil. Rather, it portrays both sides of the conflict in a balanced manner, showing the good and the bad and depicting the harm brought by hate on both sides. Perhaps the only major flaw I can see is that Miyazaki's romanticized monarchism, which leads him to again bring out the decidedly clichéd heroic warrior-prince/princess.