The Greatest Animated Film Ever Made

Rating: 10/10 (28 February 2016)

This is one of the greatest movies created. If you need a film to convince you that animated movies are not just for kids, check out Grave of the Fireflies. If you need a film to convince you that animation is high art, check out this.
There are four films above this on my list. But none of them strike me with the same sense of awe that this one does. You know that feeling you get when you watch something great for the first time? I get that feeling every time I watch this film.
This was the first animated film to every win the top prize at Japan's equivalent of the Oscars, and that's not for a lack of there being great animated films. All film bodies seem to be biased against animation. So for a film to break through that barrier and win that grand award, it would have so be something really special. And this film is.
It became the highest-grossing film in Japan ever upon release. Even after 20 years, it's still in the top six. The film in the top spot nowadays? Spirited Away.
I love Spirited Away. It is one of the greatest films of all time. I will watch it twenty more times in the future, and if I ever have kids, I'll make sure to show it to them once they get old enough to appreciate it.
But this film is better.
Why? It has a lot to do with the kind of stories the films tell. They both tell their stories extremely well, but Spirited Away is more of a small-scale, conventional story about a girl finding her way home. Princess Mononoke is a grand epic about war, human nature, inevitability, resilience, philosophy, and culture.
The best description I can come up with is that this film would Japan's version of The Iliad if The Iliad was as sprawling and beautiful as The Lord of the Rings. But that description does not really do it justice. This is a movie I can spend hours discussing and analyzing from every angle. Even if I saw it a thousand times, I don't think I'd ever get tired of it.
Our lead is Prince Ashitaka, who in defending his village had his hand cursed by a demon. He must leave his people, who are rapidly dying out, and ride west to in an attempt to get his hand cured by the forest spirit. But there is a war raging between the forest and man, and he must attempt to negotiate a peace between the two sides if he hopes to get healed. He meets up with San, the titular Princess Mononoke, who was raised by wolves after being abandoned by her human parents. She has a nasty hatred for all things human, but she ends up falling in love with Ashitaka, and the two of them put their lives on the line to bring peace and stop man and beast alike from being torn to pieces.
Technically, this is an environmental movie, but it's not preachy or one-sided or simplistic or even biased in favor of nature. It simply presents the two sides and lets the viewer think what they will. Even if this movie were bad, I would give it immense respect for that. Whereas lesser movies are afraid of nuance, this film is built upon it.
The characters are a great example of this. There is no real 'bad guy' in this film, just forces and players and people with ambitions and people with understandable prejudices. No character is perfect, but every character is relatable, resulting in a piece of complex and nuanced art.
And it is most certainly is art. If there were ever a movie that deserved to be calm, it's this one. The story is electric. The animation is gorgeous. The music is some of the best I've heard in any film. The emotions these 120 or so minutes evoke in me are so numerous and complex that I couldn't hope to list them here. This film would be worth traveling halfway around the world to see. That's not something I often say.
This film manages to start out great, get better as it goes along, and finish out on a high note. The last twenty minutes are some of the greatest I've ever seen in any film. It takes all the energy and themes that have been present throughout the film and kicks them into hyperdrive. It's so overwhelming, I don't turn off the film until the credits are done rolling. That's how long it takes for me to even begin to unpack the rush that has unfolded before me.
What makes it perfect is that the second credits theme, a replaying of The Legend of Ashitaka, is simply amazing. It a perfect piece of music. It's one of my five favorite pieces of all time. Whenever it randomly comes in my playlist, I get chills down my back. When it comes up in the ends credits, I collapse into a glorious fit of emotions and sensual overload and glorious euphoria.
From its visuals to its storytelling to its presentation, this is the definitive animated film. It is superb. It is beautiful. It is a masterpiece.