not a review, just a few of my favorite images

Rating: 10/10 (10 January 2007)

The *cinematography*: wind blown prairies and lakes, morning sunlight filtering through the forest, sudden, brief mountain showers: Hiroshigi as an animator! Too bad they didn't work in a snow scene too; the Emishi lived in the north of Japan which gets plenty of snow.
Iridescent dragon flies.
San pre-chewing food for Ashitaka: moving and erotic.
The Great Forest Spirit/Deer God as the Night Walker: Liquid Godzilla.
Vegetation springing up in footsteps of the Great Forest Spirit and butterflies feeding in the tracks afterward.
The Great Forest Spirit's pool and the islets within: a graveyard littered with bones.
Dead Kodamas falling from the trees like autumn leaves.
One objection: The apes. They appear in three separate animation styles, the first two being well below the standards of the rest of the movie. Only in their last scene are they even convincingly apes, although even then they are not the right kind of ape. Japanese macaques are instantly recognizable with their bright pink faces and bushy gray-blond hair.