Hayao Miyazaki's Masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (27 May 2001)

Let's get a couple of things straight before I start this review. One, I'm an avid anime fan and a fan of Miyazaki-sama's from long before. Two, I'm also an otaku, a name that many serious anime fans frown upon as some American geek who thinks he knows something about anime, buys all the dubbed tapes, and throws around buzzwords like Dragonball Z. Well, that's not the definition that I would use for myself...I love anime, but alas, I am limited to dubbed tapes that I buy at Suncoast. That is, until I bought a DVD player. Just buying my first DVD player (and placing it right atop my VCR player that had my Trigun tape in it) I proceeded to recollect my anime collection so that I could have the original seiyuu with the literal translations on subtitles...I bought Mononoke Hime, a movie I had seen before, but never in true Japanese, and that is why I write today...
Mononoke Hime is the epic of Ancient Japan at the turn of the Iron Age, in a world filled with mystical spirits with larger than life manifestations throughout the world. Each forest has a spirit protecting it, and none is greater than the Deer God, the god of life and death. Our hero, Prince Ashitaka, has come from the West, cursed by a God that had been shot with an iron bullet, to search for the Deer God's healing touch. He arrives in IronTown (I forget the Japanese name) to find Lady Eboshi, the ruler of the town, slowly incroaching upon the forest, fighting the animal gods and trying to claim more land to draw iron from. Yet, the conflict doesn't begin there...
While in IronTown, a wild girl comes from the mountains on the back of a white wolf, trying to destroy the town and Lady Eboshi along with it. Ashitaka steps in trying to prevent them both from killing each other, and this is where our conflict begins... ....and ends in the same swoop. There is no clear good and evil. I repeat: there is no good clear and evil in this movie. Every side has a real drive for what they are doing, and the typical monolithic evil found in cartoons (which this movie is not, but for comparisons sake, I'll use that word), but a drive for what is best. The animal spirits of the forests are intelligent, yet they are driven only by the force to protect the forest, not by their own intellect. Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Man, Man vs. Oneself, all types of conflict are all here. But, who is evil? No one...all are human, and that's the point that Miyazaki-sama is trying to get across...
Not everyone needs to watch this...by any means, this is not a movie for all. If you didn't get "2001", if you didn't see what the big deal "American Beauty" was, if you really hate anime, don't watch this. This is a confusing and deep movie with real human aspects that our senses have been dulled to by way of children's cartoons. If you're ready for a deep experience, shell out the money and buy this...you'll get lost in a world so deep you'll never want to return.