Why you should not see Princess Mononoke
Adam Wade
Princess Mononoke could be one of the worst anime movies of all time. This
movie has bad acting, bad character choice, and some unbelievable scenes.
Synopsis
This anime movie starts off in the forest, the outskirts of the village that the main
character Ashitaka lives. When a boar god comes thrashing through the forest running
towards Ashitaka’s village, he quickly realizes it needs to be stopped. He does kill the
demon god, but not before it touches him. This is bad Ashitaka is told by his tribal elder’s
that it will be a slow painful death with this touch. The only way to stop it is by going
into the forest and finding the forest spirit and asking for the forest spirit to save him.
While Ashitaka goes on his journey to the forest spirit he runs into some injured
men from Iron town. These men are workers for the town that had been attacked from the
Wolf god and San (Princess mononoke). The Wolf god and San attacked them because of
their town, it is hurting the forest so they want the humans gone. Ashitaka takes the men
back to Iron town where he meets Lady Eboshi and see gets a tour of Iron town.
While Ashitaka is at Iron town San decides to attack and try to kill Lady Eboshi,
but the Iron town men created a trap fro San and they were going to kill her until
Ashitaka stepped in and saved San, while getting shot. San then returned the favor and
saved Ashitaka, she took him to the forest spirit where he healed his wound, but not the
demon that was taking over him.
After this Ashitaka stayed with the Wolf god and San, while there Ashitaka and
San create a sort of bond. The Wolf god does not like humans and does not like Ashitaka
so he kicks him out. This is when Ashitaka learns that Lady Eboshi and troops are going
to try and kill the forest spirit.
Acting
Some of the people that they had chosen for the actors were really bad choices for
the movie. One of the choices that had really stuck out in my mind was the use of Billy
Bob Thornton. This made it very hard to get into the movie for me, because your hearing
a Texas accent in the body of a monk. Granted, he does make a good villain in most
movies, but in this movie his voice does not fit the part. How many Japanese monks do
you know running around with Texas accents? This was not the only problem with the
acting though, they had also done a horrible job giving their parts life.
As the movie progresses, their voices do not have enough emotion to fully capture
what is happening on screen. It is like watching a character jumping up and down in
excitement, yet hearing the voice say in a very uninspiring way “Yay”. The acting in
anime is something that really sets the tone for the movie, and when you do not get a
stellar performance from the actors it can turn a great movie into a horrible movie. I
would suggest if you would like to watch this movie to get the Japanese movie with
English subtitles, so that you are not subjected to a horrible English dubbed version. The
acting unfortunately was not the only reason you should not see this movie, also there
were some issues with the art.
Art
The art was a very good aspect of the movie, but in my opinion they really
botched some of the aspects that could have really made the film better. For instance the
Forest spirit, they picked out an animal that really has no power in real life. They should
have picked something that shows its power like having the wolf be the forest spirit, or
because the wolf was crucial to the movie they could have gone with a tiger.
Another part of the art that really bothered me was the gore, because a lot of kids
are going to watch this film. It was incredibly gruesome especially when he would
decapitate them with a single bow and arrow shot spewing blood shooting up in the air.
Not only is this unbelievable, but in my opinion it is way too violent for any child to see.
Some other parts of the art that really bothered me were the way that they
depicted the demon that takes over the gods, except for Ashitaka which I will get into
later. But they were worm like creatures that encompassed their entire body, in my
opinion this does not really get the point across that it is a demon taking them over. They
should have had come up with something more creative than a bunch of worms covering
the gods bodies.
The art usages could have been something that they could easily have fixed and
something that should have been a lot better. It could have made this movie a lot better if
they would just change these simple things.
Unbelievable Scenes
Like I had stated before in the paper, there were some pretty unbelievable scenes
starting with the demon spirit. First off, the demon spirit some how immediately could
take over the god’s body, but when it came to Ashitaka, it took a lot longer. To me this
sounds a little strange and really brought down the movie, a normal human being
basically outlasted a God.
Another unbelievable scene was when Ashitaka, possessed by the demon spirit,
completely decapitates a person just by shooting him with a bow and arrow. Yes, I know
that this is a movie and that it is depicting how much strength this demon spirit gives him,
but did it really need to go that far? Not only did he decapitate the man, but he also was
shot numerous amounts of times and he could walk and save Princess Mononoke. I can
understand over-exaggerating for effect but I like my movies to be, in my eyes, possible
in most aspects. Yes, I know that God’s would never roam the planet, but did they have
to go this far into make believe to get the point across.
The unbelievable scenes for me was something that really turned me away from
this movie. It really took the movie down a notch with unnecessary scenes of showing
how powerful the demon inside of him was.
Conclusion
This movie was a movie that I would not recommend to people if you are not into
anime movies, because it had so many bad aspects to it. This film did not have any
aspects to create a good anime film, they had bad acting which is essential to getting you
into the movie. They also had bad art choices which in anime is huge to the out come of
the film. I do not believe that they made this film come alive with these first two mistakes
and to add on to how bad this movie was they also had unbelievable scenes. If it were not
from these mistakes that could have been changed, the movie would have been good, but
all of these combined to make one of the worst anime movie.
Reference: "Princess mononoke." 12 Oct 2008
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_Mononoke>.
Movie Image Tripod, "Princess Mononoke". 10/19/2008
<http://movieimage.tripod.com/mononoke/>.