Line #10 Trivia/PrincessMononoke


1	* ActingForTwo:
2	** Though credited for voicing San, Yuriko Ishida also voices Kaya, a girl in Ashitaka's village.
3	** Creator/SumiShimamoto voiced Toki as well as one of the Emishi villagers at the beginning of the film.
4	** Okottonushi and the Emishi elder are both played by the late Hisaya Morishige.
5	** Kimihiro Reizei voices Jibashiri as well as an Irontown cattleman.
6	** Kei Iinuma voices an older man and one of Irontown's chief lepers.
7	* CelebrityVoiceActor:
8	** The original Japanese version is an interesting case: at the instigation of Creator/HayaoMiyazaki, ''Princess Mononoke'' is the first Ghibli film that uses celebrities to provide the voice of the main characters of this film; since then, all of the Ghibli films used celebrities to voice the main characters. The only known professional with a named role in the movie is Creator/SumiShimamoto as Toki, Lady Eboshi's servant.
9	** The English dub of this film and all later Ghibli films featured well-known celebrities. Creator/BillyCrudup, Creator/ClaireDanes, Creator/GillianAnderson, Creator/MinnieDriver, Creator/BillyBobThornton, Creator/JadaPinkett-Smith, and Creator/KeithDavid, among others.
10	* CrossDressingVoices: Moro is voiced by a man, in this case Akihiro Miwa, in the Japanese version. This comes from Japanese mythology which says that wolves are always male-voiced (and cats always female-voiced), regardless of sex.
11	* DuelingDubs: There's ''three'' Latin American Spanish dubs, all of them dubbed in Mexico, but one of them in a different city: The Buena Vista dub, which was dubbed in Monterrey, and the Zima and Wild Bunch dubs, both dubbed in Mexico City. The Wild Bunch one, used in Creator/{{Netflix}}, is considered as more faithful to the original Japanese version, since it was dubbed from the original language, rather than using the English Miramax version as proxy translation.
12	* ExecutiveMeddling:
13	** The Weinstein brothers attempted to remove 20 minutes from the English release to earn a PG rating despite the Disney/Ghibli distribution agreement prohibiting any edits to the footage (as Creator/{{Miramax}} was a division of Disney at the time). When Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki found this out after a very successful screening for the New York Film Critics Circle, he sent the Miramax executives a katana with a note attached: "No cuts" -- very much mindful of what had happened the [[Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind last time]] a Ghibli film got trimmed for a Western audience. Even then, Harvey Weinstein kept trying to stand his ground, this time seeking to axe an even stricter 40 minutes behind Ghibli's backs; he only acquiesced when the PG-13 film earned a rave review from the ''New York Times'' that didn't mention the length at all. Finally, Weinstein [[InvisibleAdvertising scrapped the planned elaborate promotional campaign for the film]] out of spite.
14	** When Creator/NeilGaiman scripted five drafts for the English adaptation, Miramax ended up rewriting his scripts. Six months later, however, Gaiman returned to finish what he started, but the execs (from Miramax and surprisingly, even Studio Ghibli themselves) deleted his name from the theatrical posters and thus he went uncredited until he revealed his role via Twitter.
15	* ExtremelyLengthyCreation: Creator/HayaoMiyazaki took 16 years to fully develop the characters and plot of the film.
16	* FakeNationality: Tokyo native Yōji Matsuda plays the Emishi prince Ashitaka.
17	* InvisibleAdvertising: According to English scriptwriter Creator/NeilGaiman, much of the lackluster impact ''Mononoke'' made in theaters was because of Weinstein being petty. On the night before the ''New York Times'' was due to release their review of the film, both men were having dinner with Suzuki and Miyazaki. Weinstein took Gaiman aside and revealed he planned to circumvent Creator/StudioGhibli's "no cuts" policy and remove forty minutes from the film anyways, intending to tell Suzuki and Miyazaki as much. "Tomorrow the ''New York Times'' review is going to come out and say it's too long. And then they will listen to me," Weinstein reportedly said. When the review not only ended up calling ''Mononoke'' a "landmark feat of Japanese animation", but didn't call the film long even a single time, all the fancy promotion that had been planned for the film suddenly went ''poof''. Gaiman claims that Weinstein didn't even attend the premiere screening in Hollywood.
18	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Disney's sale of Miramax was in the way of any possible re-release in the US for several years, although Alliance Films in Canada was still able to print its release. Miramax's rights lapsed at some point and Disney re-issued the film (officially re-printing the original DVD release from Buena Vista Home Entertainment re-badged in Disney's Ghibli package design and with almost every mention of Miramax removed) in 2012, with a Blu-ray release in 2014. GKIDS would gain the home media rights to the film in 2017 (with distribution by Creator/ShoutFactory), 20 years after the film's initial release.
19	* LateExportForYou: Of all Disney/Miramax-produced dubs released between 2000 and 2001, the one that had a long-time trouble on being released in its target country was one in Brazilian Portuguese. At first, as Disney used to have the (mostly-)worldwide rights at the time for the movie, they just [[NoExportForYou screwed it especially for the Brazilian market]] not releasing it in any media, being it VHS, DVD, television, cinema, anything. As some media say, the company refused to do it because of its graphic content, alleging "[[AnimationAgeGhetto it was very harmful to children]]". However, it was discovered in the same year that the Japanese DVD released at the time included the Disney/Miramax dubs, especially that Brazilian one. But... despite the good news, it remained Japan-only for a long time. The first sight for an official movie release in the country just started in 2010 through an Creator/{{HBO}} channel, but still... [[NoDubForYou it was sub-only]]. The dub finally got its chance in the country four years after that subbed broadcast, through a DVD that is part of a special Ghibli collection.
20	* PlayingAgainstType: An ADR studio variant. The first Latin American Spanish dub was dubbed by a voice acting studio located in Monterrey, Mexico named Musitrón, which traditionally dubbed stuff for Disney. This film was their only {{Anime}} production they dubbed before Musitrón stopped doing dubs at the latter 2000s.
21	* ProductionPosse: There are several Hayao Miyazaki regulars in the film:
22	** Yoji Matsuda (Ashitaka) previously appeared as Asbel in ''Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind''.
23	** Creator/SumiShimamoto, who voiced Toki, also appeared in several of Miyazaki's earlier films; she played Clarisse d'Cagliostro in ''Anime/TheCastleOfCagliostro'', voiced Nausicaä in ''Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'', and also appeared as Yasuko Kusakabe in ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro''.
24	** This was Tsunehiko Kamijo's second Ghibli film. He previously voiced Capo in ''Anime/PorcoRosso''.
25	** Composer Joe Hisaishi wrote the music to all of Miyazaki's works since ''Nausicaä''.
26	** Color designer Michiyo Yasuda and editor Takeshi Seyama had worked with Miyazaki since ''Anime/CastleInTheSky''.
27	* ShortRunInPeru: The DVD release falls under this trope, as the film was released on DVD in North America on '''December 19, 2000''', before it was in Japan on November 21, 2001.
28	* SoMyKidsCanWatch: Billy Bob Thornton explains on the DVD that this is part of the reason he took the part of Jigo. [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids Unfortunately...]]
29	* StudioHop: The film was originally released by Disney in North America, before switching to GKIDS in 2017.
30	* SwanSong: This film was Yoshifumi Kondo's final work as an animation director before his death on January 21, 1998.
31	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
32	** The earliest concepts Miyazaki had that involved a Mononoke spirit was actually his re-telling of ''Beauty and the Beast''.
33	** More early concept art details a version of the film starring a prototypical [[Anime/MyNeighborTotoro Satsuki and Totoro]] in feudal Japan; it's likely that this is what provided the basis for Totoro's own film in 1988. This artwork did eventually see a public release in the art book ''Princess Mononoke: The First Story''.
34	** [[Creator/LeonardoDiCaprio Leonardo [=DiCaprio=]]] was considered to voice Ashitaka in the English dub. It would have been a CastingGag since Claire Danes was the voice of San, which would have made this the [[Film/WilliamShakespearesRomeoAndJuliet second time]] they had been StarCrossedLovers.
35	** Miyazaki intended for this film to be his last, but came out of retirement after conceiving the story for ''Anime/SpiritedAway''.
36	** During the English dub's production, Miramax originally contacted Creator/QuentinTarantino of all people to write the script adaptation. Tarantino instead recommended Neil Gaiman to write the script as he was busy doing ''Film/JackieBrown''. After Gaiman finished five drafts, Miramax went on to update his adaptation for the next six months. When that didn't go over well, Gaiman was brought back to finish the script for its final release.
37	* WorkingTitle: ''The Legend of Ashitaka''
38
39	!!General Trivia

Context Trivia / PrincessMononoke