Princess Mononoke - Television Tropes & Idioms

Live.

One of the darkest and arguably most brilliant works from famed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki. Set sometime in 14th or 15th century Japan, the story begins in a small village of the Emishi or Ainu, the indigenous inhabitants of Japan, who by this time have mostly been conquered or driven into hiding in remote corners of the country where they can live in some semblance of peace. But the village's peace is soon shattered by the attack of a terrible demon and their Prince, Ashitaka, is injured stopping it. Worse, the mortally wounded demon is revealed to be a powerful Shinto spirit; a giant boar who curses the Emishi with his last breath and reveals that the wound Ashitaka suffered has put him under a curse as well. So the village elders reluctantly decide that Ashitaka must leave forever before the curse takes full possession of him and travel west in search of his destiny. Ashitaka leaves immediately, following the boar's trail of destruction with an iron ball found embedded in the boar god's side as his only clue.

Ashitaka travels through the war-torn countryside, discovering that his curse has also imparted superhuman strength along the way. Eventually he comes upon the source of the trouble: Irontown, a mining settlement on the edge of the wilderness that's in the midst of a three-way war among the strong-willed Lady Eboshi who protects the town, the spirits/gods of the forest who want to destroy it to protect and avenge their homes, and a powerful lord who wants to seize it for the wealth it generates. There Ashitaka tries his best to create some peace between the various sides, cure his curse, and pursue a relationship with San, a human girl who was raised by the powerful wolf god Moro and fights alongside the forest creatures as events seem to be heading towards inevitable disaster.

The plot bears a strong resemblance to 'The Great Boar of Ben Bulben', of Irish legend.

Incidentally, Neil Gaiman adapted the English dub.

This film contains examples of:

Action Girl: San and Eboshi both have a place here.
A God Am I: Jigo's attempt to take the head of Shishigami/The Forest Spirit for the Emperor in the belief that it will grant immortality.
All Of The Other MONKEYS.
Animal Motifs
Annoying Arrows: Justified and averted. The Gods shake them off, (justified), Ashitaka's demonic strength makes his arrows far deadlier than they would usually be.
Anti Hero: Arguably, San.
Anti Villain: Lady Eboshi. Also Jigo
Anvilicious: The good side of it.
Aristocrats Are Evil: Eboshi is shown to be gray, but her samurai opponent, Lord Asano, is only described as "A greedy bastard". And by a third party, no less.
- Though to be fair, Asano was described as such by Jigo, while he was sucking up to Lady Eboshi - that and he chuckled about it immediately after.
Bad Ass: Ashitaka doesn't brag about it but boy, can he act the part.
- Not forgetting Lady Eboshi, San and Moro.
Big Badass Wolf: Two big badass wolves, and a huge badass one.
Big Brother Instinct: An easy example to miss, but when the normally-pacifistic (particularly at that point) Ashitaka sees the demon boar is charging in a bee line toward his little sister, he unflinchingly shoots it in the eye.
Bittersweet Ending
Body Horror: Rather mild examples, as Body Horror goes, but the fates of both Nago and Okkoto are not for the faint of heart particularly when San is trapped inside Okkoto's demon-flesh.
The Corruption
Crowning Moment Of Awesome: Meta.
Crowning Moment Of Funny: Koroku gets a few of these.
- Don't forget Ashitaka twisting the blade of Gonza's big sword as though it were paper.
Crowning Music Of Awesome
Cursed With Awesome: Sure, whatever Ashitaka has will kill him, but, while he is alive, he is strong enough to decapitate people with arrows.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Less blatant than many examples, as Gods and spirits are shown to be more vulnerable than in most stories, but still obvious at points.
Eboshi: He's a god, you fools — it'll take more than one shot.
Dramatic Wind: When Ashitaka hears the story of Eboshi's battle against the boars, a gust of wind ruffles his hair, even though he's indoors.
- That's a subversion, actually. This troper noticed that a wind manifests around Ashitaka whenever he gets angry, so it might have something to with the curse he's carrying on his arm.
Dying Like Animals
Eldritch Abomination The Forest Spirit becomes one after it gets decapitated.
Everythings Better With Samurai: Subverted; practically every samurai in the movie is a murderous asshole.
Evil Brit: In the English translation, the only person who speaks with a British accent turns out to be the closest thing to a villain the story has.
Eye Scream: Ashitaka shoots a boar demon in the eye early in the film.
Fantastic Aesop: Don't shoot nature spirits if you don't want them to turn into Blob Monsters.
- Space Whale Aesop: Respect nature, or it will attack you with giant wolves.
Fertile Feet
Fetish Fuel: The scene where San chews food for a weakened Ashitaka...and then transfers it mouth-to-mouth.
Feuding Families: It has an element of this as part of the main plot - who started the vicious cycle of disrespect? Eboshi by not asking if they could clear a way to the mountainside, or Nago for refusing to listen to a human? After all, the boars are a "proud race", according to Moro.
Gaias Vengeance: The situation that Irontown has found itself in.
Ghibli Hills: Well it's by that studio.
Glowing Eyes Of Doom: The animal gods have those at night.
Green Aesop: The WHOLE point of the story.
- ...only not really! It might seem like that at first glance, but Miyazaki was clearly using the "humanity vs. nature" theme to thinly veil the other major message: a blatantly pacifist one that, in particular, shuns the "us vs. them" mentality so commonly seen in society, as clearly evidenced numerous times throughout the story.
Grey And Grey Morality
Go Mad From The Revelation: Okkoto when he freaks out when he becomes the only survivor after the battle between boars and humans. And the Assassins disguised as boars to kill Okkoto don't help.
Happily Married: Toki and Kohroku, although she does give him a bit of a hard time
Hanlons Razor: Ignorance on both sides is a bigger cause of violence and suffering than outright maliciousness.
Hey Its That Voice: In the English dub, we have Billy Crudup as Ashitaka, Claire Danes as San, Minnie Driver as Eboshi, Billy Bob Thorton as Jigo, Gillian Anderson as Moro, and Jada Pinkett-Smith as Toki.
- Viewers familiar with professional voice actors will also recognize KT Vogt (Washu from Tenchi Muyo) and John Di Maggio, the future voice of Bender.
- Also Keith David, of Gargoyles fame (as well as a number of other live action and animated films), as Okkoto.
High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The Boar Spirit's death. Imagine being horrified out of your skull by that scene, and then walking out of the room. The last thing you hear is:
"I don't want to become a demon!"
- The transformation of the Forest God shortly after is even worse.
  - Oh, the Forest God... I saw this movie when I was 9. The headless Forest God walking around with the OminousJapaneseChanting gave me nightmares for months! Glad I wasn't alone. I thought it was just ordinary Nightmare Fuel!
Horse Of A Different Color: The hero rides a red elk. In addition, San often rides one of her wolf "brothers" into battle
Humans Are Bastards: Played with. Most humans are pretty much normal people, and Eboshi has a lot of good as well as bad. Some others, however...
- It is implied that San's human parents abandoned her when facing the wolf gods just so they could get away faster.
I Am Not Shazam: "Mononoke Hime" means "the princess of vengeful spirits". Not knowing her real name the villagers call San "Princess Mononoke" out of fear.
I Got Better: Nature.
- And Ashitaka, though with some major help.
It Got Worse: Pretty much the entire plot.
- The ending is a minor deviation from the general trend. Things still suck, they just suck a bit less.
Important Haircut: A symbol of Ashitaka's eternal banishment from his people
- Which seems a bit displaced, as it's a samurai gesture and Ashitakas people quite clearly belong to the ancestors of the Ainu, who lived in Japan before the arival of the modern Japanese people. As the creators would most probably have been aware of this, they most probably just didn't care, rather than not doing the research.
Intellectual Animal: Moro, the elder boar Okkoto.
Intimate Healing: When San feeds a wounded Ashitaka, who is too weak to even chew his food, by chewing up the food for him and then transferring it from her mouth to his.
Lady Of War: Eboshi.
Leeroy Jenkins: All the Boars. For more information see the Dying Like Animals entry. On Boars...
Likable Villain: Jigo, oh so very much.
Love At First Sight : Admit it; Ashitaka took one look at San and he was hooked.
- A girl with her face covered in blood? Well... Rule 36 I guess.
Major Injury Underreaction: Ashitaka gets shot, but doesn't collapse until he's pushed open an impossibly heavy gate, lifted San onto Yakul, gotten on himself, and ridden away.
Mark Of The Beast: Ashitaka's curse manifests as a large, nasty scar which spreads throughout his body.
Mascot: The kodama (tree spirits)
Narm: Ashitaka rips off the arms of a samourai and heads off another with arrows. It is intended to make his curse more sinister, but it's also kinda funny and bloodless. Maybe done intentionnally.
Nature Hero: Despite the Princess in the English title, San is much closer to being this than a Jungle Princess.
Nature Spirit: Lots of 'em, including the kodama (mentioned above) as well as several deities.
Nightmare Fuel: And how!
Oblivious Adoption: San
One Sided Battle
Pet The Dog: Eboshi gets a number of these moments, such as when it's shown that she gives shelter and work to lepers. The movie is unusual for Green Aesop stories in that the traditionally evil Humans Are Bastards representative gets several chances to Pet The Dog, while the environmentalist side represented by San is more often kicking it.
- See Hanlons Razor; it's shown that both sides are capable of quite a bit of good, and the source of their conflict stems entirely from their refusal to coexist.
Proud Warrior Race Guy: Okkoto and, supposedly, Nago.
Punch Clock Villain: Jigo is the most villainous character who actually appears in the movie. Despite that, he's also one of the most likable. Basically he's a sort of Punch Clock Villain who's motivated mostly by greed.
Raised By Wolves: Literally for San, albeit the wolves are gods that can speak.
Red Right Hand: Ashitaka, in a more literal sense than usual.
Redemption Equals Death: Subverted, as several characters learn better without dying, although most are faced with near death or life changing injuries first.
Roof Hopping: San does this at one point to get to Lady Eboshi, with Ashitaka following her.
Rousseau Was Right: All of the major characters are generally good people, and from their point of view are totally justified in their actions to protect their way of life from out side forces.
Scenery Porn
- Shortly followed by Scenery Gorn as everything goes to hell.
Secondary Character Title
Smug Snake: Jigo.
Shirtless Scene: Ashitaka. All the bloody time.
- Technically, he only had three. It's just that the last one was present through the entirety of the third act.
Shout Out: The movie opens with The Messiah racing to save otherwise defenseless loved ones from an enormous, unstoppable, rage-filled monstrosity with demonic red eyes. Said messiah pleads with it desperately before using force, putting himself in its path and asking it to return to the forest and leave them alone. Hmmmm...
So What Do We Do Now
Studio Ghibli
Superlative Dubbing
- Your Mileage May Vary: Despite being hailed as one of the best dubs ever made, the English version has had its share of harsh vocal detractors, some of who argued that the vocalp choices detract from the characters and that the additional lines harm the film. Never mind that Miyazaki himself actually aproved them.
Tear Jerker: Oh so many times.
The Time Of Myths
Thirty Xanatos Pile Up: The human world is filled with these.
Too Long Didnt Dub: "Mononoke"
Tranquil Fury: Ashitaka when striding in to break up the fight between San and Lady Eboshi.
Unfamiliar Ceiling: Ashitaka gets one of these.
The Wise Prince: Ashitaka
Walk On Water: A habit of the Forest Spirit. After the first time he's shot, he briefly sinks into the water, then begins walking on it again as if nothing happened.
Well Intentioned Extremist: Moro.
- Eboshi as well.
- San, being Moro's adopted daughter, is also this. Sure she hates humans, but the only one she really wants to kill is Eboshi.
What Do You Mean Its Not For Kids: When this troper saw the film, there was an approx. 6-year-old girl Cos Playing as San. Since she didn't cry, it's possible her otaku parents already had a copy.
Wild Child: San. She can speak, what with being raised by wolf gods rather than mundane wolves, but she otherwise fits the bill.
Wretched Hive: Completely subverted, as in the case of the Ironworks the first impression from a distance is highly misleading.
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