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Thread: WK's Top Ten Favorite Anime films

  1. #31
    Memento Mori Site Contributor Wolf Kanno's Avatar
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    Better late than never I guess...
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    #1
    To no ones surprise, my favorite anime film, and in fact, my favorite film of all time is Princess Mononoke. This was not only my first Ghibli film but also one of the first anime films I ever saw in an actual theater when I first got onto the scene.
    For those who don't know the plot, PM is the story of Ashitaka, the last prince of the Emishi ethnic group who saves his village from the onslaught of a demon. The beast, in truth a former Boar God turned into a demon of malice by a strange iron slug found in its body, curses the young prince with his hate so that he too will die a horrible death. Ashitaka is advised by his elders to renounce his identity and leave the village to head west where the demon is said to come from to understand why it became a demon. Ashitaka travels and encounters some of the uglier parts of the Muromachi period of Japan, and meets a Buddhist priest searching for the Great Forest where the Forest God is said to reside. He wants its head due to a legend that it can grant immortality which the current emperor has offered a huge sum of gold for. When he reaches the Great Forest, he encounters San, the eponymous Princess Mononoke, who has been raised by the Wolf Gods and is in a bitter war against the people of Iron Town led by Lady Eboshi. Iron Town mines the mountains and clears the forest to gain access to its rich deposits of iron used to make guns, which the Lady Eboshi sells to the local daimyo's for profit to keep the town going. The town itself is home to former prostitutes, lepers, and other outcasts of society who can finally eke out a respectable living. This process of destroying the forest and mountains has caused the town the great ire of all the local gods and both are now in a constant conflict of survival. Ashitaka now finds himself as the outsider of this conflict and chooses to try to break the cycle of hate that these two factions cause for each other.
    Compared to other works by Miyazaki, Princess Mononoke is a very heavy movie. This isn't a film you turn on for leisure and to get the most out of it, it demands your full attention. Miyazaki was once quoted as saying that this film largely represents a big part of his world view and the conflicts he sees within it. It may say something how this is one of the darkest films by the studio, only beaten out by Isao Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies in terms of tone and message. Still, I absolutely love the complex nature of the film's narrative which tries to subvert as much of the usual good vs. evil dynamics often found in films. This is something Miyazaki himself seems to be tired of as well as he had been actively trying to move his stories away from this kind of thinking since My Neighbor Totoro. Yet if Totoro and Kiki were films that had no antagonist of villain, then Mononoke is a film where no one is really good or evil. The situation is just complicated and the various factions simply fight for their survival and refuse to compromise with one another. This kind of thinking extends to other elements of the film as well such as the muted relationship between San and Ashitaka. The two obviously have feelings for each other, but neither lets those feelings interfere with their ideals. Ashitaka is often ridiculed by Eboshi for caring for San, but he doesn't let it stand in the way of him trying to be an impartial mediator to the conflict. Likewise San is confused by her growing feelings for Ashitaka but tries to plunge headlong into her vendetta against Eboshi and all humans. In fact, I find it fascinating that San seems the most eager among her comrades to get back at the humans compared to her mother and siblings. It's kind of a nice touch as it really draws home the human need for conformity.The writing and directing of this film has always inspired me, and this is the film that largely made me want to become a storyteller. It's animation is gorgeous and I love how almost every scene really reinforces the narrative by either showing us the plight of the world or the magical property of nature itself. It's all beautifully combined with Joe Hisashi's excellent score which has epic orchestral pieces like "The Legend of Ashitaka", quieter and quaint pieces like the "Tartara Women's Work Song", and the unsettling "Demon God" track that will make the hair on your neck rise up. I always recommend this film to everyone. It is my favorite film of all time and I still find the piece to be really inspirational. My one regret is that my first introduction to it besides reading a few magazine excerpts about it when it was still in its theater run in Japan, was an awesome AMV of the film done to Alanis Morrisette's "Uninvited". Super powerful video but sadly the creator has never uploaded it online to my knowledge. Still, check this film out if you can, and with that, you know my top ten favorite anime films.


  2. #32
    Witch of Theatergoing Karifean's Avatar
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    Yay! Never been too big into any of the Ghibli films myself but they are pretty fascinating an introduction to anime for sure.

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