Princess Mononoke is a rather legendary piece of animation. Now, I can go off on how and why it’s so great. But, we’ll get into that later. First, I want to tell you about Studio Ghibli. Studio Ghibli is a Japanese production company that’s been around for over 40 years. They have a very distinct animation style that most people can pick up on almost right away. Studio Ghibli has produced 22 feature films, several made for TV movies, and a television series in their 4 decades in the entertainment industry. So, they have to be doing something right.
And when it came to Princess Mononoke in 1997, they decided to take it one step further. It was the most expensive production on an animated film at that time in Japan. Plus, It was also the first Studio Ghibli movie to use computer generated 3D animation which, of course, only added onto the production costs of the movie. This was all until Spirited Away, of course. The next Studio Ghibli animated production which ended up blowing all of these numbers out of the water. But we’ll get to that another time.
What you end up with is a piece of animation that is hand drawn on one part, and computer generated on another part, and molded together in a shockingly smooth way, to make a cartoon that is so crisp, you’d think it was Saturday morning. And let’s not forget the script. Of course, the American version has to be transferred over from Japanese, so there’s bound to be differences in the script from the original. Japanese and English are two very different languages after all. But that’s to be expected. That doesn’t make the script any less impressive than the original was.
And this movie has left a lasting impression on the film industry as a whole. Filmmakers today are still talking about how Princess Mononoke inspired them to make their projects. James Cameron says that Princess Mononoke says that inspired him during the making of Avatar. That’s some high praise right there. I’ve never actually seen the movie, but it’s very popular. And James Cameron has made some fantastic movies in his time.
So, yeah. Go and see Princess Mononoke. I’m pretty sure you’ll like it. It’s a good story. It’s visually appealing. It’s got these little guys in the forest that click their heads. It’s funny, you’ll see. Check it out. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…
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