Set in the Muromachi period of Japanese history, the film follows Ashitaka, a young Emishi prince who journeys west to cure his cursed arm and becomes embroiled in the conflict between Irontown and the forest of the gods, as well as the feud between Lady Eboshi and a human girl raised by wolves named San.
Produced by Toshio Suzuki, animated by Studio Ghibli, and distributed by Toho, it stars the voices of Yōji Matsuda, Yuriko Ishida, Yūko Tanaka, Kaoru Kobayashi, Masahiko Nishimura, Tsunehiko Kamijō, Akihiro Miwa, Mitsuko Mori, and Hisaya Morishige.
The film explores themes of environmentalism and societal diversity, partly inspired by Miyazaki's readings into novel historical and cultural studies, and presents a feminist portrayal of its characters.
He encounters a monk named Jigo, who advises him to seek answers in the nearby mountains from the Forest Spirit – a deer-like god of life and death that transforms into the giant Nightwalker at sunset.
The next day, a boar clan, led by the blind god Okkoto, declare their intention to attack Irontown, preferring to die in battle rather than allow their kind to diminish.
[15] It was written by the poet Kamo no Chōmei during a period of political turmoil and natural disasters, which the animation scholar Susan J. Napier felt resonated with the "increasing sense of vulnerability" in Japanese culture during the time of the film's production.
[21] That month, Miyazaki took four of the art directors to visit the island of Yakushima,[22] which had already inspired some environments in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, to achieve the environmental depiction that he was seeking to portray.
[40] While Studio Ghibli had already begun experimenting with digital techniques a few years prior on Pom Poko (1994), its computer graphics department was opened during the production of Princess Mononoke.
[53] According to the film critic Roger Ebert, Princess Mononoke is not a "simplistic tale of good and evil, but the story of how humans, forest animals, and nature gods all fight for their share of the new emerging order.
Greenberg identified this dynamic as a marked increase in complexity from Miyazaki's earlier works, which typically presented a utopian model as an answer to social issues.
[66] The film shares several themes with the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga, which Miyazaki had completed in 1994,[67] namely the "environmental catastrophe, the role of technology and warfare, and human interactions with nonhuman species", according to Napier.
[71] In 1995, two disasters occurred in Japan that had a marked negative impact on its culture: the Great Hanshin earthquake, which killed thousands and became the worst on record since 1923, and the Tokyo subway sarin attack perpetrated by the Aum Shinrikyo cult.
[81] However, McCarthy felt that his prior portrayals of women were predicated in a fundamentally patriarchal worldview; Miyazaki's female characters succeed only when given the opportunity to in a society ultimately governed by men.
[90] However, this impression is repeatedly challenged by depictions of her leadership and caregiving qualities; the community of Irontown holds sincere respect for her, and her sheltering of former prostitutes and people affected by leprosy contravenes many traditional roles of femininity.
[74] Napier emphasized that the decision to place a female character in this leadership position prevents her stance from being viewed as a cliché of oppressive militarism or the interpretation of technology as inherently detrimental.
[98] Napier wrote that the forest of the gods also subverts typical depictions of nature in the Muromachi period; as opposed to carefully tended Zen gardens, it is untamed, violent, and largely avoided by humans.
"[103] Napier wrote that the film goes "beyond realism" to support its themes,[51] and the critic Kazuhiko Komatsu felt that its world, while sometimes consistent with historical fact, is essentially Miyazaki's fantasy.
[105] She contrasted Miyazaki's previous depictions of historical settings to the film's rendering of the Muromachi period, which she wrote "refuses to sentimentalize the medieval history it highlights".
[118] Yoshioka argued that it was essential for Princess Mononoke to be a commercial success to make up for the large production budget, and the scale of its campaign was significantly expanded from previous films' as a result.
[126] Denison argued, however, that the marketing campaign's scale revealed the studio's ultimate aim to achieve a commercial success;[124] she interpreted this approach as a "local equivalent of the 'calculated' blockbuster film.
Denison argued that this was a part of Miramax's efforts to remove the film's Japanese elements, but she also acknowledged that the score deviates substantially from a typical Hollywood-style compositional approach.
[171] McCarthy wrote that the film complements the scenes featuring music and dialog with a liberal use of silence and ambient sounds to augment the tension of certain moments, a significant departure from American scoring approaches.
[178] The Asahi Shimbun's Noboru Akiyama felt that the work displayed a "strong artistic quality" and a number of reviews in animation magazines highlighted its visual fidelity.
[181] Some scholars speculated on the contributing factors to the film's success; a number commented on the reactions of younger audience members, who found the themes relatable to their personal struggles and empathized with its motifs of hope.
[188] Initial reviews often discussed the cultural differences that the film would exhibit and the alterations that Miramax had made to the presentation; Ty Burr of Entertainment Weekly was generally appreciative but felt "very curious to see if American audiences can handle it.
[192] Variety's Leonard Klady wrote that the film "[flies] in the face of popular Western animation" by eschewing musical numbers or narratives written to appeal to children.
[195] Burr and others favorably compared the film's fantasy elements with those of Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) – which had been released a few months prior – and novels such as The Lord of the Rings (1954–1955) and The Chronicles of Narnia (1950–1956).
[223] Princess Mononoke was the first film in which Miyazaki directly referenced scholarly writing, which strongly contributed to his status in Japanese society as a bunkajin and marked his works out for further academic inquiry.
[69] Yoshioka suggested that Miyazaki's growing reputation may have constrained his later creations – as he never wrote a feature film in the style of his earlier action-adventure works after Princess Mononoke – and motivated him to retire from the public eye.
[220] Critics have also named a number of video games that take influence from the film, including Ori and the Blind Forest (2015)[230] and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017).