Yoshioka, Shiro. "Princess Mononoke: a Game Changer." Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli’S Monster Princess

Yoshioka, Shiro. "Princess Mononoke: A Game Changer." Princess Mononoke: Understanding Studio Ghibli’s Monster Princess. By Rayna Denison. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017. 25–40. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 25 Sep. 2021. <http:// dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781501329753.ch-001>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 25 September 2021, 01:01 UTC. Copyright © Rayna Denison 2018. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. 25 Chapter 1 P RINCESS MONONOKE : A GAME CHANGER Shiro Yoshioka If we were to do an overview of the life and works of Hayao Miyazaki, there would be several decisive moments where his agenda for fi lmmaking changed signifi cantly, along with how his fi lms and himself have been treated by the general public and critics in Japan. Among these, Mononokehime ( Princess Mononoke , 1997) and the period leading up to it from the early 1990s, as I argue in this chapter, had a great impact on the rest of Miyazaki’s career. In the fi rst section of this chapter, I discuss how Miyazaki grew sceptical about the style of his fi lmmaking as a result of cataclysmic changes in the political and social situation both in and outside Japan; in essence, he questioned his production of entertainment fi lms featuring adventures with (pseudo- )European settings, and began to look for something more ‘substantial’. Th e result was a grave and complex story about civilization set in medieval Japan, which was based on academic discourses on Japanese history, culture and identity. As I detail in the second section of this chapter, before Princess Mononoke , Miyazaki’s vast amount of general knowledge was already visible in various interviews and essays, as well as his fi lms, and he was regarded as a kind of bunkajin (a man of culture) who can comment intellectually on social, cultural and environmental issues from the perspective of a creator. But in Princess Mononoke , he explicitly engaged with academic discourses on Japanese his- torical and cultural identity, most notably with historian Yoshihiko Amino’s view of history. As a result of this association of the fi lm and Miyazaki himself with academics and other bunkajin , such as novelist– critics Ry ō tar ō Shiba and Yoshie Hotta, Miyazaki and his fi lms came to be viewed as something (semi- ) highbrow, rather than ‘lowbrow popular culture’ (ts ū zoku bunka ) as Miyazaki always insisted. It is not simply the theme of Princess Mononoke and Miyazaki’s approach to fi lmmaking that changed and put him in the position of bunkajin . As dis- cussed in the fi nal section of this chapter, the very fact that Princess Mononoke had unprecedented levels of success is also important. We have to note, however, that this success is not simply because of the superb technical and textual 99781501329760_pi-220.indd781501329760_pi-220.indd 2255 111/1/20171/1/2017 44:21:04:21:04 PPMM 26 26 Shiro Yoshioka quality of the fi lm, but is a combination of his track record as a creator of ani- mation for general audiences and also rigorous, and extensive, promotion coor- dinated by Toshio Suzuki, the producer at Studio Ghibli. Until late 2016, when Makoto Shinkai’s Kimi no na wa ( Your Name , 2016) became a smash hit and fi nally broke the record set by Hauru no ugoku shiro ( Howl’s Moving Castle , Hayao Miyazaki, 2004) pushing Gake no ue no Ponyo ( Ponyo , Hayao Miyazaki, 2008) out of the top- ten list, all of the fi lms Miyazaki created aft er Princess Mononoke were among the ten most successful fi lms released in Japan, apart from Kaze tachinu ( Th e Wind Rises , Hayao Miyazaki, 2013). Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi ( Spirited Away , Hayao Miyazaki, 2001) was (and is at the time of writing) at the top of the chart, followed by Howl’s Moving Castle at fi ft h, Princess Mononoke at sixth and Ponyo at tenth. 1 Instead of simply lauding the quality of these fi lms, however, we need to contextualize their popularity taking a number of other factors into consideration. One signifi cant change Princess Mononoke caused was that it enabled anime to become the subject of critical and academic discussion within Japanese ron- dan (the arena of literary, social and cultural criticism). While Miyazaki himself came to be associated with academics and critics, they, in turn, began to analyse and discuss anime texts in order to refl ect on their own agendas and academic interests. Together with Shin seiki Evangerion (Neon Genesis Evangelion , Hideaki Anno, 1995), Princess Mononoke can be regarded as a catalyst for the shift of the position of anime from something to be consumed by children and hardcore fans to a form of ‘art’ that is worthy of critical attention. Th is chapter demonstrates the signifi cance of Princess Mononoke by going through these points in three sections. Th e aim of this chapter is not so much to analyse or discuss the fi lm text for its superb quality, but to present the signifi cance of the fi lm in terms of its impact on Miyazaki and anime in general. Th e Road to Mononoke Th e early 1990s was the period when Miyazaki’s policy of fi lmmaking changed signifi cantly, refl ecting cataclysmic change in political and social situation in the world, especially the Gulf War in 1991, the end of the Cold War and the ensu- ing ethnic confl ict in Yugoslavia. Th ese events deeply angered and disappointed Miyazaki. In an article that appeared in a weekly magazine in 1991, Miyazaki stated critically that the Gulf War lacked cause and the Japanese government’s decision to support the Coalition Forces was ‘solely out of a desire to do busi- ness with and be “good neighbors” to our allies’.2 Th e Gulf War was a pivotal moment in post- war Japanese history because, as a result of criticism from the international community for simply contributing funds but not sending any troops, the Japanese government, for the fi rst time, decided to send the Self- Defense Forces abroad. 3 Th e decision was controversial because Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution states that the country renounces war as a means to solve 99781501329760_pi-220.indd781501329760_pi-220.indd 2266 111/1/20171/1/2017 44:21:04:21:04 PPMM 27 Princess Mononoke: A Game Changer 27 international confl icts. In accordance with this position, in the article cited ear- lier, Miyazaki suggests that the operation was in breach of the Constitution and states that he ‘want[s] to fi nd something that can become our core principles’.4 Th e collapse of communist regimes and the end of the Cold War also tor- mented Miyazaki in several ways that relate to his core principles. First, he was bitterly disappointed by the fact that the end of the Cold War led to resurgence of ethnic confl icts. He found the civil war in Yugoslavia (1991– 2001) particu- larly shocking. Th e area of the Adriatic Sea was exactly where his Kurenai no buta ( Porco Rosso , 1992) was set, which was in production then. Miyazaki was also dismayed because it appeared to him as if history was repeating, replaying what happened before World War I. 5 He also felt apprehensive about the demise of communist states. In an interview in 1992, coinciding with the release of Porco Rosso , Miyazaki said that the collapse of the Soviet Union itself meant nothing to him because he thought it simply followed classic examples in history where people stood up against oppression.6 Miyazaki also confi ded that while he had, for a long time, no illusions about communism as a political and social system, he still had some hope in socialism because, in his view, at the core of socialism was respect for dignity of people. 7 For Miyazaki, such socialis- tic ideals were his ‘starting point’, or a ‘major pillar’, when he formed his identity in his youth.8 However, he now realized that such an ideal is a ‘horizon that can be never reached’ and even aft er socialism, which he thought could be a bridge to such an ideal state, had collapsed he stated that one had to ‘keep walking’. 9 In the same interview, he called Porco Rosso a ‘moratorium’ before tackling various problems in the 1990s. 10 Consequently, Miyazaki believed that in future he had to create a more ‘substantial fi lm’ ( honshitsuteki na eiga ). 11 A l t h o u g h Miyazaki said he was not sure what a ‘substantial fi lm’ was, one thing he was sure was that he would no longer create fi lms set outside Japan.12 Another interview in the same year off ers a clue to understanding what a substantial fi lm might be. In the interview, Miyazaki again made references to the global political situation including the civil war in Yugoslavia. He said that in the 1980s, people in Japan generally seemed to believe that one day the world would come to an abrupt end for such reasons as natural disaster. 13 However, Miyazaki also stated that as he was creating Porco Rosso , he reached a certain realization. Asked what it was, he replied: ‘Put quite simply, that “no matter how messy things get, we have no choice but go on living.” ’14 Miyazaki also said that ‘Heading into the twenty- fi rst century, nothing’s been resolved.

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