Our guy walks into a totally unfamiliar environment with the craziest possible shit happening all around him and still somehow manages to make the correct moral choice like 85 times in a row.
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Not only that but he serves his village as a protector, gets cursed as part of that role as protector, and his village is like "hey sorry but you have to leave us forever alone and never return because of the curse and our need for secrecy"
And he's just like "very well" without a second thought.
Awesome thing about Miyazaki is that he is both able to fill his movies with totally morally complicated characters and conflicts while also creating totally plausible Superman boy scout protagonists like Ashitaka and Nausicaa who can seamlessly exist in the same world.
If I had to come up with one counterargument, it's that he's not in quite the same position as characters like San and Lady Eboshi. Ashitaki, as far as he's concerned, is already fucked, whereas those other characters are in positions where they feel the need to do questionable things to survive
Not even guys who want to cut the head off the forest spirit to sell it or obtain immortality or whatever. Our current government is just made up of guys who are like "fuck the forest spirit" on general principle https://bsky.app/profile/ernekid.bsky.social/post/3liivre5eqs2b
I love the film and manga equally. Totally different though. I was losing my mind when the obvious nuclear-weapon allegory from the movie becomes Nausicaas surrogate child in the manga. It goes in such a different direction.
Also, the manga must have been a huge influence on Fullmetal Alchemist. I can't get enough of these stories of people chasing immortality and the unintended evil such a pursuit unleashes on the world.
I’m still vaguely haunted by the bit in the boy and the heron where the old man communicates “I create worlds out of simple blocks, but such stories are balanced on flimsy supports: how do you live?”
Yeah, he understands that the most compelling versions of these dudes are those that act both constrained and compelled by their morality. Getting good at fighting because they find themselves in fights that they didn’t know they were getting in and aren’t entirely sure why they’re in it
Honestly you took the words out of my mouth.
Ashitaka was a huge inspiration for my main OC, and one of my earliest signs I was bi (yes I find him attractive).
my own morality is less extreme than that of the Princess but im still on her side. death seems a very reasonable punishment for murdering the embodiment of an entire ancient forest
its a great story, great character ls but as a philosophical excercise i think the morality of it is very up for debate. what our protagonist does in The film is noble. and heroic. especially his mercy. but thats isnt always appropriate. some people are rotten and will never change.
that is very much up for debate. there is no guarantee Ms Boss of Iron Town would respond to mercy by changing. a lot of people with that personality just say "suckers lol" and do the same shit. yes in the story she changes. but mercy for evil is always a risk.
Man unironically built my approach to interpersonal conflict. See through eyes unclouded by hate. Understanding is the key to peace, even if that understanding is applied to people who have wronged you
Ha, well I'm glad you can take something from that! The world can make it really hard to maintain that viewpoint, especially right now, but i think it's important to at least have it in the back of one's mind
I love Ashitaka so much. Despite being cursed by a demon and suffering so much, he always chooses to do the right thing and tries to end the destructive conflict. Even though part of him did want to kill Lady Eboshi for what she did, he holds back because he knows it won't solve anything.
I know it's ironic praising a character for NOT killing a clearly terrible and destructive person, but Ashitaka was right. Lady Eboshi, despite her war on nature clearly being wrong, wasn't a totally evil person. She genuinely wanted to build a better society for her people.
It's almost as if having a strong code of well-thought out and examined principles that will always inform your behavior, rather than being an empty suit with at-best situational ethics, is the way to go.
i go back on forth on which is my favorite. i'm actually a pretty fierce partisan for kiki's delivery service despite its reputation for being too boring or chill
I like the antifascist pig and the weird house movie too. Come on. He made a ecosocialist Akira for kids set in feudal Japan and every frame is a painting.
agree 100%! - except princess mononoke is def not a kids movie and was not meant to be. it was actually that misunderstanding that caused it to bomb in the US sadly because had it not we would have seen many more like it
I've made a common like this recently, but the thing that makes Mononoke special is that there is a parallel story with the exact same plot and a different camera focus where Lady Eboshi is a feminist hero to the women of Iron Town, protecting them from the evils of the dangerous forest.
not just from the forest but from the war that's at their gates on the other side! they have no choice but to sell the iron or they can't protect themselves! it's a tough spot and eboshi is portrayed empathetically
At least Eboshi genuinely believes that the spirit is a threat to her and her people, who have been killed by Moro and her pack. They see giant demon boar things rampaging around and go 'shit, better kill it before it kills us.' She at least is a heroic person, if cruel in her ignorance.
crucially not the people who want to develop industry for the benefit of others without fully considering the consequences or whatever. Just the head pillaging ones in it for the gold and love of the game
He's so great because he's not just a moustache twirling evildoer. He takes sympathy on Ashitaka when they're in the woods. He has men who serve under him, and his work provides them a living. The animal gods are in conflict with humanity, and he protects people from that conflict.
He is of course wrong, his actions ultimately make things worse and we judge him morally, but its not just evil for evil's sake. You can understand him.
I feel like most hero's journeys are about a fundamentally nice guy given superpowers: it's so cool that the first scene establishes him as already the most powerful warrior ever, then his journey is to figure out how to do the right thing.
The Boy and The Heron makes a problem out of that too!
The Japanese name is the title of a morally didactic book for upper class boys Miyazaki's mother gave him. Clearly it influenced Ashitaka but such a book in 1937 Japan is inescapably training to be a fascist cog.
I was fortunate. My dad was a tech geek and had a Laserdic player. So I saw many of his films before the Disney publishing deals. Even unsubbed I understood the heart of what was happening.
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And he's just like "very well" without a second thought.
"The head of what?"
"It's a big deer that keeps the forest alive? Face of a human..? you haven't heard of... look doesn't matter, the libs will hate if we decapitate it"
"Ok cool, lets do it."
Eboshi kinda, but FOR SURE Kushana.
Once you read the manga, you really can't go back to the feature film, sadly.
https://vimeo.com/357117766
It was my brother’s favorite.
Ashitaka was a huge inspiration for my main OC, and one of my earliest signs I was bi (yes I find him attractive).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGRtG-N-Wcs
Idiots like you are actually a big part of why things are going to get really bad for a lot of innocent people
Democrats suck but pretending Republicans are the same is stupid
*bends folded steel with angry spirit curse energy and two fingers*
The Japanese name is the title of a morally didactic book for upper class boys Miyazaki's mother gave him. Clearly it influenced Ashitaka but such a book in 1937 Japan is inescapably training to be a fascist cog.
I watched Princess Mononoke on VHS when I was like 13, in the 90s.