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Princess Mononoke (1997) || Chatsu-Nani?!
300 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Adam and Greenshield discuss the Studio Ghibli classic Princess Mononoke. Does it live up to the hype? How does it hold up today? All this and more in today's episode!
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Transcript
Episode Introduction
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Chatsunami. Hello everyone and welcome to a very special episode of Chatsunani. I'm Green Shield 95 and with me is Adam. Hi Adam. Hello, hello. It is good to be back here, back in the studio.
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah, the Satsu Studio. But we are without Satsunami today, aren't we? Indeed we are in this very, very strange, very strange, I don't quite know how to feel, but I am excited for this episode. No, I have very big boots to fill, very big trousers to fill, whatever the expression may be. And yeah, but
Personal Introduction to Studio Ghibli Films
00:00:44
Speaker
today we're going to be discussing the Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke. Yeah, so we're doing a Studio Ghibli Princess Mononoke film, the movie that came out in Japan in 1997.
00:00:54
Speaker
and two years later in much the Western world, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It's a personal favorite of mine, spoilers, for later discussion in the show. And yeah, I'm very excited to hear what Adam's impressions were, his first impressions of the movie as a newbie to the world of anime. But are you a newbie to the world of Studio Ghibli, Adam?
00:01:16
Speaker
Not quite as newbie to the world of Studio Ghibli as I am to other anime. I have seen a couple of Ghibli films before. I never watched them when I was a kid, never watched them when I was a young. The first one either I saw was when I was in my last year of university. I was doing a course in the Second World War. Basically each week was divided into a different topic and for each week we'd get a film to watch as well. The lecturer would assign this one. And so we were doing one on bombing in World War II and so the film he gave us was Grave of the Fireflies.
00:01:43
Speaker
Oh wow, that's quite the introduction to the World of Studio Ghibli, that's a tearjerker. Indeed, quite the introduction, quite like, still probably like the most separate from the other ones I've seen. Although I think there's maybe a little bit of, you can probably say a connection between this and Princess Mononoke, sorry between the Fireflies and Princess Mononoke. But yeah, so that was quite the introduction.
Studio Ghibli as a Gateway to Anime
00:02:03
Speaker
and then basically i was the only one i'd seen until last year when started watching some more so i've seen the classics now seen spirits in a way seeing kiki's delivery service when marnie was here when marnie was here when marnie was there i believe when marnie was here yeah i've i've also seen that one i wasn't actually as impressed with that one but that's another discussion
00:02:23
Speaker
Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. Maybe type another one. And, of course, my neighbor Totoro. So I have seen a couple. I know there's a lot more, obviously. I've still got a lot of gaps in my knowledge, but I'm a bit more au fait with Studio Ghibli's work. Mm-hmm. That's it.
Studio Ghibli's Historical Influence
00:02:38
Speaker
It's a great starting point, and as many will know, Studio Ghibli acts as a very good stepping stone for many early anime watchers. Many people will start their anime journey watching Studio Ghibli films, particularly Spirited Away or Howl's Moving Castle is a very good start for many. It gives you a good introduction into the world of Japanese animation.
00:02:56
Speaker
My first experience with Studio Ghibli was watching part of Spirited Away in the car. My sister was watching it on her laptop while we were on a car journey, and I watched a bit of it. I was absolutely fascinated by it, but I didn't actually watch all of Spirited Away until many years later. And my first proper Studio Ghibli film that I watched all the way through was Princess Mon-OK, so that I have a very special kind of nostalgic connection to it as a both anime and as an anime movie.
00:03:21
Speaker
because I think it was the first anime movie that I watched all the way through, barring, of course, the Pokémon movie. But yeah, I have a very special connection with Studio Ghibli. I think it's an absolutely wonderful animation studio. It's often considered to be like the Disney Studios of Japan, Japanese animation, and it holds such a special place for so many people. I have a very special relationship with Grave of the Fireflies, as you just mentioned as well. It's an absolutely wonderful movie. It's one that's very hard-hitting. And from what I understand,
00:03:50
Speaker
It came out at the same time, or around the same time as My Neighbor Totoro, and in many cases it was screened as a double
Plot Overview of Princess Mononoke
00:03:57
Speaker
billing. So you'd watch My Neighbor Totoro and then watch Grave of the Fireflies, which just sounds like the most horrendous experience I think ever. Not anything against either of them, but it's a real kind of whiplash of films.
00:04:10
Speaker
Especially the end on Grave of the Fireflies as well, like after. I was going to say I'd almost prefer to watch them the other way around, but maybe not actually. Well, I had heard this,
Opening Scene and Themes
00:04:18
Speaker
and I'll bring up where I'd heard it later on, but listening to, or rather, watching Totoro first would be the best choice, because once you've watched Grave of the Fireflies, you kind of just want to sit and kind of not do anything for a while. Like, there's no, like, watching something to, like, up you again after that. Like, everything after that is just like, oh god, no.
00:04:37
Speaker
It's true. Yeah, it's a very hard film, and it's a film that I recommend, despite it's whatever we've been saying, it's a film I recommend everyone should watch. I think it's very powerful, very important, and it's a very good idea of what life in Japan was like during World War II for those in Japan, especially young children. But that's a discussion for another day. What we're going to be talking about today is Princess Monoke. And just to give you a little bit of a background on Studio Ghibli, the studio was founded on June 15th, 1985.
00:05:06
Speaker
And after the successful performance of Nausicaa Valley of the Wind, which was part of Studio Topcraft, it's often confused as being a Studio Ghibli movie, but it's actually a Studio Topcraft movie just before Ghibli's creation. They founded Studio Ghibli. Five of the studio's films are among the top highest-grossing anime feature films made in Japan, with Spirited Away being number two, grossing just around 380 million US dollars at the worldwide box office.
00:05:31
Speaker
and they have won awards such as the Animage Grand Prix Award, Japan Academy Prize of Animation, and various films that received Academy Award nominations, including Spirited Away, which won both the 2002 Golden Bear Award and the 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The movie itself, Princess Monocay, is
00:05:50
Speaker
set in 14th century Japan and centers around Ashitaka, a boy from a small village who's cursed by a vengeful demon creature. He leaves his village to learn how to appease the forest and hopefully find a cure for his curse. On his travels he encounters an industrial town that is responsible for the forest creature's anger, and San, a girl raised by wolves, who wants to avenge the forest. Akatashi,
00:06:11
Speaker
Ashitaka sorry, is caught between the two and tries to resolve the conflict. Princess Mononoke originally Mononoke Hime in Japan with Hime meaning princess and a rough translation of Mononoke being a vengeful spirit. As San the wolf girl was raised by wolf lords or spirits vengeful the death of the forest she is the princess of the Mononoke. So yeah that's just a little kind of background on the on the film shall we jump straight into the into the next section.
Film Analysis: Introduction and Visuals
00:06:36
Speaker
Let's do it.
00:06:36
Speaker
Welcome to Chattsanami, a variety podcast that talks about topics from gaming and films to streaming in general interest. Previously on Chattsanami, we discussed Game of the Decade, Deadly Premonition, the romantic thriller, Birdemic, and listen to us get all sappy as we discuss our top five Christmas films. If that sounds like your cup of tea, then you can find us an anchor, Spotify, YouTube, and all good podcast apps. As always, stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.
00:07:08
Speaker
We are Beer and Chill Podcast. Podcast where we review TV shows, games, movies, and whatever else takes our fancy. So what are you waiting for? If you're a cool kid like us, you're gonna listen to the Beer and Chill Podcast. You can get it anywhere from Spotify all the way to your grandma's radio. My name is Jan. And I'm Creaky C. And we are Beer and Chill.
00:07:43
Speaker
So the film opens up with a scene where you see this kind of worm covered creature going through the forest with a narrator talking about what's going on in the forest and the concerns of nature and mankind's involvement. And we then see our protagonist Ashitaka on a elk steed. We learned that this elk is called Yakul. What were your impressions of Yakul the elk, Adam?
00:08:09
Speaker
Oh, I love, I loved you, Cool. I thought, like, what great design, like, and just like, that perfect, like, animal companion. You're like, you can just tell, loyal, like, dependable, and just lovely. So I was, I was a big fan of you, Cool. Yeah. I thought he was very, very interesting, very cool design. I wasn't familiar with the animal. I thought he was on some sort of gazelle or type creature. So I actually, uh, Google it to make sure that I understood what, what Kuji was. And, um, Google told me it was a red elk steed, uh, or rather just red elk.
00:08:39
Speaker
and it actually says that later on in the movie that Yakuul is a red elk. Yeah, so we see Ashitaka on Yakuul riding through this rice field or just kind of a Sagarian kind of area up to a watchtower and he climbs up the watchtower and we already see kind of the detail under his feet, it's dirty so it gives a bit of an understanding of what he is like as a character, what he's been up to, that he's covered in dirt, he's in nature, he's this kind of
00:09:02
Speaker
very rural society and we climb up to the top of the tower and we then sort of stare into the forest and see this boar creature or other this creature not boar creature but this creature come out it's covered in these worms that we just saw earlier climbing through the the land with everything dying that it touches around him and we can or immediately thrown into kind of the conflict. What were
Character Introduction and World-Building
00:09:24
Speaker
your impressions seeing this creature Adam?
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah, I thought this was a great intro because it kind of sets up everything about this film. As you say, you have this beautiful landscape around and everything, but there's this darkness, there's this unknown thing destroying everything. And really, I feel like one of the central themes of this film is fear of the unknown.
00:09:47
Speaker
And that comes straight away when you have this thing that you have no idea what it is. As you say, it's just like a mass of like kind of worms and tendrils and you just no idea. It's a really like, it's a really striking design and it kind of evokes that. You're like, it evokes that kind of fear and it is a really, you don't know what to like make of it, but you just know it's something, you just know it's something bad.
00:10:05
Speaker
Obviously, this creature imbues death around it. What it kind of reminded me a lot of was kind of a bit like Venom from the Marvel films. It's almost like a symbiote kind of thing clinging to it, and there's always tendrils coming off of it. I don't know if you got a similar kind of vibe from that, or if you had a different impression.
00:10:23
Speaker
No, that's actually, I didn't think of that at the time, but just you saying that is like absolutely totally a thing of it. I kind of saw it kind of like, and like, kind of like maggots, you know, and like kind of maggots congeal around like kind of dead sledge. I kind of got that vibe from it, but the symbiote thing I think is a perfect analogy. And it seems when you learn more about it, it seems to sort of stick a little bit more to it as well. We learned that this is a demon or a demonized creature and that upon
00:10:48
Speaker
Ashitaka confronting it and trying to stop it. Ashitaka, our protagonist, touches the creature. These kind of maggoty, venom-like tendrils touch his arm and it immediately infects his arm with what we learn to be a curse. After fighting it and shooting it with an arrow through the head, the boar king, or rather the demon which we learn is a boar, and the king of boars, dies and it tells him
00:11:15
Speaker
that they will all suffer his hate and after that as the flesh melts off of him and he becomes bone which was pretty terrifying and i imagine if you're a young child watching that that would have really freaked you out no doubt it was yeah it certainly was um yeah like this this film surprised me like in a lot of its kind of imagery and like how like terrifying it was
00:11:36
Speaker
you know at points and everything it was a real shock but I think again it's so effective at setting it up because you do have this just idyllic village you know it's just it's like any kind of village you've seen a postcard of the Japanese countryside something like that and then it's all of a sudden just like you know it's threatened with whatever this this creature is you just don't know to begin with and it's just saying you find out it is this like manifestation hatred and everything and it is properly it's probably frightening so it really sets up the stakes the stakes of everything to come
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, for sure, it does. And it does make it sort of an interesting kind of juxtaposition of this beautiful landscaping country and then just death coming down and this horrible creature arriving and then the flesh melting off of it as it dies and the prophecy that it gives. It's all very interesting, very kind of clashing with each other, which is beautiful.
Lady Eboshi's Complexity and Iron Town
00:12:24
Speaker
And Eebly is known for its absolutely wonderful landscapes, as are many anime movies to be fair, but Eebly kind of sets the stage for a lot of them, I feel.
00:12:33
Speaker
After the Boer King is dead and Ashitaka has received the curse on his arm, he talks to a council of elders in his village. We learn that Ashitaka is a prince of the village, and this is a very special village of a forgotten people or a refugee-like people from some situation long, long ago.
00:12:53
Speaker
that because of the curse Ashitaka must leave the village and go and investigate what caused this demon creature to arrive and to be created in the first place and hopefully to try and cure his arm. What we then see is Ashitaka leaves and straight away he encounters a rice field being raided by a group of bandits and he uses his now demon powered arm to fire arrows which immediately dismembers and decapitates the raiders with each shot. What do you make of that Adam?
00:13:23
Speaker
That was, so I was watching this film with my fiance. When that first, the guy is first literally disarmed, first shot, she was the biggest gasping I've ever heard her let out, and I was the exact same. That was the real shock as well, because I knew this film had some elements of war and conflict and things like that. I did not expect at all, though, the kind of brutality and kind of, say gore, it's not really gory, but it's quite,
00:13:50
Speaker
I don't know what the word I'm looking for, but it's quite shocking in terms of like actual, some of the violence that actually happens. So that was a real shock.
San and Ashitaka's Relationship
00:13:58
Speaker
But again, I think it's like really effective. And I was reading as well that I think Miyazaki was inspired, or say inspired is kind of the wrong word, but like at the time that he was making this film, the country of Yugoslavia was basically falling apart. And it was the, there was civil wars between different ethnic groups there.
00:14:16
Speaker
you know, the kind of atrocities that happened in the wake of that. I think that kind of made a more realistic depiction of what the world can be like. You know, it's not always something like My Neighbourhood is off the road. There is a lot of darkness as well. And they brought that through. But it was like, it was a real shock. But I didn't, looking back there, it didn't feel like, it doesn't feel like unnecessary. You know, when you watch a lot of films, sometimes you're like, this is just unnecessary amount of gore.
00:14:41
Speaker
or whatever. There's no real purpose to it. Watching films a whole, I'm like, yeah, that kind of needs to be in there because it really sets up what this world is.
00:14:50
Speaker
And that is a very interesting thing about Studio Ghibli films and a lot of other anime films that the influence of outside history and culture and contemporary experiences influencing the stories and the motifs in the movie. There's a lot of other later films that take inspiration and some of his earlier films such as Castle of Cagliostro, which wasn't Studio Ghibli, but Miyazaki worked on it, very European inspired. So yeah, that's very interesting you say that there's an influence from the sort of Yugoslavian kind of conflict.
00:15:17
Speaker
We then, after saving this village, and we go into a new village that has, or maybe the same village, but further in, as a market,
Mythical Elements: Forest Spirits
00:15:24
Speaker
Ashitaka is trying to trade with a merchant lady for a bag of rice, and he's trying to give her some gold, like a small kind of golden nugget, which would be worth a lot, but to the less informed person, it just seems like nothing. And so we then meet Jigo, who
00:15:40
Speaker
claims he's a monk. I'm skeptical of of that. But who knows who comes comes across a bit of a sort of sleazy businessman at times he comes over and he kind of convinces the merchant that this is gold and worth a lot and worth a lot more than the rice. And if she doesn't want it, he'll he'll happily take take the gold off of him and and pay for the rice for him. And that kind of leads to a whole kind of raucous and gigo kind of makes friends with Ashutaka and they head out of town and
00:16:07
Speaker
Mostara a campfire. What were your initial impressions of Jigo? Yeah, Jigo was interesting because like when he first showed up and he kind of like tagged along with Ashitaga, I kind of was like, oh, this is gonna be like, you know his sidekick, you know, it's that kind of almost classic Moro talking sidekick who's jolly, you know, like, but it's also very loyal as well, which is kind of what I thought it was gonna be.
00:16:28
Speaker
I don't know if that's not the way it goes, so it was kind of a nice, it kind of took me by surprise. Also as well, I was just loving his shoes. I didn't notice him at first, but his shoes are, wow, they're... I also, sorry, just to say, I also made a note of his shoes saying, Jigo wears the highest sandals I've ever seen.
00:16:47
Speaker
Are they real shoes? I'd love to actually find out if they're actually real or they're just like, it's just that stylized way to give that kind of a striking image. So from what I understand, and I have not been to Japan, I don't know enough about Japan to say this, that is kind of the standard of what shoes at the time were like. I don't know enough to say why they were designed that way. It might have been
00:17:12
Speaker
Well, I was about to say something akin to that, that it might have been for crossing kind of the wetlands, because that's the reason why there were lots of high heel sandals and stilts used hundreds of years ago in European culture. So I don't know if there was a similar kind of situation in Japan over the rice fields. I will also note, presumably you watched the English dub, or did you watch the Japanese dub of
00:17:34
Speaker
No, watch the Japanese original subtitles.
Boar Tribe and Conflict Setup
00:17:38
Speaker
Oh, this is a switcheroo. I watched the English dub for this one. And the voice of Jigo is Billy Bob Thornton. The voice cast for the English one looked amazing. Oh, it was so so good. I've made a note of each of the people in particular that came up. So we have Jigo voice by Billy Bob Thornton in the English dub, who while around the campfire is telling
00:17:58
Speaker
Ashitaka of the wider world and of the spirit of the forest. We are then getting more looks over the stunning landscape as they're at this campsite and we're then moving further into the countryside. And that's where we then meet Lady Aboshi, voiced by Minnie Driver. Those who aren't familiar with Minnie Driver, you might have seen her in Good Will Hunting or as the voice of Jane in the Disney's Tarzan. Or if I'm missing any other important ones, you'll have to let me know.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yeah. And she's driving Kaitlyn merchandise through the mountains. What were your impressions of Lady Boshi? Lady Boshi is really interesting. Like from that first depiction, you kind of get it. You don't get the full sense. I think she develops to be, I would argue, the most interesting character in it.
00:18:43
Speaker
all film but like you kind of get you get a lot of sense from the first thing you're gonna see like how imposing she is and like how calm and determined and like like a natural born leader so you start to get a lot of like senses and you can see this like you already get to see the you know the this conflict is that's you know this was a
00:19:00
Speaker
developing this ongoing between the animal world and the human world. So again, just a really effective scene. And the image as well of all those like, of the oxen lumbering up like the devastated landscape as well is very striking. And yeah, it provides like another review, especially when you have the white wolves charging down as well. It's just so striking just in that way. It's just beautiful to look at.
00:19:23
Speaker
Yeah, it is absolutely gorgeous. They put so much detail into sort of the struggle of getting the oxen or the cattle or whatever they were up the mountain and sort of the way the mountain has been created. It looks like it's of a man made pathway blown through the mountains. And then yeah, as you say, we have the wolf girl, Princess Monoke, which is not actually her name, her name is we learned later, San and her wolves are attacking the convoy.
00:19:46
Speaker
And we see this attack happen and they get fended off. And then the next scene we see is of Ashitaka down by a river where he encounters some injured men from conflict that we just discussed attacking the wolves. And he helps these two injured men out of the river and then sees San across the river with the wolves. San immediately sees him. He stands out, introduces himself. She just says nothing, walks away. And then the last thing she says is, go away.
00:20:16
Speaker
and then leaves. Did you get any kind of impression from Sam or the wolves from that? I mean it's a hell of an introduction like it's well done at first because I found it really difficult to tell and I think this is maybe maybe this is deliberate or maybe this is just me but I found it very difficult to tell what was on the what was riding the wolf at first because she's wearing that she's wearing that mask
00:20:35
Speaker
And it's because it's moving so fast. It's not really clearly like I wonder if it was a kind of like forest creature or something, you know something like that but then as you say we find that it is like a it's a human writing as well like See right after she takes a mask off. I think correct me I think the first thing she does is like sucks the blood out of like the wounds. That's one of her
00:20:56
Speaker
wolves are one of the wolves and then he turns around to see that kind of blood which I think is one of like the images you see a lot for like the marketing of it and stuff with her blood on her face and everything it's a really striking
Thematic Conflict and Battle
00:21:08
Speaker
image and you like completely understand this is like as much as she's a human she is of like she's clearly of the animal world and you can just see the kind of like you can see the hatred in her that she has towards humans and everything which again is going to be another is another defining defining characteristic of
00:21:23
Speaker
So again, it's just everything about this film is just so well set up and you can instantly like, it's simple in a way that you can instantly gonna understand who people are and you know, sort of like their relationships. But as well, like the film is complex and as you learn more you get to delve more into these characters. So I think it's just so well done.
00:21:41
Speaker
It is it's very, very interesting to kind of demonstrate the wild child nature of her. She's I don't know if she's sucking out, like the bullet or some kind of like injury that's there. And yeah, it has the blood kind of smeared across her face, and then she stares towards Ashitaka with kind of blood across her face and it
00:21:58
Speaker
It is a wonderful, wonderful imagery that's shown there. So San then leaves, and we're then left with Ashitaka, Yakul, and these two men, one of which is more conscious than the other, so is the conscious one sits on top of Yakul, and Ashitaka carries the other man on his back through the forest.
00:22:14
Speaker
It's at this time that we see some of the little tree spirits, the small white lobby creatures, which look like they have kind of long masks that rotate and have three kind of domino spot eyes across their face. And they look very playful,
Climax: Forest Spirit's Death
00:22:28
Speaker
very childlike, very like a cherub, cherub like creatures, creepy and cute at the same time, who are going through the forest making clicking noises as their heads turn. One of the human who's conscious, the stranger who's conscious is terrified of them. Ashitaka
00:22:43
Speaker
seems to be much more trustful of these spirits. And they're very cute. They're following them through the forest, leading them through. And they're mimicking Ashutaka, pickybacking the stranger on his back. And it's very cute. What did you make of them? Yeah, they were getting really, really cool introduction. Because as you say, when you first see them, it looks really creepy. It's that kind of like that hollow face, you know, and you're like, God, what is this? Almost like a husk.
00:23:06
Speaker
type thing and then it's it's mostly me clicking and it is very creepy but then as you see more than like they do become a lot cuter it's like i think you say a lot the first one as well has like that kind of like just face it's almost like that that famous they call the scream or whatever that painting
00:23:21
Speaker
that face but then you see others with more like smiling faces you know more kind of gentle features and stuff so again like it's really good again just highlighting that like that sense of unknown and you can totally see in the different reactions you know so obviously like the the injured the injured man like just freaks out and panics again it's this unknown
Resolution and Theme Reflection
00:23:38
Speaker
thing and you know
00:23:40
Speaker
part of the settlement that's been in conflict with the animal world. So he's just like almost hardwired to like be afraid of anything from the kind of like animal spirit world. While Ashitaga is much more like, you know, as much as he, he knows like they are like forest tree spirits, but again, like he hasn't come into much contact with them, but again, he's much more like furious and trusting. So it's interesting again, you get two different reactions to them.
00:24:03
Speaker
They're a lot like, the best thing I can bear them to probably would be like Koroks from the Legend of Zelda series. I don't know if you're familiar with Koroks in the Zelda series, but they're kind of little tree creatures as well. Oh, I think they know the one you're talking about, yeah.
00:24:15
Speaker
Yeah, so they're a lot like the like them very smiley, especially the ones in both Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild. They're very, very similar to little tree spirits in Prince Monokay. And what's interesting is there's a lot of there is a lot of creepiness and scariness in this movie, but the tree spirits are never actually scary. In this movie, they're never like the threat, they're often interacting with the threat, but they themselves are never the threat.
00:24:38
Speaker
So yeah, so we then proceed further into the forest and the tree spirits lead us to a pond, and there's an island in the middle of the pond. That's where Ashdaka and the Ikul and the two people are resting. After being in the water for a little bit, our Ashdaka and the men kind of wound, start to feel better and heal a little bit. So you can tell it's kind of a magical property to this. Ashdaka sees through a glimpse of the trees a deer
00:25:04
Speaker
with way too many antlers. If you think of a deal with too many antlers, add like five more antlers on that and then you're kind of halfway there. There's something very strange about this deal that you can somewhat catch a glimpse of. Again, it's just that way you instantly know, you can instantly tell you're like, right, this is something important, this deer catcher. We don't know what it is at the minute and we only see an outline, but you can instantly tell, this is something important.
00:25:29
Speaker
I do think
Comparative Analysis with Other Ghibli Films
00:25:31
Speaker
this film has some great comedic moments. I thought that bit was great where, as you say, they're in the water, and they're healing up, and then Ashitaga gains some strength, so he's able to carry the guy much faster. But the injured guy who's broken his arm is like, oh, my arm feels much better, and he takes his sling off and stretches it. Oh, no, he's still broken. It was a really funny moment, a nice bit of humor.
00:25:52
Speaker
and again it's just it's such a nice contrast like from the scene we've had before where the oxen were like trudging up the hill and it almost looks like a kind of like world war one battlefield with all this like churned up mud and like it's blackened earth and like scorched trees and everything like that we then get this like idyllic grove and lake and everything and just this kind of serene this peaceful scene it's just such a nice contrast as we were deeper into the forest
00:26:16
Speaker
And you know, it's that way of like, on the outside of the forest, it seems like, the forest seems like a mysterious and scary, you know, but once you're inside it, you know, it's this, it's this like, beautiful, like, piece of unspoiled nature. So again, just a really nice contrast that I think would get set up.
00:26:32
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. It is a great kind of contrast of the industrial warfare and against the kind of idyllic forest grove, as you're saying. And it is wonderful. And that's kind of the conflict in the movie of that industrial versus nature and spirit world and that kind of flash that they have.
00:26:51
Speaker
So speaking of the industrial, we then proceed through the forest. And on the other side, we catch a glimpse of Iron Town, this industrial fortified town that's kind of, not an island, but it's kind of like a little peninsula kind of area, sort of centered around water. And we head over to the town and the village sort of sees these two injured men that they can't
00:27:15
Speaker
just like oh they're probably dead are now back and everyone kind of rushes over and sees them we have one of the kind of henchmen of lady aboshi gonzo comes over who is voiced in the english dub by john damaggio you might know him as bender and futuranga
00:27:32
Speaker
And I'm pretty sure from the English dub, I'm pretty sure he voices a lot of the other side characters as well, just like occasionally characters will speak. And I'm like, is that just John DiMaggio again? I could be wrong there, but that's kind of what I figured. They might have just gotten him to fill in for a lot of characters. So he comes. Yeah, he can. Exactly. Maximize the paycheck. He confronts Ashitaka upon his arrival to the industrial village and the women of the town and the men that they helped.
00:27:57
Speaker
vouch for him and say that he's good and Lady Aboshi steps in and sort of you can tell that she's who's in charge in this town and we find out that she is fighting against the forest to take its resources which forces a commentary on industrialization which is
00:28:12
Speaker
A theme in a lot of Ghibli movies that a lot of the time they're talking about industrialisation or warfare and things like that
Final Impressions and Viewer Impact
00:28:20
Speaker
to try and spread their message of what Ghibli feels should be protecting forests and pacifism and that kind of ideal. Ashtaka then quickly figures out that Eboshi is responsible for the issues of the forest and for the boar king becoming a demon. What were your initial impressions of Iron Town and of the settlement and what we're finding out about Eboshi?
00:28:41
Speaker
Again, I think it's that really clever way of as you go into Iron Town, like you find out so much more about it. So when we first see it, it's such again, I feel like this is the word of the episode striking, but I feel like it's just the perfect way to describe like so much of this film.
00:28:56
Speaker
So as Ashitaga and the men come out with a forest and we look across the lake, as you say, look, we have Iron Town there and it's just desolate, it's just a desolate hillside around it. And it's all like, you can tell it's fortified, you know, it's fortified for war and there's smoke, everything.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:29:10
Speaker
It's all like black buildings and everything. It's a complete like contrast to like the forest that we've just been in. And on the outside, it looks like quite an imposing and scary place and you're like, oh,
00:29:20
Speaker
It looks like the kind of evil. You're like, well, there's the, you know, if you had to point out, well, there's the evil, you know, there's what's wrong with the world there. But then we go to, we actually get to see the inhabitants and we get to see their lives and we see that these are just people in the day. And like, they're people just trying to like, trying to survive, make a living, you know, gain some level of comfort and everything. And we see some more of the society. We find out more about the Lady of Oshi. And as I said earlier, like Lady of Oshi, like,
00:29:46
Speaker
I would honestly hold her up as, like, this is how you create, like, a well-rounded, well-fleshed-out and complex character. Because just, like, when you first see her, she has that maybe look of being the villain, and you're like, oh, it looks like maybe it might be a kind of a stock character, but there's so many layers to her.
00:30:01
Speaker
And as you find out more about the town and its inhabitants, and you find out that the women in the town are people that she's rescued from the brothels, and then we find out some other people's society that she's looking after. It just completely flushes her out to be this character that you're like, you know, she's not good and she's not bad, she's a morally grey character, like basically everybody is, like real human beings are.
00:30:27
Speaker
And so it just lends us authenticity to the film. As much as this is taking place in a quote unquote fantasy setting, these feel like real people. These are people that you can recognise in everyday life. And it just makes it so much more effective. I just think it's brilliant that as you go into Iron Town, that's when we see so much more about it and it's not just this one dimensional place that again it looks like from the outside.
00:30:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great point. You've covered a lot of things that I was going to bring up as well, like the Lydia Boshi rescuing the brothel residents and lepers and whatnot. What is an interesting kind of idea as well is that going into this movie, if you think that there is going to be a black and white as to who's good and who's bad, initially, when you see the demon creature, you think, okay, so this is man versus demon. And then you see the demon was created by man. So you're like, okay, so now it's a case of nature protecting itself from industrialization.
00:31:18
Speaker
Which is to an extent, then you start to learn about the backgrounds of the of the people so they aren't the villains necessarily. And so there, as you say, yeah, it is very gray. There is no black and white in this movie. There are you and you understand the positions of a lot of the characters. You you like some and then don't like them later on and it kind of you're sort of switching around and
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah, afterwards we see that Lady Oboshi is making guns and the people who are making the guns are lepers. She looks after the downtrodden, buying out brothel contracts, helping out lepers. The lepers say that she's washed out their rotten flesh. I don't know enough about leprosy, but I'm pretty sure that is a way of getting leprosy.
00:31:55
Speaker
So I don't know whether or not that's necessarily the safest course of action, but I also don't know enough about leprosy. After we have this conversation, Aboshi says that she wants Ashitaka to stay and help her defeat the spirits of the forest, and that once they do defeat the spirit of the forest, they might be able to heal both Ashitaka's curse and potentially heal the lepers that are with her with the spirit's power.
00:32:19
Speaker
Ashitaka has to consider this, but is more on the side of nature in the situation. And that is when the wolf clan attacks the town. We see that the wolf girl is after a boshi, is going to try and assassinate a boshi, and that she's wearing her cool spooky mask that you mentioned earlier. A boshi sets the quote, cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite, which I know at the time, I just said that that's just not the case. That's not how that works.
00:32:44
Speaker
But as we'll get into later, that might still come to pass. And then after much conflict in the town with San, the wolf girl, being blown off of her rooftop and falling and then charging at Lady Oboshi and fighting, Ashitaka comes over to try and resolve the conflict. And in one move, he just whacks both of them in the stomach, knocks both of them out, throws San over his shoulder,
00:33:09
Speaker
leaves lydia boshi to her men to look after he starts to walk out of the town with san over her shoulder he's threatened to be shot by one of the women who don't want san to leave because she's responsible for what their husband's death and san is then shot was like the biggest bullet hole you've just ever seen i'm like an absolute champ he just keeps going bleeding out
00:33:28
Speaker
I think that's what's really... I think this is where we start to learn a lot about Ashitaga in this one. As much as he is a warrior, the first thing we see him doing in the film is fighting and defending the village, you actually see strong moral code that he has. As much as he is obviously trained to fight and very proficient at it, he's actually very restrained in this film.
00:33:50
Speaker
It takes a lot for him to actually draw his weapon and actually use his fighting skills and everything. As you say, he goes in there to stop it and disarm them both and end the fight without bloodshed. And even after he's shot,
00:34:13
Speaker
as you're saying there's like gaping like bullet wounds in him his blood's pouring out he just he doesn't react at all so you get that you you can see like the more like his sense of morality and you know what he's here to do you know as much as he's a man trained for war like he clearly doesn't he's not a promoter of it he's clearly only used it as a last resort so again it fleshes him out so much and brings a lot more to his character and makes him like a lot more like
00:34:37
Speaker
makes him a lot more like you know, you want to like root for him and you know, because he is like the represents balance in a way. Yeah, he is. He's a very neutral character in the film. He he doesn't take sides. He defends what he believes is right and wrong. But he doesn't he doesn't sort of
00:34:55
Speaker
impose necessarily in either direction. He's not necessarily just fighting for the forest, he's not necessarily fighting for the humans, he's kind of trying to mediate between the two. And yeah, so he heads to the gate after being shot through with a giant bullet hole and is told that the gate requires 10 men to open it and that he'll die if he tries just by himself. Of course he then proceeds and succeeds in pushing the gate open because he has his demonic super strong arm and heads out with Yakul and they ride off.
00:35:25
Speaker
Soon afterwards, San wakes up, and luckily upon San waking up, she managed to catch that Ashitaka has gone unconscious and has fallen off of Ikul. She goes to help him out. The wolves immediately launch on him to attack him, but she stops them. And that's when we encounter the monkey creatures. What did you make of these kind of monkey creatures?
00:35:45
Speaker
They are, again, another terrifying bunch of creatures that just show up and, like, do we see them? Am I right in saying we see them a little bit earlier when Ashitaga is, like, having a meeting with Oboshi and she, like, I think she fires off a gun to try and, like, scatter them because they're trying to plant trees again?
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah, so so early, I missed that early. But yes, so she fends off the monkey, these monkey kind of creatures who are trying to plant trees to fix the hillside to restore nature back on the hillside. So treats them almost like a like a weed saying that they keep coming back each night and they have to like scare them scare them off. And these creatures, these poor creatures, obviously just trying to sort of repair the forest.
00:36:22
Speaker
who had their home, and in a very kind of peaceful kind of way, and they're being pushed off and you can tell them become more and more demonic. You never, as far as I remember, you never actually see what they truly look like. They're always kind of silhouetted, which makes them incredibly creepy. Yeah, but it's a lot later on film. That's what I was gonna say, because like, that it's not until much later, like near the end that you see them like in their actual form, when they're in the forest. But it's that really fantastic way of seeing them in this desolate landscape. And they look they look like shades, basically, they look
00:36:50
Speaker
like really scary and terrifying. And you can almost see why the humans are so scared of them, you know, because they're all black and it's like the red eyes and they look like demons. And you can also see that they're like the hatred of the humans and everything because the humans have like eradicated the forest and destroyed their homeland and they're trying to, you know, they want to like take their revenge on the humans that you get.
00:37:12
Speaker
You just see this world that's like filled with hate and hatred on both sides. Like there just seems to be no way, like they're just in complete conflict and there's no, there's going to be any way to kind of bridge that. It's interesting because they're, you're seeing, and they say that they want to eat the human being Ashitaka.
00:37:28
Speaker
to gain his power and so they've obviously run out of ideas of what to do they've been trying to plant these trees peacefully it's not work they keep being pushed back so they think well if we take the power of the humans by eating them then we'll be able to thrive off these other humans and of course that's not how it works and that would we learned that would turn them into demons like we saw earlier with the boar.
00:37:51
Speaker
From what they look like now, they look like there are already demons, but I think that maybe is not the case at the moment, that they are just kind of very mysterious, silhouetted, kind of monkey creatures at the moment, and that they would become demons should their hatred manifest any further. But yeah, so they are
00:38:08
Speaker
pushed away by the wolves when the wolves haven't had enough of their disrespect towards them. You can tell that the wolves are the most feared creatures in the forest as they scare them off and then they head towards the pond that we saw earlier where Ashitaka and the two men were earlier. That is where sand takes them to be healed and that's when we see a gigantic spirit arrives, this kind of night shifter or night creature, I can't remember what they called him,
00:38:38
Speaker
nightstrider or something like that arrives, which then comes smaller and smaller and smaller and then becomes this deer like creature that we saw earlier with a very creepy face. Well, what do you make of this this spirit creature?
00:39:08
Speaker
the face is hella creepy but it's it's like an elk it's like a kind of deer's body with this like almost humanesque face and it's really but i suppose like in a way it's it's again it's that like unknown sense and you know it's that like this is something that we we don't have any real knowledge of or any real like nothing to really compare it to so it is that kind of frightening thing from the outside and it's not that it's not done anything you know in fact like the forest spirit is is is like universally helpful and kind and gentle and not threatening at all
00:39:37
Speaker
But just in the way it looks, it looks so unsettling. And you can just tell we're in a completely different world now. We've gone from the very kind of relatable and human world of Iron Town into this kind of fantastical realm.
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. We've gone into the spirit realm, as it were, and we're seeing this creature that is not like any of the other kind of creatures we've seen. Because even like the wolves are just very large wolves, and you can kind of relate as them being very large wolves. We see some of the boars and other creatures that they're just boars, whereas this creature is very otherworldly. You can make an argument for the tree spirits or the demon at the very start, but
00:40:16
Speaker
This does have a very different feel from what we've seen so far, and the human-like face as it was described earlier, I don't know if necessarily it's human-like, it's far more uncanny than that, but it is a very interesting look. But yes, this spirit creature seems to be very kind and life-giving, it heals Ashitaka's wound, and I think it might heal, I think it's one of the wolves might be injured or something as well, and it heals them, or that might be later in the movie. And then we get a glimpse of Jigou again, the monk,
00:40:45
Speaker
who appears to be scouting the forest spirit is watching the forest spirit and we also then see a giant white boar arriving that she goes scouting with the boars tribe and the leader who we learn is called lord of kodo who was infamous and was supposed to died over a hundred years ago and
00:41:04
Speaker
I don't know if we can tell at that point, but Kodo is blind. He's completely white fur and I think from old age, his eyes are kind of milky white and a lot of kind of pus kind of around the eyes. It's very gross. Again, it's one of those kind of aesthetic things. It tells you a lot about a Kodo and what he's lived through. And I think that's very interesting. What did you make of the Boar tribe?
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah, again, like it's such an interesting and it's like just the scale of it as well. As you say, seeing this is like all this mass, like this, this hoard of them, like just tramping up, like it's a really impressive like site and you know, something like this is something big and you can, again, we don't quite know why they're all showing up, but you can tell it's like for something important. And then you can obviously take it, instantly identify like this, this white one is like the leader. And just as you say, from the visuals, we can tell this is like an old, you know, this is like an old warrior in any ways who's like,
00:41:56
Speaker
It's been through a lot, and you can see from the stars, and as you say, his features and everything. Again, you just know something important is going to happen, and there's an important reason for why they're here again. So it sets up that great intrigue, because we've seen basically all the major players now, I think, by this point.
00:42:18
Speaker
entered onto the stage. And so now we're just, you know, it's just, they're getting themselves arranged on the board and everything. And so you're really just so intrigued to see what's happening, like, you know, and how this is all going to unfold. It's certainly more than 30 to 50 wild boars that are trespassing. If you know that meme.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah, so then we then cut back up to Ashitaka, whose wound has been healed, but the spirit, or rather the curse, is still there. So the spirit of the forest has healed the wound, but not the curse. And we see that Yakul, who had his reigns taken off of him by sand and told that you're free to go if you want.
00:42:58
Speaker
absolute MVP, fantastic, always around, great lad. He stayed with Ashitaka throughout. He's allowed to go free, but he stays with his best pal Ashitaka. Shout out to your cool, wherever you are. And San then feeds Ashitaka by pre-chewing food for him. My girlfriend who was also watching it with me just commented, that's nasty TBH. So I've included that as a sole comment of the movie.
00:43:24
Speaker
Another striking visual, not quite in the beautiful landscape form, but yeah, we had a pretty similar reaction watching it. Yeah, so we then have the two players, the Boers and the Wolfplan confronting each other. San speaks to Lorda Kodo, who is voiced by Keith David. I don't know if you're familiar with Keith David, he's a pretty prolific voice actor. We have Rick and Morty fans out there. He's the president, he was the president.
00:43:54
Speaker
Oh, of course he does. Of course he does. Yeah. I knew I recognized the voice when I heard it in Rick and Morty. One of my favorite Keith David roles was Goliath in Gargoyles. Don't know if you've ever watched Gargoyles. Almost in that role. Let's always check it out.
00:44:09
Speaker
Oh, it was a wonderful, it came out like the 90s. It was very progressive for the 90s. And it's all, if you have Disney Plus, it's all on Disney Plus. I recommend checking that out. Yeah. So Keith David, Lorda Kodo, is very understanding of Ashitaka's situation of the curse and what he's put himself through, but says that if he does see him again, he will kill him. So there's this, there's only so much tolerance that Lorda Kodo has towards Ashitaka and humans.
00:44:34
Speaker
It's very interesting that San being raised by wolves is just seen as a wolf. There's never a, oh, but you're a human from any of the other creatures. There's no animosity towards San for being a human. She is a wolf to them. And I think that is so interesting that she is so part of the wolf clan that there is no animosity towards her.
00:44:54
Speaker
Again, it contrasts with the human reaction, as you say, because she is viewed as something very strange. As much as they identify her as a human, they also identify her as this feral creature. As you say, when it comes to the animal world, she's just identified as an animal. She's identified as a wolf.
00:45:16
Speaker
And as well, it's interesting you're saying that there's only so much tolerance from Lord Okoto and the boars and stuff. It sets up that this is a world of polar opposites, and everybody is like the animals and humans that just arranged and arrayed against each other. They've just been pushed to such extremes now that there seems to be no way of compromise and communication and understanding is just opposition and just strife.
00:45:44
Speaker
Basically, no. The war is the only option. There's nothing else that can be done. There's no mitigating this. It's what's going to happen. Exactly. And the final scene we have, I think, in the forest, in this area, is we cut over to the forest spirit who is still there, standing on the water, and just gives a really derpy face, like looking over. And like, I'm sure it's not supposed to be like that, but I burst out laughing. I just thought it looks so stupid.
00:46:13
Speaker
I love so much about this film and I still love that scene but it did make me laugh because I thought it looked silly. I don't know if you had a similar reaction or not or if you remember the scene I'm talking about.
00:46:29
Speaker
Oh, oh, that's, that's, that's later in the movie. That is later in the movie. So yeah, you're getting ahead of yourself here. I'm like, I'm like the spirit of the forest. So we then cut over to Iron Town again, which is under attack by a human Lord's army. We learned that another Lord, Lord Asano, a human Lord wants to take half of Iron Town's iron ore, which
00:46:50
Speaker
was it would never be half it would he that's what they would say and then possibly taking all of it and so jigo is back and wants to hunt the spirit of the forest presumably to sell to the emperor who we learn believes it will grant him immortality uh we it's established early but iron town appears to be a matriarchal society we're seeing more interaction with the women of the town and sort of their their kind of roles and how how important they are and they're kind of bossing all the men around
00:47:15
Speaker
And we then, after sort of having that brief kind of show at Iron Town, the conflict with another human faction, we see that we cut over to the wolf leader, Morrow, who is voiced by Gillian Anderson of X-Files and sex education fame. Again, if I've missed out any of her big credits, then you'll have to let me know. I'm always bad at that. She's done a lot. We can spend the rest of the year.
00:47:40
Speaker
I think those ex-fars are probably her most famous, and then sex education is her most current that people are aware of, I think. And so the wolf leader, Moro, is talking to Ashitaka, and she very nonchalantly just talks about how, oh, I thought about killing you in your sleep, but I didn't. Which Ashitaka just kind of ignores that comment and just keeps talking. I thought that made me laugh as well.
00:48:02
Speaker
that like she was like, oh, if you if you had if you'd stirred in your sleep, I would have bitten your head off. And he's like, nice weather we're having. And from that conversation, we also learned that Moro received San from San's human parents because they they were scared of Moro and kind of just left San to die so that they could escape. And so kind of demonstrating that humans don't even care about their own kin. And the Moro being a much kinder, more wizened being
00:48:29
Speaker
decided instead of eating this baby she would raise it as her own and so that's that's kind of this very quick kind of origin story of of San and one of the many reasons that Morrow and the Wolf Tribe hate humans and why San has justification to also hate humans because she was abandoned by her own kind and then we then see that the Wolf Clan
00:48:49
Speaker
speaks to the leader of the Boers, or just one of the Boers, and says that they're going to team up with the Boers to attack Kaboshi's army, which prompts Ashitaka to go back into Iron Town, which we see is under attack from Lord Asano's army. He then leaves Iron Town, so it's a very brief visit, not stopping for tea.
00:49:06
Speaker
to go and tell Aboshi that the town needs help. Upon riding off to deliver that message, Yakuul is shot by an arrow in his back leg. Justifiably, Ashitaka is not happy and proceeds to kill the men who attacked Yakuul with his demon arms, again decapitating and destroying these men, and we then see Ashitaka leading the injured Yakuul away. I let off a gasp
00:49:31
Speaker
when You Cool got shot. I don't know about you, but I was horrified that You Cool, best man, got hurt in any way. That was a shock as well. That was the most tension. When we were in our household and we were watching it, we were like absolute fear for You Cool, but thankfully made it through. And so I was scared because I don't know. I don't think I could have carried on. If You Cool had gone there, I think I had to just call in to the film. I don't think I could have survived.
00:49:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's always the way with animals. There's a website that my partner always looks at. It's called does the dog die dot com and it tells you if an animal dies in a movie. It's not always dogs, it's sometimes it's cats or horses or anything like that. And so if an animal appears, then they're like quickly like check to make sure like if this is going to happen, I'm not going to watch it.
00:50:20
Speaker
We then see that Ashitaka delivers the message to the Iron Town men, saying that the towns under attack need to help. And we see one of the men has got some pretty bad PTSD from the Battle of the Boers. So we didn't see too much of the Battle of the Boers. We saw that the Boers were climbing up the side of the mountain.
00:50:38
Speaker
the Iron Town men were kicking stones that had dynamite in them off of the top of the cliff which is blowing them off and so the the boars were kind of destroyed mainly there was the majority of the boars were killed a lot of the humans seem to have died or have been attacked and this one guy is pretty uh out of shape from it he's uh he's he's not doing well and we see that one of the wolves is injured Ashitaka runs over to go help him
00:51:00
Speaker
It is, it is like a really, um, I get it. It's just such like a, I need to, I need to look at my thesaurus. I need to find another word for striking. It's just like, as like we show up, as Ashitaga like shows up and we just see the aftermath of like the battle of just like the carcasses strewn everywhere.
00:51:18
Speaker
And as always, we start to see the kind of psychological toll that this is taking on the people of Iron Town and everything and just especially with this one where they've basically been used as cannon fodder by Jigou and the Emperor's kind of troops and stuff have basically used them as a kind of like
00:51:36
Speaker
human shield to basically lure the boars in so they can wipe them out. Their lives really mean nothing. At the end of the day, in the grand scheme of the Emperor's plans, they're just pawns to be disposed of and everything. We just see the psychological toll just breaking down and everything. The body's just laid out and everything just covered up.
00:51:58
Speaker
Yeah, again, it's just like, it's just that way of like, we get to see, not only do we see like, what's happening, but we get to see that the actual impact, you know, and again, this is like, it's such a relatable moment, that that image of like, the battlefield after the Battle of Bors you could like, you know, you can apply to any like, war like modern, ancient, medieval, whatever, like, you know, just that the imagery is just so it just like stays in your mind. It's just like such a powerful, powerful image and everything. Again, it's just it's just so impressive. Like, I just get everything about this form just the way it is so impressive.
00:52:27
Speaker
War never changes my friend. So we then move on to Ashitaka taking one of the wolves to go be healed to the spirit pond and to try and warn San and Aboshi and we see that Okoto is being led to the spirit pond as well by San and that
00:52:46
Speaker
some hunters are pretending to be boars to trick Okoto into leading them to the forest spirit. We're also then seeing that Okoto is starting to become a demon, which is obviously a very horrible scene where he's driven mad and he's determined to run forward and these
00:53:05
Speaker
tendrils are forming on him and San is trying to wipe them away to prevent him from becoming a demon. And she's then consumed by the demon worms and pulled in, which is a horrible scene. It's a lot like, you won't have seen this yet, but it's a lot like in Akira when the girl in Akira is pulled in by the monster. Akitasha arrives and tells Iboshi that Iron Town is under attack. Iboshi
00:53:30
Speaker
does not give a shit and says that the girls are good enough to defend the town by themselves, they don't need her help, and that she's determined to sort of kill the forest spirit. Akatashi then goes and tries to free San from the demon worms, but is repelled from it.
00:53:45
Speaker
We see that Moro, the wolf, is also very injured and close to death, but she managed to fight Lord Okodo, which her fight with him seems to get rid of the demon worms, the kind of demon worms will die and which freeze sand from the grasp, and then Moro proceeds to die. The spirit of the forest arrives and then proceeds to have its head blown off, which the majesty of the spirit is kind of ruined by how weird its face is.
00:54:14
Speaker
And it then becomes kind of a vengeful blob kaiju engulfing the forest. I don't know if you have any comment on that. I think it's fascinating again to see more of Lady Yaboshi's character because, as you say, we've established that she is dedicated to Iron Town and to its inhabitants and stuff, but it does think that kind of
00:54:32
Speaker
weird moment where she abandons it and is like, oh, it'll be fine. You know, like, but I think it's really interesting because it just, it shows like in the way, like how she's become in a way that she's become so focused on this. Like I must like kill the spirit because this is going to be the, this is going to be the final victory. If I can take this thing down, then there's like nothing to stop us. And so this is for, this is for like the greater good in the end to the point of ignoring like the immediate peril that her settlements in at the minute, it's just that the dangers of becoming that like laser focused is that way, you know,
00:55:02
Speaker
see the forest for the trees. I think again it's just fascinating to see Ashitaga again just just be so restrained and you know his his his goal is to like save is to save everybody you know so he goes out to make sure Sans like safe and then you know like he doesn't he doesn't actually like trying to fight Lady Aboshi or anything like that that you might think he might even then even like after you know what happens his aim is his aim is still safety and so again we just see like his such a strong moral code
00:55:29
Speaker
And his rejection of violence, which is so incredible, in the face of all this brutality and violence that's just happened, from the siege of Iron Town to the Battle of the Boars to the fight at the edge of the lake here, just his rejection of that method and that resolution is just all the more amazing.
00:55:49
Speaker
For sure, yeah, definitely. It is a very impressive sort of seeing him again, we've said this over and over again, but his kind of position defending what's right and being a in between between the forest and the humans and protecting everything and seeing kind of the difference, different fights kind of going on all the time and him kind of being in between all of them. It is a very, very interesting angle that we're getting a good viewpoint of every situation. We as the audience are seeing
00:56:17
Speaker
each different point of view, we're able to understand each point of view. What then happens is, as Lady Oboshi had said earlier, and I foolishly commented, that's not how it works. Indeed, if once a wolf's head is cut off, it can still bite you as Moro's disembodied head wriggles over to Lady Oboshi and bites her arm off. What did you make of the scene? It happened so quickly that I didn't quite register with me at first, like, what was happening. And I was like,
00:56:50
Speaker
interesting thing of the kind of like final you know that like the death strike basically and that way and again it was it was it was a real like surprise but then I was like oh my god like you know thought back to that line that she had and it just it felt like kind of like fitting like you know that kind of like fitting cycle of the events that were set up in the setup earlier on.
00:57:10
Speaker
I think our next scene is back in Iron Town, where they're fending off Lord Asana's men, then the giant blob Kaiju of the forest spirit is kind of covering over everything, engulfing everything, and Lord Asana's men are being sort of hit by this.
00:57:27
Speaker
by the wave of the spirit. It's almost like a liquid, like this blob that's kind of washing through. And Toki, one of the women in the Iron Town who we saw earlier, seems very sick of her husband, Kuroko. He was the guy with the broken arm earlier. He's constantly coming across as a little bitch and she's completely sick of him. Every woman in Iron Town is far too good for the men that they're married to, which I mean, you can say is always the case.
00:57:52
Speaker
San and Akatashi are both completely covered in the curse now we see their entire body, face and everything is covered in the curse. Whereas previously it kind of been restricted to Akatashi's arm and then his kind of upper shoulder like kind of mid torso kind of area and we're now seeing that they're completely covered in the curse and the next mission is to try and retrieve the head of the spirit which is being taken by Jigou and his men and they're trying to run away with his head in a bucket to try and sell it to the emperor.
00:58:22
Speaker
Of course, they get stuck on this little island, and Akitasho Osan, I can't remember which, says that a human has to return the head, otherwise the conflict will not be resolved. So they return the head to the spirit, who is calmed, and it dies in peace, returning life to the mountain, it like, falls onto Iron Town, this kind of spirit form falls on Iron Town, which creates like a giant wind, which puts out a lot of fires that had happened before, and
00:58:50
Speaker
and it also destroys a lot of the settlement and you see life starting to grow back again around Iron Town. The town itself becomes covered in trees and the mountains around it covered in trees and we also see that now both Akitasha and Sans' curses were lifted. For me, it brings up the point of if this entire series of events hadn't happened,
00:59:12
Speaker
where, which involved the spirit dying, would Akitasha's curse have been lifted? Because it wasn't lifted earlier when he was cured by the spirit, but when the spirit died, it was cured. So is this not a net positive for Akitasha? Yeah, I think definitely, and I think it's almost that way of like destiny, isn't it? It's almost like fated, like he's fated to be cursed to then make this journey, set these things up. And maybe in a way, like if you look at if you look at it from that sense,
00:59:40
Speaker
Perhaps that's why he doesn't try to intervene and stop things. He's almost like an agent of fate.
00:59:48
Speaker
at that point, you know, and he's playing his predestined role. It's almost like this has to happen, like, it's like this has to happen and the forest spirit has to die, because the world, like the world now is just, as we've said, it's just at such, it's just at such like extremes, you know, there's no, like, there's like no one was no saving this version of the world at the minute, like the humans and the animals and the spirits are just like opposed to each other, there's no like room for any kind of
01:00:17
Speaker
compromise, but with like the forest spirit's death, not only is like the kind of old forest like wiped away, but as well, Iron Town's destroyed, it's leveled basically. And then we get this new forest growing, as you said, like from the ashes of the old, it's almost like a new world that can get a fresh start and they can like hopefully learn from the lessons of the old one. Communication and compromise can like grow, you know, rather than the conflict and fear and everything that characterise the old.
01:00:44
Speaker
For sure. It's a sacrifice on the part of the forest spirit, which makes you wonder whether this was destined and preordained if the forest spirit knew that this was going to happen and that it had to die in order for the forest to regain its health and for peace to be restored and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, that's very interesting. And so after our end is that the area is growing green and the credits start to roll and
01:01:12
Speaker
It is a very, very strong ending. We understand that San Akitashi, yeah, Akitashi, I would say his name the entire time, it still sounds weird to me, are together and they can be together. We don't know whether or not beyond the story, if they stay together. But with Moro dead, we assume that San will likely take over the role for the Wolf Clan. And yeah, it's a very, very beautiful ending. What do you think of the ending?
01:01:38
Speaker
beautiful is the exact word to describe it and it's just this fitting conclusion and it's this really like really hopeful conclusion that as like we end on and we can hope for this new world that you know a new way is going to reign out of peace and tranquility it's the perfect like payoff to everything this film set up and for all like the bleakness and like you know horror and everything that has that has come before like we just get this really like like as much as melancholic that like you know
01:02:04
Speaker
so many people have had to die and the forest spirit is dead and you know as are like as a cotto and the morrow and like a lot of others like we get this real sense of hope that something something new can grow and it can be built from it so i think it's just the perfect ending i agree i think i think it is an absolutely wonderful ending i think that it finalizes everything that we've seen in in the in the movie i think it tidies everything everything away aboshi is still alive she seems to have learned from the experience likewise with
01:02:31
Speaker
Jingo, I think was his name. Jigo. Jigo. I like going with Jigo. He's learned from the experience, the people of Iron Town and, and, and the, the, the spirits of all are all, are all now kind of on equal terms. They understand each other, I feel. And yeah, life, life kind of continues past this, but we, we, we don't know what's to happen. I think it's wonderful. So then, Adam, what were your overall impressions of the movie? What did you
01:02:57
Speaker
Think of this in comparison to, say, some of your other Ghibli films. How is it ranked in comparison to them? I honestly loved this film.
01:03:04
Speaker
think it is spectacular. I think it's definitely the best one that I've seen so far of Ghibli films and I've really really enjoyed the other ones I've seen as well and maybe there's a little bit of recency bias because this is the one I've seen the most recently but I honestly there's nothing I can really fault with this film I thought it was absolutely perfect like it looks beautiful like it's beautifully told I think its themes are just as relevant now you know as they were in 1997 and I think they will remain relevant for a long time
01:03:31
Speaker
The characters in this film are amazing. I love how complex they are. None of them really feel one-dimensional at all. There's fantastic moments of beauty, but also moments of intense violence and horror and fear and everything, and that's exactly what this film's about.
01:03:51
Speaker
It's brutally, the brutally honest, I love the brutally honest storytelling in it. It's really as much as a fantasy world. It doesn't feel like sugarcoated or like kind of, you know, like steeped in those kind of like that fantasy like, oh, you know, that kind of wonderful stuff. This feels like a real world, you know, and you can recognize the characters and the problems and everything.
01:04:09
Speaker
And I actually really like that there's no single villain, there's not one character that's the evil of everything. The enemy of this film is hatred and fear, its emotions and everything. And I think that's such a powerful message. And just seeing how corrupting they can be through this story, I think it's just me.
01:04:30
Speaker
It's just everything about it, from its art style, to its themes, to its characters. The pacing is excellent. It's exactly as long as it needs to be. It doesn't drag. It's not boring at any point. It's honestly a massive piece. I absolutely love this one.
01:04:45
Speaker
very well said. And I agree. I think it's very interesting that you just say there's no one enemy. At the start of the film, you might have thought like, oh, there's a demon. Maybe there's like a demon king or something that we are fighting against or something like an evil entity that is influencing them to become these demons. But there's nothing like that. And my partner had said like, oh, so what was it that caused them to become demons? Was it this
01:05:11
Speaker
spirit of the forest. And I said, no, I don't think it was. I think it was purely a case of just their own hatred manifesting out into this evil entity. And I think that's, that's, that's the case that it's, it's hatred and the on the human side, it was greed. They didn't have this evil entity manifesting, but greed is that evil, evil entity that they, whether it be Gigo greedy for the money from the emperor or a Boshi greedy for the power that the that
01:05:36
Speaker
the head might hold or for the resources that are in the mountains. So it's very interesting. You have the hatred on the side of the forest and then the greed on the side of mankind. And I think it's an absolutely wonderful film. I'm hesitant to say still that it is my favorite Ghibli film, because I've seen more Ghibli films since I used to say that. I still think it ranks incredibly high amongst my favorite Ghibli films. And I do think it is very different.
01:06:06
Speaker
than most of other Ghibli films. The messaging in some ways is quite similar, but it is a lot more action orientated than most Ghibli films. Ghibli films are often very slice of life or just fantastical, whereas this seemed to have a lot of action, a lot of conflict.
01:06:25
Speaker
in it, which not all Ghibli films does have. It's not the most gruesome or saddest, I would still give that to Greater the Fireflies, but I think it uses its violence very effectively and in a very interesting way that isn't so much sad as just poignant.
01:06:42
Speaker
I applaud Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki for that. I think he created an absolutely fantastic film. And yeah, I'm excited for you to check out some other Ghibli films. I don't know that necessarily all will be as highly rated for you as this was, but I think that, yeah, I implore you and anyone else listening to check out more of the Ghibli catalogue because it is absolutely wonderful.
01:07:02
Speaker
If you are interested, and this goes to other viewers and listeners as well, if you're interested in learning a little bit more about Hayao Miyazaki and the history of Studio Ghibli, I do recommend the Wizard and the Bruiser podcast on Hayao Miyazaki. It came out probably about four or five years ago now, it was quite a while ago, but you'll be able to, if you just look up Hayao Miyazaki, Wizard and the Bruiser on Spotify, you'll find it. They are exclusively on Spotify, so you have to check there, but yeah.
01:07:26
Speaker
you want to learn a little bit more about that check them out i think it's really good otherwise do you have anything more you'd like to say about the movie or studio ghibli or what your your expectations are i would honestly just say like just second everything you just said um just go go if you haven't seen this film go watch it if you've seen it you know go watch it again it's it's i guess as one that i think is definitely probably worth a re-watch
01:07:47
Speaker
Yeah and like check again I've obviously not seen as much but I'm excited to check out some more. I don't know whether any other Ghibli films will live up to this you know I feel like the bar has been set so high but you know honestly like I want to see more I want to see more than I want to like delve back into that world and see what else you know like Ghibli and Miyazaki have made you know to experience that so yeah if you've never seen a Ghibli film go check them out because they are amazing they are honestly I don't think there's many things like them out there you know they are very unique and
01:08:15
Speaker
worth celebrating and worth watching. So yeah, go watch Princess Run OK, go watch Ghibli films, you know, yeah, just dive into that world.
01:08:23
Speaker
For sure, yeah. And I'll ask you quickly as well, how is this ranked in comparison to some of the other anime shows that you've watched? Either that we've made you watch or that you've watched independently? This is definitely at the top. I feel bad comparing it to some of the stuff that I have watched for Chatsunani, because I feel it's so horrible to compare Beyblade.
01:08:48
Speaker
I don't know what you're talking about. They're both about spirits. Complete philosophical works about things, about war and this thing. But like, I feel bad comparing them to them. Because Beyblade is what it is. You know, it's not trying to be this. And you know, it doesn't come close to this. But yeah, like, honestly, this is like, at the minute, this is like, head and shoulders above, you know, I think a lot of other things. And this is something that I've completely forgotten my mind. But you know, I just thought this was spectacular.
01:09:16
Speaker
Oh, glad to hear. And does this make you interested in watching more anime movies in general, not just Studio Ghibli? Yeah, I would like to try. Like, again, I don't think I've seen any... If I have, I'm blank on them now, but I've certainly not seen many outside of the kind of, like, Ghibli... not canon's the wrong word, but the Ghibli kind of, like, collection. It would be good to try some others, because I know there are others out there that are, like, highly rated. So, you know, it would be... try and delve out and, you know, and see a bit more of what there is.
01:09:43
Speaker
Well, you'll also have to experience that on another Chatsunani episode, I guess. Ooh, I wait with eager and bated breath.
01:09:49
Speaker
Well, thank you everyone for listening. If you'd like to listen to some of our other episodes, we've done some on the Chatsunami on Beyblade, as we mentioned, and Death Note. And the Chatsunami podcast has done some absolutely wonderful recent podcasts and older podcasts. So if you'd like to check out any of those, just look us up on the Chatsunami channel on all good podcast platforms, as well as on YouTube. You should also check out Satsunami42 on Twitter and Twitch. You can find me
01:10:16
Speaker
Green Shield 95 on Twitter. And yeah, I don't know if you want to plug anything, add them while we're on. Come listen to me on Chatsunami. That's where you get my unfiltered opinions and views. So you're going to come to the source. Sure. Thank you so much, everyone, for listening. In the words of our Lord and Saviour, Chatsunami.
01:10:34
Speaker
Thank you everybody for listening, stopping by. Thank you so much Green Shields for not only organizing this episode, but also suggesting this film because it was well worth watching. I'm so happy that I've seen it now and I'm going to tell everybody else to watch it. I'm glad you enjoy that and thank you for having me on. No, no, no, absolute pleasure. So with that being said to everybody, all that's left for me to say is stay safe, stay awesome, and most importantly, stay hydrated.