If you'd like to support the content directly, please consider doing so via Patreon! (https://www.patreon.com/thesoak ) or if you prefer a one time donation then you can do so via PayPal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/OWSVB Direct financial support from patrons is what allows me to make authentic, genuine videos without needing to insert ads.

If you enjoy gaming, consider joining me for my livestream (https://www.twitch.tv/svb_ )

One detail I think you missed is that Ashitaka can't go back to his people. By leaving the village he severed all ties to them, thus why he cut his hair. He had the option to die among them or leave and become dead to them. A central tragedy, and part of why he could 'see with eyes unclouded' during the rest of the movie.

I was 9 y/o and allowed to pick a movie.. it was just me, my brother and Gramma... Got it for a 5 day rental... I watched it six times... I fully credit this film for my own spiritual firmament .. my grandmother died soon after and my mother soon after that... I didn't get to watch this film again until I was in my 20s... It felt like returning home... This film is home.. it grants me overwhelming peace to even remember that it exists.. bless

I disagree about San not growing and choosing to still hate humans at the end. What someone says and what that means are complicated. She has chosen to accept how she feels that she cannot live with them due to the hurt she feels. She doesnt need to forgive them and that is her choice but she doesnt need to hurt them either. Choosing not to forgive is not the same as hatred.

I think you’re being overly harsh on San. If the main struggle of the movie is to break the cycle of hate and vengeance, then San also achieved that. Just because you don’t forgive doesn’t mean you don’t also move on. She ceased to be vindictive towards Irontown and will peacefully coexist with them. It’s the acknowledgment that her values and way of life  are fundamentally different in too many ways compared to the village. She isn’t going to join them and has no interest in a relationship with them, but the town isn’t either. Live and let live. How is that a lack of character growth?

2:52 I never picked up that part of the metaphor before, but I feel like the fact that that the wise woman knows he can only heal his curse by finding its origin, is very much like how we can only heal from ab*se cycles by examining the trauma that caused them.

What a good film.

San does change, just not dramatically. She, like the rest of the forest denizens are just not able to integrate into the "new world". San is able to compromise just enough to see that killing one another isn't the answer, unlike the other forest denizens who were never able to. She knows the humans are there to stay and the fact that everything she loves is going to be gone one day.

This video is a wonderful case for why Princess Mononoke is Hayao Miyazaki's true magnum opus

I’m adding to my San comment. Expecting her to forgive humans after all the pain they caused her is like telling an SA victim “not all men”. Factually, no, not all men, in fact most men, won’t want to assault or harass or do harm. Most men are just normal people. But for a victim especially, it’s very understandable that they never trust or forgive men as a whole again. They may always assume the worst initially, or always have distrust toward strangers because of even a single experience and that is completely justified.

The gods of the forest can't change. They recede and die. It's how Japanese kami work, if they change they stop existing. San's brothers don't talk after the deer god falls. The forest spirit isn't seen in a manifest form after it regains its head. San still identifies with the forest gods and can't change, because they need one representative to still be part of the story. Also, Ashitaka was permanently exiled. It doesn't matter that he lifted his curse. I liked your analysis though, even though you manipulated the subject matter to suit your message. You have some valid insights.

I just disaggree about San's lack of transformation. If she still hates humans and want still living in the florest, she won't battle them anymore. She learned something deep. Otherwise, that was a wonderfull analysis you putted on. Cheers from Brasil!

Really loved the Video. I didn't even know in the English translation Kaya is Ashitaka's sister. She is actually his bride (despite both being like 16-17) and it always rubbed me a weird way that Ashitaka gives her charm to San, but I guess he cannot return either way.
I think it's also interesting to consider that Ashitaka is the only young man left in the village, so him leaving actually dooms the Emishi to extinction. I always interpreted this also as a poetic way of Miyazaki claiming that their way of life is going extinct and Ashitaka traveling West is him progressing with the advancement of the world, while the Emishi live in the "old world".

I am very happy to know that Im not the only one who thought "I didnt know the forest spirit made the flowers grow" was one of the best lines in the film

ashitaka's expression at 15:41 has never been disappointment for me, it always reminded of the way deers/animals look before they're killed by hunters. this scene also directly parallels when the forest spirit is first shot by eboshi and continues walking on the water the same way ashitaka keeps walking. i think ashitaka is meant to represent the forest spirit in a way, not seeing sides and seeing with eyes unclouded shows the good and bad in everyone, the life and death which the forest spirit embodies. idk, he also seems to be the only one in the film who understands the forest spirit's true nature

As an autistic person, I was alienated from a very young age from everyone else. I didn’t feel human, because I was denied the pleasures to companionship, acceptance, and dignity from both adults and peers. When I was young, I would say “I’m not like the other humans.” Which my mother laughed at, but fundamentally didn’t understand that I was trying to communicate how I had been othered. I perfectly understand Mononoke, because at the end of the film, No matter what, I will still be other, and I will have to live with that. Mononoke can never be one of the humans, but that isn’t a bad thing. I have my family, but everyone outside it must be kept at arms length, because being authentically myself with people outside my family is only going to get me hurt. So, I will live in the forest, and hopefully find my own Ashitaka to be friends with one day.

The blood of the deer god does cure the people with leprosy. At the end of the movie - when the survivors are floating in the lake - you can see a lady whose bandages have come off. She's looking at her newly healthy arm in wonder.

Thanks for the videos! I love seeing other people analyze these movies the way I do!

I'm Japanese, so sorry if my English sounds a bit off!
According to Hayao Miyazaki, Jiko-bō, who hunts the Forest Spirit under the Emperor’s orders, represents the Japanese people. On a personal level, he is kind and somewhat charming, but when it comes to his role in an organization or his duties, he becomes cold and ruthless, showing a dual nature.
Eboshi represents modern people who are rational and unafraid of the gods. Meanwhile, San is a voice of nature. At first, she sees Eboshi as an enemy, but in the end, she begins to search for a way for humans and nature to coexist.
What makes this film interesting is that it is not a simple conflict between humans and nature. Many issues and conflicts overlap, and there is no absolute evil. Even so, I believe that conflict can be an opportunity for people to understand each other and learn to value one another.

An American living 43 years in Japan now, and a former Associate Professor of English and Comparative Culture — I often had the college kids work in small groups, deconstructing movies by comparing and contrasting the message with a pre-established, eclectic, common ground of understanding based on basic ideas in philosophy and religion, psychology, and primatology.  Some of the easier movies we deconstructed included 'Queen of the Damned', 'Avatar', 'Chocolat', 'Modern Times', 'The Wizard of Oz', and 'Groundhog Day'.  The only reason we did not cover anything by Hayao Miyazaki is because his movies were so complex.  But the students learned this was my favorite of his movies.  Another favorite Ghibli production is Isao Takahata's 'Hotaru no Haka' (Graveyard of the Fireflies).  But the reason I never used that in a class is because I was embarrassed for my students to see me cry.  I must say, this is one of the most profound and uplifting analyses I have heard.  Top-notch, and what a real liberal arts education should be aiming for.

I like the essay, a thoughtful reading. For the sake of the engagement, some thoughts: Ashitaka can't go home to his tribe, when he cut his hair he became dead to them. As for Shin, I don't like to think she learned nothing. She is suffering intense trauma. Her mother, the boar gods, the deer god, all parts of her world,  loving members of her family all died violently. That she chooses to live in the forest, how she's always lived, is her choice to make. Ashitaka  is choosing to live with humans like he is accustom to. And, finally, the fact she sees the forest as a place of life and hope, despite her loss, suggests to me she heard Ashitaka's message that the forest god still lives.  Just some thoughts.

I'm glad to hear another person who took away similar messages from the movie, and it helped me understand more as well. I do disagree when you say San did not grow through the duration of the movie as the seeds for growth were planted and break through the surface at times, although rarely. Great video, thank you for this.