Princess Mononoke

This past Christmas, I received a number of my favorite/most-wanted DVDs as gifts from my parents, all but one of which I have yet to watch (I've been putting off watching the Dutch Zwartboek due to not wanting to tackle the language-barrier when just wanting to relax - I refuse to watch it with subtitles). The only film of the seven that I've managed to watch twice since Christmas has been Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke, his first super-big film in the States. As you may know, I'm a huge fan of Miyazaki's Spirited Away, placing it in my top five films of all time.

The trick when viewing Mononoke was that my first exposure to Miyazaki's work was via Spirited Away, so when I approached Princess Mononoke, I did so hoping to be blown away again. Naturally, I wasn't, but at the same time, I still think Mononoke is a fantastic film, and certainly better than his most-recent Howl's Moving Castle, which I also got for Christmas.

Although I was a tiny bit disappointed with Mononoke the first time I saw it, I rewatched it yesterday, and found it to be quite charming. The environmental message is a bit heavy-handed, but the characters are pretty interesting, the visuals (particularly with the gods and demons) are spectacular, and the story works very well. Certainly worth watching, and definitely a must-see if you like Spirited Away.