Week Six

According to Napier, how does this anime problematise traditional (or conservative) constructions of gender, class and race?

The use of females in male-type roles in Mononoke problematises traditional constructions of gender, because normally you would have males in charge of a village or taking a group of people into battle. In a society where most likely a male is the provider for his family and the female is someone who nurtures her children, the film Princess Mononoke says otherwise. There are three main female characters that portray their independency in their domain – San, Moro, and Eboshi. San and her adoptive wolf mother – Moro who fight to protect the forest from the humans (namely Eboshi and her village people); Eboshi, who takes in outcasts and people who have incurable diseases and gets them to work. She’s also involved with the military, hence the reason why she’s out to destroy the Shishigami (Cavallaro, 2006).

In Princess Mononoke, we find that a female is the leader of the Tatara. Napier, 2005 says that if Lady Eboshi was a male character, the film would’ve been less-interesting and also the audience might’ve perceived the character to be typical of a male going against helpless nature. “Without any apparent family ties or hint of male support, she rules Tatara independently” (Napier, 2005) Male leaders such as the emperor and the court struggle to maintain powers that are beyond their control, so, guidance is sought from females – one, from a wolf, and the other from a leader who manufactures weapons. San and Eboshi are capable of living independent lives where the male figure isn’t needed; One of the reasons why this is so is because they’re too preoccupied with other things – “San with her companions in the natural world, Eboshi with her industrialising community” (Napier, 2005).


Finally, with reference to Cavallaro (2006), what distinguishes Mononoke technically as being – it is generally agreed – a great work of anime?

Miyazaki had created a story about a girl who was raised by wolves; this story however was not in animation form at the time (1980). It wasn’t until his other work in 1995 - Whisper of the Heart had produced extra money that he went back and revisited the idea/story he had earlier. This resulted in the creation of the animated film Princess Mononoke that came to a total of $19.6 million to produce (Cavallaro, 2006).

New equipment/technology had to be created for certain parts of the film – the snake-like feelers on the angry Boar when it charges for Ashitaka and Yakul required technique that had to be done by a computer generated 3D wiremesh model – this was created especially for that scene (Cavallaro, 2006). Another technique used for the creation of the film was Digital Composition, Cavallaro talks ‘layers’, and how each layer depicts one set of elements such as shadows, backgrounds of mountains in the distance, etc. So, the more detailed a particular scene was, meant that there were quite a lot of layers used for it (Cavallaro, 2006)

In regards to the amount spent on making this film I think it’s safe to say that $19.6 million is a fare amount in terms of all the technology and techniques used to produce it. I didn’t know such technology even existed, but it just goes to show the great lengths Miyazaki (and other animation film producers) went to create this film, even to the extent that new technology was created.


Reference List

Cavallaro, D. (2006). The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki. London: McFarland & Company.

Napier, S. (2005). Anime: from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.