Project proposal for Mononoke Hime

NAUSICAA is the Miyazaki Mailing List, the English-language discussion group regarding the works of MIYAZAKI Hayao, his colleague TAKAHATA Isao, their Studio Ghibli, and related works.

The following is the project proposal of "Mononoke Hime", written by Miyazaki-San.

• Color, Vista, Digital Dolby, 110 minutes

Purpose of the project

To depict what constructs the unchanged basis of human throughout time, by overlapping the current era which is going through changes towards the 21st century with the confusing era of Muromachi, which went through the process of moving from the collapse of the system in the medieval era towards the modern era.

A period drama woven from the warp: the fight between humans and Mononoke over the head of the God animal, Shishi Gami, and the woof: the meeting and liberation of the girl who was raised by Inugami (Dog God) and hates humans and the boy who is under the curse of death.

Comments

Few characters typical of ordinary period dramas, such as Samurais, lords, or farmers appear in this film. If they do appear, they will play really minor roles.

The main characters will be the people who don't appear in the center stage of history, and the raging mountain gods.

They are the steel-making people, called Tatara Mono. They are engineers, laborers, blacksmiths, miners, or charcoal makers. They are porters with horses and cows. They are even armed, and have their own organization, which we can call as manufacturing.

Araburu kamigami (the raging gods) appear in the forms of Yama Inugami (mountain dog god), Boar god, and bear. Shishi Gami, who holds the key to the story, is an imaginary animal with a human face, animal body, and wooden horns.

The protagonist, the boy, is the descendant of Emishi (sort of northern barbarians -ryo) who disappeared in the ancient time, after being defeated by the Yamato government (the "legitimate" Japanese government ruled by the emperor -Ryo). The girl can look like a certain Doguu (clay doll) from the Joumon era (the pre-agricultural era in Japan).

The story takes place mostly in the deep forest of gods which refuses humans, and the Tatara Ba (steel-making place) which looks like a fort.

Castles, towns, or rice fields, which have been the main stage for ordinary period dramas are just distant backgrounds. Rather, we will try to recreate pure nature, the scenery of Japan in the time when there was no dam, when forests were deep, and when we had far less population, with deep mountains, ravines, rich and pure streams, narrow dirt roads without boulders, many birds, animals, and bugs.

The reason for these settings is to depict characters more freely, without being bounded by the existing commonsense, preconceived notion, or prejudice in the existing period dramas. Recent studies in history, anthropology, or archaeology show that this country has had a far richer, more diverse history, compared to the generally believed images. The poor images in period dramas have been mostly built by movies. The Muromachi era, the time when this story takes place, was a world in which confusions and changes were the norm. It was the time when today's Japan was formed out of the confusion of rebellions, treason, Basara (sort of macho stuff - difficult to explain -ryo), bandits, and new arts. It is not the era of Sengoku (Warring States - the era after Muromachi), when the professional armies conducted systematic war, or it is not the era of Kamakura (the era before Muromachi), when Kamakura Samurais fought for their lands.

It was more ambiguous, fluid era. There were no clear distinction between farmers and Samurais. Women had more freedom. In such an era, people's life and death were clear-cut. People lived, people loved, hated, worked, and died. A life wasn't ambiguous.

Here lies the meaning of making this film towards the confusing era of the 21st century.

We are not trying to solve the global problems. There can not be a happy ending to the fight between the raging gods and humans. However, even in the middle of hatred and killings, there are things worth living for. A wonderful meeting, or a beautiful thing can exist.

We depict hatred, but it is to depict that there are more important things.

We depict a curse, to depict the joy of liberation.

What we should depict is, how the boy understands the girl, and the process in which the girl opens her heart to the boy.

At the end, the girl will say to the boy,
"I love you, Ashitaka. But I can not forgive humans."

Smiling, the boy should say,
"That is fine. Live with me."

Translated without permission for personal entertainment purposes only. The translator is solely responsible for any mistranslation or misunderstanding due to it.

( ) is added by the translator to supplement the words to make things easier to understand.

This is not, by any means, an accurate word for word translation. The translator simply does not have the capability, the patience, or the dictionary for that (excuses, excuses ^^;;).

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