Princess Mononoke

As I mentioned when I wrote about watching My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke is a movie I just never latched on to — and I often wonder why so many people I know seem to name it as their favorite Miyazaki film. I actually had a chance to watch it in theatres when it was released in 1997, during my first visit to Japan (by boat from China). I couldn’t understand any Japanese, so just went because it was supposed to be a big deal — I also don’t remember if it was the first Ghibli film I saw, or if I had seen some before, which is highly probable, but I can’t recall. But yeah, so I saw it not understanding anything about the story, and the visuals weren’t enough to capture my interest. I then eventually watched it another time with subs, but it still didn’t have much of an impact. Watching it again last night for probably the first time in 10-15 years, I can say that I enjoyed watching it, but it’s still far from being one of my favorite Miyazaki films, or even a favorite Ghibli film. I don’t find the story to be particularly interesting, and it’s relentlessly dark in a way that I don’t really like.