Examples Of Rationalism In Princess Mononoke

Princess Mononoke is a Japanese historical-fantasy animation movie made by Hayao Miyazaki, the director of Studio Ghibli in 1997. The film setting is considered around 1336-1573 in Muromachi Period where people believes gods and demons in a forest are exist and significant role for their lives, while, at the same, innovations in industry and commerce such as use of a gun were taking place. There are many themes you can see in this movie such as human-nature relationship, industrialization, environmental problems and discrimination. In this paper, I would like to talk about Japanese mysticism v. rationalism that are argued in this master piece.

The protagonist and one of the main character Ashitaka, a prince of Emishi ( Remnant old tribe defeated

Here, Eboshi does not play a role as antagonist in this film, but rather she is one of the representation of rationalism and futuristic figure of human being. Her purpose of killing gods and spirits is only to make her town and her villagers to thrive and prosperous by killing shishigami and get rid of fear to those mystic forces from humans. As a side notes, Shishigami is also believed to be immortal and its head has a power to make a human immortal. Mikado, or an emperor of Japan in the film, orders one of his man named Jikobo to kill Shisgami to bring him Shishigami's head for the immortal power. This also shows how mysticism and natures are significant in Japan back then by showing that even a supreme Mikado cares about

She is a saver for those people in town since they have nowhere to go otherwise in Tataraba. Director Hayao Miyazaki describes controversial and lasting discrimination here in this film as well to show how Lady Eboshi is neither antagonist or anti-hero in the film. There is a scene where Lady Eboshi invites Ashitaka to her "secret garden that's no one get close to", located little far from the main area of her town. There people used to be called lepers work to make guns for Eboshi. Ashitaga gets angry to see that she make people to make gun to kill animals and gods, but one of the old leper patients speaks up and begs for not to kill Eboshi because she is the only one who accepts them and treat them as a human. Personally, this scene is very touching to me and burn into my memory as the idea that human is such a vulnerable