Miyazaki uses his magic to meld elements of traditional fantasy, and Japanese folklore, into the setting of Princess Mononoke. Princess Mononoke takes place in medieval Japan, when samurai and forest gods were of abundance, and industrialization was just reaching its peak phase with the dawn of the Iron Age. The audience is first introduced to the character Ashitaka, a prince who becomes injured while protecting his village from a wild boar god that’s been possessed by a powerful demon. To protect his village from being destroyed Ashitaka kills the boar, saving the villagers, but becoming wounded in the process. Ashitaka learns that his wound was a curse, born from the boar’s hatred, and now because of the curse Ashitaka must bear the hatred …show more content…
The forest gods, while wise, are cold and resentful. The human world, on the other hand, contains livelihood, love, and compassion. Even though humans are at war with nature, when the audience sees the inside of the industrial ironworks factory, they’re not working out of a militant desire or spite for the natural world, instead they are doing it to improve their town and create a better life for themselves. The factory workers laugh, play, and genuinely believe that their work will better mankind, ignorant to the fact that the forest around them is dying. Around the same time as Princess Mononoke Studio Ghibli released another film, Isao Takahata’s Pom Poko. Both Princess Mononoke and Pom Poko touch on the struggle between humans and nature. In Pom Poko the main characters are a group of tanuki, who share similarities to humans but fight against the encroaching industrialized world that humans are bringing. While both films are completely different, they both have a similar theme: no matter how much nature resists it, human development and modernization is inevitable, and instead of fighting it, ways must be found to fully integrate and coexist with