The Studio Ghibli Series Part 5: Princess Mononoke

[School of Movies 2023]

Many would call this period the crowning glory of Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki in particular. The maturity and refusal to pull his punches that came with the rich, dark and complex Princess Mononoke illustrated that when it came to humankind's strained, abusive relationship with Nature itself, that bloodshed was an inevitability,

He followed this up with a personal favourite of mine, Spirited Away in 2001, but we have a dedicated show on that coming at the very end of this series.

1997: Princess Mononoke (1m 45s)

1999: My Neighbors the Yamadas (51m 30s)

2002: The Cat Returns (1h 4m 30s)

The other two are oddities; Yamadas was from Isao Takahata (of Grave of the Fireflies and Balls of the Raccoon) and it's a significant departure from all other Ghibli movies, in terms of animation style and content, being based heavily on a Japanese comic strip about family life. And following that we have Ghibli's only sequel to date, though tonally quite different from Whisper of the Heart, The Cat returns takes place in the same world.

In the middle of our show there are feature essays from  long-time friends of the show

Brenden Agnew of Cinapse  @BLCAgnew "Living With Miyazaki - Part 7" (34m 10s)

Josh Garrity of Cane and Rinse @CombineHunter with his piece from a short-lived but extremely potent YouTube series "The Animation Archives - Part 4" (44m 30s)