With the new movie getting ready to debut in Japan, the newest review will be focusing on the Television Anime, Mononoke. Also, for an in-depth look at this series, be sure to check out Crunchyroll’s newest feature from Adam Wescott.
The series takes place between the Edo period and the Meiji period, an era that had a four-class system: a samurai was considered to be the highest class, and merchants (counting the medicine peddler) were considered to be the lower class. It was also an era in which evil spirits wandered the earth known as Mononoke. There was only one person who could stop the evil spirits, and that was the Medicine Peddler. But for the peddler to defeat the mononoke, and draw his spirit-slaying sword, he must understand The Form, The Truth, and The Reason of the Mononoke. Armed with his Sharp-wit, he wanders from place to place striking down evil spirits in his wake.
When we get right down to it, Mononoke’s greatest strength was how it told its story, its social criticism, and the stories behind each Ayakashi (Yokai). Whether you believe it or not, there was a certain point in time in the world when superstition and uncertainty ran wild. But in the matter of dealing with Mononoke, who has powers that resemble Gods, being able to warp space and flesh into abstract art. We witness this firsthand in the final three episodes of the series, where the tale of the Bakeneko (Goblin Cat) is brought into the 1920s, where we learn that a Newspaper Editor murdered a newspaper reporter by throwing her over a bridge, and ran over a speeding train. The spirit warped space and time, leaving the peddler and other passengers in its path of vengeance, trapped in an alternate world until she was stopped by the Peddler, who exorcised both the spirit and Mononoke.
Another strength of this series is that it can’t be placed in one genre, while it has horror tropes, other genre elements are involved. For example, it includes Mystery and Drama that has a dash of Psychological Horror involved. Roughly, the stories can be divided into five arcs, the first arc was the most frightening in the series in my opinion, where a pregnant woman found refuge in a traditional inn that held a dark secret, where it used to be a brothel and the innkeeper forced her prostitutes to abort their babies and continue working. Keep in mind, that each story isn’t linked together as most shows have that familiar pattern or use tropes to carry the story or make it interesting, Mononoke was a series that didn’t need that formula because it was unpredictable, relying on Japan’s vast history and supernatural stories made it stand out from others. Finally, no matter what someone can tell you, emotions are powerful, they can manipulate your thoughts and actions, and if you aren’t careful, they can turn you into a monster, in this case, a Mononoke.
The art and animation in this series were phenomenal, clearly a tribute to both eras in Japanese History. It had a theatrical approach to its storytelling accompanied by vivid colors and unique character designs for each character, including the Mononoke, each story feels like you’re entering a world where it blurs fantasy and reality within a dream-like atmosphere. The emotions that were displayed were done better than you would find in animation today, the animators did an outstanding job.
As for social criticism, Mononoke focuses on either the victims of violence or in certain cases, the perpetrator. In this case, it was the tale of Umibozu was a look into the psychology of the culprit (which is displayed in the clip above the paragraph). It looks at the story and asks two simple questions, why, and how are people marginalized by society? As I pointed out earlier with the first arc, there are clear displays of the oppression of women throughout this series, Zakashi-Warashi depicts the struggles that pregnant women face when finding proper care in society, Noppera-bo tells the story of a woman who was blinded by family expectations (in this case, the mother’s expectation) where she couldn’t tell what they wanted out of life.
You can catch Mononoke on Crunchyroll, and be sure to check out Gekijōban Mononoke: Karakasa, now showing in Theaters.
Final Grade:
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