Gods and demons, wolves and boars, cute little bobble head spirits, some blood and gore, a shit ton of talking animals and an outcast Pokahontas princess. Princess Mononoke delivers a good adventure but... compared to Nausicaä, Nausicaä takes the cake! They share themes on environmentalism, strong female leads and impressive world-building but all of these aspects are done better in Nausicaä.
The biggest drawback for me is the characters: Nausicaä has one strong main character that drives the whole movie while Mononoke has two main characters but they feel diluted. Ashitaka isn't very interesting as a character and Mononoke feels underdevelopped and isn't central enough. I wanted more of her story or a flashback or something. I had a hard time connecting to any of the two and because of that, the romantic aspect is lessened.
For a movie that's considered a masterpiece by most, i'm surprised to see how simple and by the book the story is. It doesn't necessarily bring anything exceptional. The ending even more so. I feel like I never got used to the talking animals, i've hardly ever had that problem before but for some reason it was a complete turn-off here. It felt so jarring when the wolf started talking, it could be considered a twist because hell that surprised me. I think it clashed too much with the serious tone of everything prior to the wolf talking.
Brilliant score, beautiful animation, imaginative creatures and mythos, love the more mature tone compared to other Ghibli films. A good watch overall, it just doesn't live up to the acclaim this movie has.
Review by AcoucalanchaVIP 4BlockedParent2023-07-06T03:30:57Z
Gods and demons, wolves and boars, cute little bobble head spirits, some blood and gore, a shit ton of talking animals and an outcast Pokahontas princess. Princess Mononoke delivers a good adventure but... compared to Nausicaä, Nausicaä takes the cake! They share themes on environmentalism, strong female leads and impressive world-building but all of these aspects are done better in Nausicaä.
The biggest drawback for me is the characters: Nausicaä has one strong main character that drives the whole movie while Mononoke has two main characters but they feel diluted. Ashitaka isn't very interesting as a character and Mononoke feels underdevelopped and isn't central enough. I wanted more of her story or a flashback or something. I had a hard time connecting to any of the two and because of that, the romantic aspect is lessened.
For a movie that's considered a masterpiece by most, i'm surprised to see how simple and by the book the story is. It doesn't necessarily bring anything exceptional. The ending even more so. I feel like I never got used to the talking animals, i've hardly ever had that problem before but for some reason it was a complete turn-off here. It felt so jarring when the wolf started talking, it could be considered a twist because hell that surprised me. I think it clashed too much with the serious tone of everything prior to the wolf talking.
Brilliant score, beautiful animation, imaginative creatures and mythos, love the more mature tone compared to other Ghibli films. A good watch overall, it just doesn't live up to the acclaim this movie has.