Princess Mononoke, Hayao Miyazaki

An Ecological Fable

A masterpiece of Japanese animation released in 1997, Princess Mononoke is set in the Muromachi period (1336–1573). The film tells the story of Ashitaka, a young archer dragged unwillingly into the middle of a war between San and the forest in which she grew up and Lady Eboshi and her Iron Town, dependent on the exploitation of the surrounding resources.

Far from Manichean dualities, cartoonist Hayao Miyazaki poetically recounts the beginnings of the struggle between humankind and nature, encouraging us to contemplate our relationship with the world as a whole, with nature, time, light, plants, water, and wind.

This ecological fable also prompts us to question the ways in which we build, by imagining a human-made environment based on the unbuildable fabric formed of interwoven natural elements, constructing urban environments by following the natural contours of the world’s geography.