Vile Humans, Know My Pain: Unforgiveness in Princess Mononoke
by Yudai Chiba
For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. But you say, ‘How shall we return?’
Malachi 3:6-7 (ESV)
Troubled Times
A year has passed since the first case of the 2020 Coronavirus was reported in the US. Needless to say, much has changed since then. Last month, a mob of Trump supporters attacked the US capitol, wishing to overturn the most recent presidential election results.
We have heard a lot of talk about how divided and polarized our nation is. I neither support nor truly understand the sentiment embodied by those who participated in this attack. It is difficult to express how jarring and surreal this event feels right now, but I have to confess a degree of nervousness, thinking that our country has reached a point where some sort of reckoning must follow. I am reminded of the haunting questions posed by British author and Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro:
"Are there times when forgetting is the only way to stop cycles of violence, or to stop a society disintegrating into chaos or war? On the other hand, can stable, free nations be built on foundations of wilful amnesia and frustrated justice?" [1]
Where is God in all of this? How do we make sense of the fragmentation of our lives, the forces in our society that seem overwhelmingly to separate person from person?
https://unsplash.com/photos/luF3OgzjKjs Hidden temple. Image courtesy of @saaam_chan via Unsplash.
Approaching the Holy in Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke
I trust that more than a few readers will ask these questions with me. Anime, or Japanese animation, may be a surprising place to look for meaningful answers for some, especially from the perspective of religious faith. Princess Mononoke (1997) is an animated film that became the highest-grossing film at the box office in the year of its release (and to this day, it is still the 7th highest-grossing film in Japan).[2] Mononoke is made by Studio Ghibli, Japan's equivalent to Disney in terms of fame, artistic talent, and cultural import. Its director, Hayao Miyazaki, is a household name in Japan, a living legend of world animation and Japanese film. My first line of work was in the Japanese anime industry, where I was both an animator and a salesman. Princess Mononoke was probably the most significant influence on my desire to enter the industry. More importantly, however, it is a film that explores the relationship between human beings and the natural world in a way powerfully resonant with our world today.
Mononoke and its director occupy a special place within the Japanese popular imagination. Amongst anime fans worldwide, if there is such a thing as "mainstream" anime, Miyazaki represents that mainstream. In addition to being among the most popular, however, I would like to suggest that Mononoke is also one of Miyazaki's most deeply religious films. This is not to say that the film maps itself onto an easily recognizable religious tradition (it certainly does not). By the director's admission, however, the film is built on what he believes is a distinctly Japanese notion of the sacred.[3]
The film depicts the encounter of a boy with a deep forest located somewhere in western Japan. The forest has no reason for existing; it simply "is" in all of its mysterious beauty. Its chaotic canopies and frightening creatures represent sheer otherness to rational, enterprising mankind; yet, the forest also brims with life and is indeed the source of life. As the Temple in Jerusalem was for Israel, the forest is where the holy is tangible and active. In Miyazaki's mind, this is the image of the sacred that resonates most deeply with the Japanese spirit. The world of Princess Mononoke is thus an expression of the director's religiosity; it tells the tale of humanity's encounter and collision with the sacred.
A Curse Unto Death
The film begins in a land far removed from the sacred forest, in a village beset by a tatarigami – a vengeful spirit, a living being twisted into a wrathful demon after being subjected to profound suffering. Tatari in Japanese is a curse that arises out of bitter resentment; it is often the wrath borne out of unjust suffering or an unsatisfied life. In this case, the twisted being, or tatarigami, is the giant boar, Nago – a deity who dwelt in the sacred forest.
Humans desecrated Nago's forest, and human guns wounded him. The protagonist of the film, Ashitaka, finds himself face to face with this tatarigami as it suddenly attacks his village. Though he manages to kill the beast before it can harm anyone else, Ashitaka is cursed in exchange. Nago's final words are for "vile humans'' to know his pain and suffering. This is the catalyst for the story: Ashitaka is banished from his village on account of the curse he has received from Nago.
Ashitaka is told his curse would spread slowly throughout his body, eventually reaching his bones and killing him. Although he travels far to the sacred forest searching for a way to lift the curse, he discovers that the people of the wider world are afflicted by curses of their own. He finds an outpost of metalworkers in a pitched battle with the deities of the forest, seeking to dominate and exploit the land; embittered by what seems to be a losing battle, the forest deities seek to inflict as much pain as possible upon the encroaching humans. He sees local warlords waging war on the metalworkers, greedily seeking a share of the wealth. The entire world order, it seems, is embroiled in a cycle of violence and vengeance. In the words of Jiko, a priest-like mercenary, "the whole world is a curse."
Is it Possible to Forgive?
Characters in Mononoke find forgiveness difficult. Nago curses all of humankind with his last breath; men and women who lost loved ones to the spirits of the forest seek to settle their scores; even the primary female protagonist (and the film's namesake) – San, or Princess Mononoke – cannot, in the end, forgive the violence and desecration humans have wrought on the forest that raised her. The movie does not condemn these characters. However, part of what makes Mononoke's storytelling so compelling is its ability to acknowledge people with opposing commitments without denying their personhood ("personhood" here refers to the moral nature of technically non-human characters as well). Even Jiko, seemingly the most antagonistic of the film's characters, has, in Miyazaki's own words, "an average person's mindset." [4] Each party, each character, has its own life and its own say. In such a pluralistic world, however, there seems to be no possibility of avoiding conflict. Throughout the film, Ashitaka repeatedly calls on others to sever the cycle of vengeance and hatred, but these calls fall on deaf ears. Understandably so: if humans continue to exploit the forest, its inhabitants appear to have no way of protecting themselves and their way of life without resorting to terror and violence. Conversely, the ironworks had given many women who were sold (likely into prostitution) renewed lives there, and people with leprosy had found care and community there; what would become of them if the ironworks fell? "The world is a curse" – though the evils of the world are plain for the eye to see, the individual, it seems, is remarkably helpless to bring about real change.
How Then Shall We Live?
At the core of Princess Mononoke is a deep ambivalence about human nature. The film invites us to empathize with a wide range of human experiences, but it also displays a nervousness about humans' ability to change. San's final line in the film is, "I like you, Ashitaka. But I can't forgive humans.” You, a particular human, I have come to know and like; humanity, in general, I still hate. There is a hopefulness here in the personal relationship between San and Ashitaka, a sign pointing towards a future in which humans and the forest can live in harmony. Yet, even after all is said and done, the protagonists still struggle in this tension between forgiveness and justice.
Princess Mononoke reminds me of a classic tension in Christian thought. How can mercy and justice coexist? The destruction of habitat and culture is painfully familiar to our own world. Should the oppressed be told to forgive while the world continues to do violence to them? Jesus teaches his disciples to forgive those who wrong them, but God also judges the wicked. If God is "a stronghold for the oppressed," can there possibly be mercy for the oppressors?
I am reminded of the dialogue between the prophet Habakkuk and God in the Old Testament. Habakkuk cries out to God about the injustices committed in his own country:
...the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.
God's startling response is to send the Chaldeans - a foreign power, one that does not even worship the God of Israel - to bring judgment upon his own people. However, to a bewildered Habakkuk, God also pronounces judgment upon those like the Chaldeans, nations driven by exploitative practices and vainglory. Where, then, does God's judgment finally fall?
https://unsplash.com/photos/YsrnYUBxmQ0 Yakushima Forest. Image courtesy of @marekpiwnicki via Unsplash.
Princess Mononoke itself explores this same question in a remarkably familiar way. The deepest part of the forest is inhabited by a figure called the Shishigami, or deer god. The Holy One of the forest, the Shishigami is the giver and taker of life. It is no mere creature, but a spirit described as "life itself." Different people seek different things from the Shishigami. Some seek liberation and powerful intervention; some seek healing; some seek to conquer and subdue it, as the Chaldeans did with respect to the God of Israel. Each character's quality of life can be read by that character's relationship to the Shishigami, revealing the character's attitude towards life.
This implies that the quality of life we live is somehow bound to how we understand what "life" is. There is a mode of life that produces death and a mode of life that gives life. Without giving too much of the film away, this Shishigami is revealed to carry within itself both the destruction of death as well as the wholeness and peace of life. The Shishigami is the forest's wrath; the Shishigami is the life, restoration, and peace people desire. The Shishigami, however, also gives life by absorbing death into itself; death, in this way, only gives way to life. I invite the readers to decide whether they agree with what I see in the film and how this echoes the Christian faith.
Forgiveness is not a topic to be taken lightly. If forgiveness is simply the lack of consequence for one's actions, then parts of the Bible indicate that even God does not forgive. But God does constantly implore us to "turn," or return, so that we may be forgiven.
Part of Princess Mononoke's realism is in its perceptive observation that humans tend to ask: "How shall we return?" How is it that we "turned away" in the first place, and what can be done to "return"? A legitimate Christian response is to turn to God demanding justice. But perhaps we should also give heed to Desmond Tutu's call to see the common humanity in the eyes of our enemies. Amid his confusion, Habakkuk is told:
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faith.
Habakkuk 2:3-4 (NRSV)
In the Bible, forgiveness is neither an absolute ethic on its own, nor is it recommended simply for its effectiveness in mending human hearts - though it certainly may be. It is, first and foremost, what God did for us in Jesus Christ.
Though unforgiveness is a reminder of our world's brokenness, forgiveness gives us a glimpse into the hope of God's peace. In a complex world, we are called to discern when, where, and how to hang on to something or to let go, to fight or to make peace. In the meantime, the final wholeness of God's peace still eludes us - and yet, we are told, "there is still a vision… wait for it."
What shall we wait for, then, and how will we wait for it?
Resources
We’ve created a free downloadable PDF to explore the article deeper. It contains discussion questions about the topic in general terms that will give you a jumping-off point for beginning a conversation.
The second page contains a way to see the topic from a biblical perspective.
And finally, to go deeper into the subject, we have chosen a few curated resources to explore from other authors’ and thinkers’ research or perspectives.
Read. Engage. Enjoy!
works cited
Kazuo Ishiguro – Nobel Lecture. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2021. Wed. 27 Jan 2021. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2017/ishiguro/lecture/>
Kogyo Tsushinsha. Cinema Rankingu Tsushin. Wed. 27 Jan 2021. <http://www.kogyotsushin.com/archives/alltime/>
Miyazaki, Hayao. Orikaeshiten 1997~2008. Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 2008, p. 41.
Miyazaki, Hayao. Orikaeshiten 1997~2008. Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten, 2008, p. 37.
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