Part One
Something funny happened on the way to total despair for us two anime fans here in America.
We saw Princess Mononoke. Or rather, we *experienced* Princess Mononoke.
Sure, it wasn't the first time for either one of us - I'd seen it once before, Christi three times. We knew Disney was going to do a fine job of it, and we knew that Neil Gaiman and the rest of the crew would do their best to translate this for the American audience...but we had our doubts. What if the voices didn't fit? What if they added too much profanity - or change character's personalities beyond recognizability? What if they translated coffee into hot chocolate again? (Just kidding on that last one, folks ^_^) Still, we entered the late late ten-o-clock showing with many other anime fans, maybe with just a smidgen of trepidation in our hearts.
Sure, there were *plenty* of longtime diehard fans (most of whom we recognized from the Phoenix scene), but we were outnumbered by the curious and the DBZ trendy crowd. How were they going to react?
Well, worry no more. We saw a miracle at the Harkins. The crowd was cheering, laughing, and crying with each scene. Never more was there any doubt that this movie was indeed Something Special. The voices were perfectly fitting, the music soared on the THX, and the way the movie just melded its way onto the big screen - it was ALIVE! It was magic. It was almost religious. Fan and casual viewer alike were caught up in the spectacle, and we saw people change their opinions on animation before our eyes as surely as we saw Yakkle bound across the screen. And it was not just positive...but enlightening and heartening. After months of watching what some anime distributors were doing with their wares, and months of hearing that people only see anime as Pokemon and DBZ... this movie changed everything.
We were afraid that Tekken was the sign of the times, each Big Thing (Ninja Resurrection, Kite) worse than the last. But Princess Mononoke went even beyond being even a "Miyazaki film". On the big screen, it is simply one of the greatest animated films of all time. It doesn't just leave its mark as a wonderful anime...but as a wonderful animation. Period.
If this movie doesn't bring the respect the animation medium has long deserved from the American public...then I'm afraid nothing will. But even if the smallest amount of wonder is instilled in the most jaded fan by this movie, if not downright joy and affirmation - then Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli, and Disney have all done the world a true service. This is why we're anime fans ... because just beyond the corner, just when you think all hope is gone for the medium, a masterpiece like this is finally brought to its fullest potential. Forget being underground, trendy, or edgy. Animation has really, truly come into its own, and it's about damn time.
Carlos Ross
Part Two
To all you naysayers who believe Disney is the Great Evil trying to bury anime - shame on you! Disney has been just as much an inspiration for anime as anything else (just ask Miyazaki himself, or Tezuka Osamu, if he were still alive). Even now, Disney has recently produced excellent films and television projects, but most anime fans are frankly too stuck-up and bigoted to even give them a chance. Is Disney stuck in a rut these days? Well, as far as movies go, yes, but then look at Mulan and Tarzan. You can not dismiss them as simply musical kiddie fluff. They're trying to break out of their self-imposed formula, and that's a step in the right direction, as long as their fans will allow them to do so.
Frankly, I wish more animation studios would take Disney's lead. Already, we have films like The Iron Giant and South Park: The Movie. While both wildly different in subject matter and style, they're were successful box office hits without pandering to the lowest common denominator. Like say, the recent remake of The King and I, which added a stupid monkey sidekick (among others) and really unwarranted action that wasn't even hinted in the original story, while deleting whole characters and plot points in the name of "Disneyizing" the movie a la Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Despite the successes of Iron Giant and South Park, people are still stuck in the belief that all animation is either (A.) afterschool kiddie fare, (B.) musical kiddie fare, or (C.) a pair of gross-looking animals telling fart jokes. It doesn't help that anime, oh, excuse me, "Japanimation" is seen as either (A.) violent martial-arts free-for-alls, (B.) afterschool kiddie fare, or (C.) pornography. Is there some wrong here? YES. Animation has been pigeon-holed here in America for at least the last fifty years (and Japanese animation since its inception), but it's a cradle-to-grave phenomenon is Japan, and most of the rest of the world. They see it as simply another way to tell a story, just as valid as live-action. So how come we Americans, who are supposedly the "most culturally advanced society in the world" are so blind to its potential? With Princess Mononoke making the waves it is in both critical and public circles, maybe, just maybe, things will finally change.
Disney has been the frontrunner in animation since Steamboat Willy, and it's fitting that they would be the ones to bring America Princess Mononoke. They put their heart and soul into this production and treated it *better* than their own. And it shows. No cheap marketing gimmicks here - this is how animation is supposed to be done. If Disney AND American anime fandom can learn from this experience - to stop the namecalling and fingerpointing and simply enjoy the medium for what it is and treasure it as we ought, as this is the high art of our age, as surely as painting and sculpture are for our past - then we're all the better for it.
Christina Carpenter