196

I think this is the sort of film that benefits from a rewatch with time.

For example, when I was younger, it was easy to watch this and be like "Lady Eboshi and Iron Town bad, forest spirits and nature good." But as an adult, with more context to watch it through, the nuance changes a lot.

Eboshi, for example, is an antagonist but not a villain. Taking a step back to look with a wider view, she is a woman who rebelled against the patriarchal standards of the surrounding empire to establish her own egalitarian society where women who were once exploited as prostitutes and servants are offered respect and positions of authority alongside men. She cares for the sick and dying, who are unable to care for themselves. And her motivations throughout the film are strictly about protecting her village and ensuring the best possible quality of life for her people, giving them a home when no one else will. It's just that it comes at the cost of the surrounding environment, which she does not properly understand the consequences of.

And on the flip side, we initially sympathize with the wolves and other nature spirits who are, in turn, protecting their home from the danger posed by Iron Town, but the film also depicts nature as callous and unfeeling. The wolves try to murder Ashitaka when he is weak and helpless because it is in their nature to do so. The boars refuse to listen to the humans who are trying to help because they are outsiders. We see that the forest spirit is as much a god of death as it is of life. And though Iron Town is destroying the surrounding environment, so too are the forest spirits trying to destroy Iron Town, which only escalates the conflict further.

It's a good depiction of a conflict wherein no side is truly good or evil. Every character has sympathetic motivations, which is what makes it compelling.