Princess Mononoke : Understanding Studio Ghibli's Monster Princess

Shortlisted for the McLaren-Lambart Award 2019 This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Princess Mononoke (1997) is one of anime’s most important films. Hayao Miyazaki’s epic fantasy broke domestic box office records when it came out in Japan, keeping pace with the success of Hollywood films like Titanic (1997). Princess Mononoke was also the first of Studio Ghibli’s films to be distributed outside Japan as part of a new deal with Disney subsidiary Buena Vista International. Coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the release of the film, Rayna Denison curates this new collection to critically reflect on Princess Mononoke’s significance within and beyond Japanese culture. The collection investigates the production, and re-production, processes involved in the making of Princess Mononoke into a global phenomenon and reevaluates the film’s significance within a range of global markets, animation techniques, and cultures. In revisiting this undeniably important film, the collection sheds light on the tensions within anime and the cultural and social issues that Princess Mononoke explores, from environmental protection to globalization to the representation of marginalized groups. In this remarkable new collection, Princess Mononoke is examined as a key player during a major turning point in Japanese animation history.

Rayna Denison is Senior Lecturer in the School of Art, Media and American Studies at the University of East Anglia, UK, specializing in Japanese and Asian film and television cultures. Denison is the author of Anime: A Critical Introduction (2015), has co-edited the Eisner Award-nominated Superheroes on World Screens (2015) as well as publishing in a wide range of academic journals including Cinema Journal, the International Journal of Cultural Studies and Velvet Light Trap. Her research interests include anime, Japanese cinema, comic book movies and children's film and television, especially animation.

Chris Pallant is Head of the School of Design at University of Greenwich, UK. He is the author of Demystifying Disney (2011) and Storyboarding: A Critical History (2015), and editor of Animated Landscapes: History, Form and Function (2015) and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: New Perspectives on Production, Reception, Legacy (2021). He currently serves as President for the Society for Animation Studies.

Cristina Formenti is Assistant Professor in Film Studies at University of Udine, Italy. She is author of Il mockumentary: la fiction si maschera da documentario (2013), and editor of Mariangela Melato tra cinema, teatro e televisione (2016) and Valentina Cortese: un'attrice intermediale (2019). Her work has appeared in various national and international journals, such as Studies in Documentary Film, Alphaville, and Horror Studies. Dr. Formenti is also the co-editor of the journal Animation Studies and of the Bloomsbury series Animation: Key Films/Filmmakers and currently serves as President of the Society for Animation Studies.