Princess Mononoke is an animated film that follows a prince who struggles against a hostile forest plagued by a curse, the angry nature gods who bring the curse about, and an ironworking town that pollutes the gods’ home. The prince, Ashitaka, bears a curse that infects him as pollution has the land, and journeys to find a cure. He meets contenders both from the side of nature and that of man, in the boar and wolf gods of the woods as well as the men and women of Irontown who live beside them. There is a clash between the needs of the town and the righteous fury of the spirits over the treatment of the forest, which is cut down and polluted by smog from the iron forges. While the town continues to industrialize and grow, the forest only wants to stop them, using violent means when necessary. This all comes to a head when the mightiest spirit, the Deer God, is slain by humans, threatening to collapse not just the forest but the entire domain.



Pollution Connection
The film comments on environmental issues still relevant today: a loyalty to nature versus that to mankind’s progress, how societal class structures play into pollution, and the inevitable punishment that arises from mankind’s continued contamination of the sacred. 

Pollution is the main mode by which the film conveys these issues, reflecting real-life motivations and scenes of destruction. Seen in the arrogance of the townspeople, who deem their own innovation and production more important than the forests which sustain the entire landscape, is a reflection of the same type of human greed seen in the decision of big companies to level trees and contaminate water sources for profit and promotion. We continue to see such themes of human nature throughout the story, painfully similar to the causes of real-world pollution disasters. 
 

Loyalty to Nature vs. Mankind
Throughout the film, we see the theme of man versus nature, both in the direct conflict between the wolves and the people of Irontown, and also in the ideas we see represented by Lady Eboshi, the head of Irontown, and the angry boars of the woods. As an anthropocentric figure — “when man places himself superior to nature, so that nature is only valuable if it is beneficial to man” (Fadli 2) — Eboshi acts only with the interests of humanity and her town in mind, disregarding the welfare of the forest and willing to sacrifice parts of it for mankind’s use and progress. 

According to Faldi, “Lady Eboshi is a figure who considers human interests above the interests of environmental stewardship, putting human feelings first” (5). 

エボシ：古い神がいなくなれば、もののけ達もただのケモノになろう。 森に光が入り山 犬ども鎮まればここは豊かな国になる。 

Eboshi: Without the ancient gods, they are just beasts. With the loss of the forest and those wolves, this land will become rich.

In this quote, we can see Eboshi’s belief that human progress comes above all else, feeling no remorse at the destruction of the forest and its inhabitants at her hands. This is very much in line with the real-world motivations of big industrial companies, deeming clearing space for things like oil rigs and logging worth the cost of environmental loss. 

We can also see ethnocentric centric figures — “when man places himself as an integral part of nature, so man must act as the party that preserves nature” (Fadli 2) — in the main characters San and Ashikata: the wolf princess on the side of nature’s punishment and the Ainu prince who tries to mediate peace between the forest and man. 

モロ 、森と人が、 あらそわずにすむ道は、 ないのか。ほんとうに、 もう、 とめられ ないのか？

 "Can't the forest and humans live together in peace? Can't this be stopped?"

Above is a quote said by Ashikata, who is horrified by the fighting between Irontown and the nature gods. He does not see a reason for the bloodshed to continue and wants to act as a peacekeeper, integrating both man and nature since he sees the value of both sides. This is a more moderate approach than that of San, who actively wishes for the destruction of the village and man like the inhabitants of the forest. But she, along with Lady Eboshi, come to see the reason in Ashikata’s words and by the end of the movie, there is a fragile but kept balance between the two warring sides. 
 

Class Structure in Environmental Activism
Most starkly seen in the people of Irontown, its men and women wholeheartedly devoted to their leader, Lady Eboshi, there is a clear distinction between the roles each truly plays in their pollution. The villagers are the ones working the forges and running the bellows, but it is all under Eboshi’s orders and supervision. She has built a life for them all where they can grow prosperous and well-defended via their iron production, and although they do it gladly, there is little choice on the part of the town. 

However, over the course of the film, we can see this initial black-and-white painting of Eboshi and Irontown as the antagonists start to fall apart. According to Smith and Parsons, “While her drive to destroy the forest… embodies environmentalist evil, she is complexly wrought by the way in which she has built Iron Town as a haven for the most disenfranchised characters in the social order of the film's loosely historical setting” (3). Eboshi may be, in the eyes of the forest, a force of evil, but we can see that her motivations, in the eyes of the town, are well-intentioned. She is saving the people of Irontown, giving ex-prostitutes and homeless wanderers a place to call home. She may give them little choice in the beginning of the film in which manner to treat the woods, but by the end, she is leading them into a life where they are neither aggressors nor victims of their environment. 

Mirrored in the real world, we see that those in positions able to generate change often do not, too caught up in the human economic, social, and political threads they deem more important than the health of the land, air, and water we depend on for survival. The bulk of people are merely along for the ride: everyday citizens who have no authority in where their garbage ends up, no say in what new chemicals their government wants to test run, and no choice in what non-biodegradable material packages their grocery store essentials. Class structures unfortunately play a role in the health of our planet, among other socio-economic factors.

We can only hope that our leaders in positions like Eboshi can come to make the same choices as she does by the end of the film, willing to give as well as take and spread the message to the wider masses. 
 

Divine Punishment 
We see the idea that nature is reactionary and objective represented in the Deer God, a power higher than the humans, the animals, and the spirits in the film. It decides life or death for the creatures it oversees without bias, a dispenser for judgment neither kindly nor maliciously. When Lady Eboshi and her soldiers behead the Deer God for its blood, said to be all-powerful and healing, she represents human greed and arrogance which threatens not just the forest but all the animal and human lives that depend on it. 

In return for the actions of humans and their contamination, the Deer God unleashes upon them its divine punishment, killing the forest and infecting the air and sky, taking with it the precious resources the humans had sought in the first place. The destruction would have been absolute, if not for the last-minute decision of the humans to give up their sense of arrogance and return what they had stolen from the Deer God. In the face of the natural forces that have nurtured and ruled over the planet long before we as a civilization have, we are ants. Like the characters in Princess Mononoke, we risk being subject to nature’s divine punishment each time we step too far out of line. 

Nature Prevails 
Another theme we see is the resilience of nature — it will always prevail in the end. After the Deer God is returned its head, the forests are restored, leaves regrown, and flowers blossomed. The structure of Irontown is devastated, however, and its people have no option other than to rebuild and adapt. Humans will always be passengers of the earth’s growth like every other species on its surface. We are not immune to destruction, and should it come to an apocalypse, the truth is that we will not be the last ones standing.