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From: Steven Feldman <[e-mail]>
Subject:      MONONOKE SYNOPSIS
To: "Mike Johnson, nausicaa listowner" <[e-mail]>
X-Status:
Status: O

MONONOKE SYNOPSIS

Subject:  1.) MONONOKE-HIME book synopsis (Brad J. Lucido, Jan. 26, 1994)
L#00321   2.) MONONOKE-HIME book "making of article" (Lucidos, 1/31/94)


========================================================================
Subject:  1.) MONONOKE-HIME book synopsis (Brad J. Lucido, Jan. 26, 1994)


[ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BY: ? in 1983?]
WRITTEN BY: Brad Lucido, with help from Hana Lucido, January 25, 1994
TYPED-IN & POSTED TO <NAUSICAA@BROWNVM> BY: Brad Lucido, Jan. 26, 1994
EDITED & RE-FORMATTED BY: Steven Feldman, July 16, 1994
FINE-TUNED BY: Steven Feldman, October 30, 1994


   The following is a rough synopsis of the "Mononoke-Hime" book.  Errors
in translation are highly likely, but I hope it is written well enough so
that the reader can get a good idea of the story.  If there seems to be a
lack of transitions, it is because the book itself is written that way.

   The word "Mononoke"--approximately--means "monster," so "Mononokehime"
means "Monster Princess."

--

MONONOKEHIME ROUGH SYNOPSIS
1-25-94
by Brad Lucido (with some help from my wife, Hana)

     Being defeated in battle, a samurai becomes separated from his
friends and lost in a forest.  After awhile, the samurai sees firelight
and goes towards it.
     He finds a large dwelling carved in the side of a mountain.  Inside,
no one is around, but food is piled high.  Famished, he stuffs himself
like there is no tomorrow, until suddenly, he gets the feeling that he is
being watched.  The master of the dwelling has returned.
     The house in the mountain belongs to the terrible Great Mountain
Cat.  In no time, the samurai is bound, immobile.  The mountain cat says,
"For you have eaten my food, this time it is you that will be eaten."
Mononoke stops his dinner preparations and considers, "You are alone...?
Ah, what does it matter?"
     Later, atop the mountain, Mononoke says to the samurai, "Make sure
you don't forget your promise."  With that, it was decided that Mononoke
would take the samurai back to his house.  Jumping off the mountain with
a glider wing on his back, the mountain cat strains, "Shit, you're a
heavy dude," and glides down the valley.
     Back at the samurai's residence, some of the soldiers have returned
from the battle.  Upon hearing the news of the defeat, the mistress of
the house becomes angry.
     Arriving at the samurai's residence, Mononoke says, "I will come to
retrieve my bride on the night of the full moon," and drops the samurai
from the sky onto his house.  He lands on the roof and becomes caught on
the roof ornament.  A servant witnesses the plummet of the samurai and
calls out, "The lord has dropped from the sky."
     Upon re-entering his house, the samurai tells his story to his wife
and children.  "Not only did you loose the battle," cries the wife, "but
you promised a daughter to a monster.  You are pathetic."  She proceeded
to take the first and second daughters with her into safety to the
countryside.  Only the youngest, the kindhearted third princess, remained
behind.
     The enemy force was approaching the samurai's residence rapidly.  It
was certain that he would be doomed to defeat.  Seeing a great
opportunity, a spirit came out of the gargoyle on the roof and approached
the samurai.  "If you let me in to your body, I will make you a strong
man," it said.  Without listening to the protests of the third princess,
the samurai accepted, not realizing that the spirit was an evil devil.
     The samurai became a changed man.  He began to consume incredible
amounts of food, and donned the heaviest, and thickest armor.  He took on
the approaching enemy army single-handedly, and devastated the foe in one
mighty attack.  The surviving enemy soldiers fled for the mountains.  The
samurai's body had been changed into the form of the most fearsome
warrior in the world.
     Because the third princess knew the secret of the samurai's power,
she began to become a nuisance to him.  But the samurai found it easy to
put distance between her and himself.  The evil spirit knew that Mononoke
would come soon.
     Exactly as promised, on the night of the full moon, dressed in a
disguise, Mononoke came to get his bride.  Sending his daughter to the
Great Cat, the samurai yells out to his daughter, "For you, being the
wife of a monster is perfect."
     Worried for her father, the third princess climbs into the monster's
basket and is lifted up on his back.  Riding on a single wheel pulled by
a team of mice, Mononoke takes his bride-to-be away into the forest.
     After arriving at Mononoke's lair, the princess became withdrawn.
The big cat said, "Eat, drink.  You are my wife-to-be."
     "Until my father once again becomes human," she said, "I cannot
become your bride."
     Mononoke became enraged by her reply.
     "If you are not going to listen to me, I'll eat you."
     He puts her into a large kettle.
     "Don't come out until you are cooked," he says.

     Despite threats and sweet talk, he couldn't convince her to submit
to his will.  So, finally, the Great Cat gave up.

     "Argh! So what do you want me to do?" he says to her.
     "Please help me rid my father of the evil spirit.  If he is saved, I
will by all means be your bride."
     "Ah, what the heck . . . but don't forget your promise."
     A hard journey was begun to visit a wise turtle that knew the secret
of helping the princess's father.  The turtle lived over many mountains.
Mononoke expected her to complain and give up, but she said nothing and
endured the harsh journey.
     After awhile, they found themselves in a forest that was as old as
the Japanese islands were.  And suddenly, they met the Great Turtle.
     The Great Turtle told the third princess that her father's heart
remained, even though he was possessed.  He knew of a remedy, a special
treasure that could work magic.  She dived with the turtle into the deep
waters, and found a treasure chest left in the bottom of the sea.
     The treasure was a mirror that shown brightly, even though it had
been sitting under the sea for countless years and months.
     While they were preparing to leave, the Great Turtle said to her,
"After this, the strength of your heart will determine all."
     The two travelers rapidly returned to her home town on a magic
flying device.
     Far away, the evil spirit knew of the approach of the magic mirror.
     After her return, the princess was shocked to see the state of
things back in her hometown.  In only one year, her father's small
mansion had been transformed into a giant castle.  The power of the evil
spirit had grown to a level of great strength.
     Many soldiers had gathered, and great cannons had been built.
     The peasant population suffered under the ungrateful lord.
     The third princess tried to give aid to the suffering people, but
was stopped by soldiers.  Mononoke rushed in to protect her, and gave a
great battle.  He yelled, "Don't you dare lay a hand on my bride!" and
knocked down many a man.  But Mononoke was shot in the back as he was
jumping off the mountain for safety with the princess.  Even though he
was injured, Mononoke continued to protect the princess as they fled for
safety in the mountainside below.
     "I am not going to ask you to be my bride if you think it is
unreasonable.  Will you return to my mountain home with me?" he asked.
They had become good friends, and shared something together.  While he
fell into a deep sleep, she went out, taking the magic mirror with her.
In the moonlight, she saw the face of a sleeping young man in the mirror.
It was the true form of Mononoke.  In the mirror, she saw the man running
around catching chickens with the force of a wild beast.  One day, while
he was living like a beast, the young man suddenly awoke to find himself
transformed into a beast.  The third princess came to know his pain.
     "But, I cannot keep the promise with you," she said.  "I must return
to the side of my father.  Please forgive me."
     And she left him in the night while he slept.  She returned to her
father's castle alone.  The soldiers recognized who she was, and allowed
her to pass into the castle.
     Mononoke woke up and realized that the princess was not there.  He
ran to the village and asked if they had seen her.  Someone said that he
had seen her going to the castle, alone.
     Mononoke charged towards the castle, forgetting to put on his
disguise.  Reaching the castle, he flew over the gate, not even pausing
for the castle guards who were shooting at him.
     The third princess entered the castle, not being able to recognize
anything because the place had been so warped and transformed.  As she
reached the demon's inner chamber, finally, father and daughter met.  But
it seemed that it was too late.  The spirit had already eaten into the
body of the samurai.
     With the intent of killing the evil spirit, the third princess stood
and faced him.
     Mononoke was plowing through rows and rows of soldiers yelling, "Get
out of my face!" as he made his way towards the father and daughter.
     The princess pulled out the mirror, and as she faced it towards her
father, the evil spirit began to pause in fear.  The princess ran forward
and embraced her father and the evil spirit fled out of his body.  The
father snapped out of it, his body pale and weak.
     The evil spirit flew into the heavy armor.  He faced the father and
daughter, and blew flame from the mouth of the face plate.  Then,
Mononoke appeared from behind and flew into the flames, forming a shield
for the father and daughter.  Despite the fire, Mononoke pressed his
attacker.  In doing so, the devil-armor retreated out the window and onto
the balcony.  Mononoke made a leaping attack, hitting the devil-armor
square in the chest, and the pair flew over the edge onto the roof.  The
princess went out onto the roof, to see the burning pair with her own
eyes.  The devil-armor was burned to a crisp, and Mononoke likewise
received mortal wounds from the flame.  The princess ran to the cat,
tears streaming down upon his fallen form.  Because of the magic of her
love that the tears conveyed, Mononoke once again began to breathe.  He
was alive!
     "I am the best of the mountain cats.  I survived to once again see
my young bride.  Wa ha ha ha ha!"
     The princess returned to the side of her fallen father.  While she
held him tight, he took his last breath as a human.
     The people of the village came out into the street, and watched as
the huge castle burned to the ground.

     Mononoke took the princess up onto his back, and the two returned to
the mountain.

The End

--------------------------------cut here--------------------------------

Date:         Mon, 13 Dec 1993 19:47:25 +0900
Source:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <[e-mail]>
Really-From:  FUKUMOTO Atsushi <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Publication news

MONONOKEHIME
(Monster [and] Princess)
1993, Tokuma shoten, ISBN4-19-860040-6
2913yen
Miyazaki's version of "Beauty and the Beast".  Firstly published in
  MIYAZAKI HAYAO IMEEJI BOODO-SHUU (1983).

It's huge print size (about A3), hardcovered, and a bit expensive.
There's Kurosawa Akira's comment as the liner note.  (I'm not sure he
is recommending it or not, though.)

Incidentally, YAMAMOTO NIZOU GASHUU --- FIRUMU KARA NO KOTOBA
(Yamamoto Nizou Illustrations --- Words from Films) was published
recently (I have not bought it (yet)).  ISBN4-04-852462-3, Kadokawa
shoten, 3204yen.  For those who don't know, Yamamoto Nizou worked as
the director of art for Conan the Future Boy, Great Detective Holmes,
Laputa, Grave of the Fireflies, etc.

(Pardon my ignorance, but, what was the original title of Beauty and
the Beast?  Belle et (something)???)

                                        FUKUMOTO Atsushi
                                        [e-mail]

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Date:         Mon, 20 Dec 1993 17:35:52 CET
Source:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <[e-mail]>
Really-From:  Miho NISHIDA <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Heyheyhey!

I guess most people know this fact by now, but since I don't have
access to mailing lists any more, I just wanted to make sure
people knew!

Miyazaki's next new project will begin next year.  It's called
"Mononoke Hime".  They were selling children picture book of it,
all done by Miyazaki watercolor works, at the bookstore yesterday.
The setting will be in ancient Japan (i.e. Warlords, etc.). Mononoke
means monster (not quite; anyone with Japanese-English dictionary,
please check out mononoke/obake/youma/bakemono/etc.).  No no, the
Princess (hime) is not a monster.  She just gets wed to one.

Sorry if this fact's a repeater.

Miho aka Griff @ I can't wait!

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Date:         Thu, 13 Jan 1994 14:47:00 PST
Source:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <[e-mail]>
Really-From:  Bill Wilkinson <[e-mail]>
Subject:      What is Mononoke Hime; What Batman references; Lion King; OPP

[NOTE: this posting has been edited extensively.  --S.F.]

Mononoke Hime is by Miyazaki [. . .], the AM Juju book of which should
be availble either soon or already.  It is a period piece concerning a
young princess married to a giant cat-creature that looks like Totoro
in a Nekobus costume :).   It looks REAL GOOD.   That's all I know.

 --Bry

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Date:         Sun, 30 Jan 1994 12:51:46 GMT
Source:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <[e-mail]>
Really-From:  Richard Poffley <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Mononokehime Synopsis

Hello All,

I'm a new (23 January) subscriber to this mailing list and I am intrigued
by Mononoke-hime.  I understand this is a new book by Miyazaki, is it
also going to be a new film?  Nothing I have read in the messages so far
categorically states this.  I did see a message on rec.arts.anime that
*did* say that it *was* a new film due in 1995.  Thanks to Brad for the
synopsis.

In my small collection of Miyazaki books I have something called "Hayao
Miyazaki Image Board" with a copyright date of 1983.  In it there is a
complete breakdown of what appears to be Mononoke-hime in 83 small colour
pictures and a small amount of Japanese text by each.  Some of the
pictures are not complete, they are not fully coloured.  It would seem
that the story is at least 10 years old.  There is a full page colour
picture of the cat with the princess on his back, on the one-wheeled
bicycle being pulled by the mice!  It does look weird!

I look forward to an explanation, please.

Regards,

Richard

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Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 14:02:33 -0500
Source:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <[e-mail]>
Really-From:  Rheault Sylvain <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Miyazaki Mononoke-hime article
In-Reply-To:  <[e-mail]> from "Brad J.
              Lucido" at Jan 31, 94 11:33:07 pm

>     The idea is from "Beauty and the beast," by Madame Do Boeman. (sp?)
                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

     Madame Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont.  She was contemporaneous
with Voltaire.  She lived in England for a while.
     _La Belle et la Be^te_ become popular because of the feature movie
by Jean Cocteau.

     But I think part of the inspiration for this new story by Miyazaki
also come from _Le Chat botte'_ (Puss in Boots), where a smart cat helps
his master improve his situation.
     But I suppose that any story featuring a cat can be regarded as a
source of inspiration ^_^.

     Thanks for this interesting article.

---
Sylvain
[e-mail]

========================================================================
Subject:  2.) MONONOKE-HIME book "making of article" (Lucidos, 1/31/94)


WRITTEN BY: Hayao Miyazaki in 1983.
TRANSLATED BY: Brad Lucido, with help from Hana Lucido, January 31, 1994
TYPED-IN & POSTED TO <NAUSICAA@BROWNVM> BY: Brad Lucido, Jan. 31, 1994
EDITED & RE-FORMATTED BY: Steven Feldman, October 29, 1994
TWEAKED BY: Steven Feldman, ??, 1994  [Awaiting Brad's feedback]

     The following is a very loose translation of the "making of" article
in the back of the book written by Miyazaki.  It is called "Origins From
the Endless Repetition," and yes, the title is strange until you read the
article.  Extreme thanks to my wife Hana, who helped a lot.  Again, a
disclaimer: this is not a professional translation, so errors are
expected.

--

     The image boards date back from 1980, when I showed them around to
various TV and movie companies as his "pitch."  They are different from
storyboards in that they are not made for the technical descriptions
needed in film, but simply to tell the story in a few shots, so they
should be called image boards and not storyboards.

     This strategy was not successful, so the image boards were published
in 1983 in a book called "Image Board collection."  I gave up my
cinematic vision for the boards at this point.

     1980 showed the direction for the next 10 years.

     I was working at Telecom Animation Film back then and drew a lot of
my own stuff in my spare time.  Back then, none of my ideas were
realized.  However, when I did start making my own films, all of the
ideas came from those drawings.  Among them, MH was one of the things
that I drew really enthusiastically.  It was organized the best of all my
ideas, but back then it was ignored because it was considered too dark.
The knack of continuing without stopping is not to try too hard when you
find it doesn't work.  In the same manner, "Tonari No Totoro" was
rejected.  I was depressed because I had no movie job.  However, after I
completed each scenario, I didn't look back because I was satisfied about
expressing my ideas and hoped the ideas would be carried out some day.

     As for MH, I found lots of weak points.  The biggest problem was
that the setting of the story borrowed too much from ordinary movies and
folklore.  Also, recently the viewpoint of history and agriculture of
Japan has been drastically changing in the last 10 years, and Mononoke
didn't reflect this.  The setting was not dynamic, as well.  I wanted to
make a Japanese period piece, so I decided to let go of Mononoke even
though I wanted to work on it badly.  This is why I printed the boards
(in 1983).  I had made up my mind.

     Now, More than 10 years have passed.  I have always wanted to make a
Japanese jidai gekki.  I spared no opportunity to talk about it with the
people around me.  Sometimes, I felt like I found a way to make it, and I
was excited for a week, but when I condensed the idea, it became chaotic.
Many elements became mixed, and the story, unclear.  The reason for the
confusion is mainly due to the basic structure of MH.  Even though I
changed the setting, the main characters and story--that of the daughter
unliked by their father so she is given to the nastiest and ugliest
thing--continued to haunt me.  It was so persistent, it was almost like
being in psycho-therapy and discovering the constant subconscious
element.  After I repeated my story pattern so many times, I thought, "I
must get it out of my system once and for all, or I cannot proceed."

     The idea is from "Beauty and the beast," by Madame de Beaumont.
Some people said that it wouldn't go after Disney's success, but I can
make it totally different.  I can overcome several of the weak points I
mentioned earlier.  With all these reasons, all of a sudden, MH, came up
as the next long movie project.  Then, Mr. Suzuki, a producer from
Ghibli, came up with the idea of publishing this book.  He wants to see
how readers react to something that is old enough to grow fungus.  Hikari
Yanagisara and Tamami Yamamoto, who work at Ghibli publishing (a new
branch), worked very hard without complaint, so I didn't gripe about
their boldness in saying, "Let's enlarge the pictures greater than the
original size."  At first, Mononoke is supposed to return to Human form,
but it didn't feel right about it, so we left it that way and published.

     As for Cinema, I will reconstruct the story without being limited to
what I have done with the image boards, but I will keep the ending the
same.

--------------------------------cut here--------------------------------

Date:         Tue, 1 Feb 1994 14:02:33 -0500
Source:       Hayao Miyazaki Discussion Group <[e-mail]>
Really-From:  Rheault Sylvain <[e-mail]>
Subject:      Re: Miyazaki Mononoke-hime article
In-Reply-To:  <[e-mail]> from "Brad J.
              Lucido" at Jan 31, 94 11:33:07 pm

>     The idea is from "Beauty and the beast" by Madame Do Boeman. (sp?)
                                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

     Madame Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. She was contemporaneous
with Voltaire. She lived in England for a while.
     _La Belle et la Be^te_ become popular because of the feature movie
by Jean Cocteau.

     But I think part of the inspiration for this new story by Miyazaki
also come from _Le Chat botte'_ (Puss in Boots), where a smart cat helps
his master improve his situation.
     But I suppose that any story featuring a cat can be regarded as a
source of inspiration ^_^.

     Thanks for this interesting article.

---
Sylvain
[e-mail]