Lucy Wright, Ph.D. Candidate
Cinema Studies Programme
University of Melbourne
This article is an exploration of the themes and symbols of Shinto
mythology and spiritualism in the early animated feature films of
Hayao Miyazaki. In his use of resonant moments of communion with
nature, I argue that Miyazaki is cinematically practicing the ancient
form of Shinto, which emphasised an intuitive continuity with the
natural world. At the same time he is subverting Japan’s cultural
myths, such as the myth of an idealised ancient Japan living in harmony
with nature, as articulated by kokugaku (National Studies)
scholar Moto-ori Norinaga. Miyazaki is a tremendously popular anime director
in Japan and his recent film, Spirited Away (2001), won an
Academy Award, illustrating his global appeal. His work transforms
and reinvigorates the tenets of Shinto, and these are juxtaposed
with global culture–inspiration is taken from American science
fiction, Greek myths and British children’s literature–to
create a hybrid "modern myth" that is accessible (in different
ways) to post-industrialised audiences all over the world.
Introduction
The place where pure water is running in the depths of the forest
in the deep mountains, where no human has ever set foot–the
Japanese have long held such a place in their heart.
Hayao Miyazaki, 19971
I’m hoping I’ll live another 30 years. I want to see
the sea rise over Tokyo and the NTV tower become an island… Money
and desire – all that is going to collapse, and wild
green grasses are going to take over.
Hayao Miyazaki, 20052
[1] When watching the fantastic anime (animation) of Japanese
director Hayao Miyazaki, it soon becomes apparent that he has infused
his richly detailed worlds with an animistic ontology that references
ancient Japanese beliefs, practices and myths. His films describe
an intriguing mixture of earthy spirituality particularly drawn from
the Shinto tradition. While spiritual themes are present in all of
his films to some extent, including the Academy Award winning Spirited
Away (2001) and recently released Howl’s Moving Castle (2005),
his earlier works are more concerned with articulating the possibility
of a mystical connection between humans and the natural world. His
work displays a sense of nostalgia for a time when humans lived more
in harmony with nature, but at the same time he refuses to deny the
current reality of modernity and industrialisation. His films problematise
Japan’s oft-touted love of nature (the conflict is depicted
as outright war between the Gods of the Forest and the industrial
humans in Princess Mononoke [1997]). He also works to subvert
other aspects of Japanese cultural history, particularly the collective
nostalgia for an idealised ‘pure heart’ (magokoro)
Japan. He does this by encouraging the assimilation and appreciation
of foreign cultural elements (as can be seen in Nausicaa’s [1984]
many global narrative influences).
[2] Miyazaki has said that he only makes films for a Japanese market.3 With
this audience in mind, Miyazaki is actively participating in Nihonjinron (a
theoretical discourse of "Japaneseness," or of Japanese
uniqueness), in that he is reshaping what it means to be Japanese.
At the same time his films have become globally successful. While
not a household name in many other countries (yet), Miyazaki’s
films consistently draw mass audiences and outperform American imports
in Japan. Princess Mononoke was seen by 12 million people
(or one tenth of the population of Japan) in just five months when
it was competing with the Hollywood blockbuster Jurassic Park. Mononoke held
the title of highest grossing "homemade" film for four
years until Miyazaki’s next work, Spirited Away, stole
the title and also became the highest grossing film of all time in
Japan.4 After making Nausicaa in
1984, adapted from his long-running serialised manga (comic)
of the same name, he established his own production company, Studio
Ghibli, and his subsequent films have all been made by this staunchly
non-computerised anime house.
[3] Focusing on a selection of Miyazaki’s earlier works: Nausicaa
of the Valley of the Wind, Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), My
Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Princess Mononoke, this
article will describe certain aspects of Japanese culture and
society, highlighting the historical sources that describe the
origins of these and Shinto beliefs. The framework of "the
Ancient Way," as developed by eighteenth century Kojiki scholar
Moto-ori Norinaga (1730-1801), will be used as it has been the
most influential and detailed codification of the early form of
natural Shinto. Norinaga and, I will argue, Miyazaki are both
nostalgically seeking contact with the "pure" mystical
core of this belief system, but with very different outcomes.
Norinaga’s ideas informed the kokugaku (National
Studies) movement, which eventually led to the ideology of Tennoism
and to Japan’s imperialist expansion program in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Miyazaki attempts to distance himself
from the significant political and nationalistic implications
inherent in any discussion of Shinto, and yet is still drawing
on the cultural myth of an idealised, paradisal existence in ancient
Japan. But where Norinaga and others of the Nativist school considered
the magokoro of ancient times to be a Japanese birthright,
Miyazaki’s vision is more expansive and global. His characters
can be described as both "performing Japaneseness" but
also exemplifying foreign cultural traits5 that
coalesce into coherent and transnational human traits.Essentially,
his films attempt to re-enchant his audiences with a sense of
spirituality that eschews the dogmas and orthodoxies of organised
religions and politics, instead reaching for the original, primal
state of spiritualism in human history and how it can be lived
today.
Shinto: The Way of the Kami
[4] Historically, the Japanese have been comfortable with holding
a multiplicity of spiritual beliefs. Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity
were all introduced and have taken root successfully (to varying
degrees). A survey of religion in Japan undertaken by the Agency
for Cultural Affairs in the 1970s concluded that Shinto provides "a
cultural matrix … for the acceptance and assimilation of foreign
elements,"6 and found that
far from displacing indigenous traditions, introduced religions are
assimilated into the Japanese belief system. For example, in a survey
conducted in 1991, 107 and 94 million Japanese identified themselves
as Shinto and Buddhist respectively–when the total population
of Japan was only 124 million7. "Syncretism" is
an appropriate descriptor for the general spiritual orientation of
the Japanese.
[5] Shinto is one of the few surviving animistic faiths in the world.
Despite official attempts either to suppress or appropriate its ideology,
Shinto has survived in Japan into the twenty-first century. Its origins
predate Japanese history, and it was probably brought to the archipelago
by early Mongol settlers in the Yamato Valley. It is generally accepted
to have no dogma or moral doctrine, except for its tenets of worshipping
and honouring the kami (gods), respect for nature, and the
practice of purification rituals. Shinto shrines are dotted around
the countryside in Japan, and also in the many densely populated
cities–a testament to the resilience of this millennia-old
belief system in adapting to a hyper-technological present.
[6] The core ideas that inform our understanding of "natural" Shinto
were developed by Moto-ori Norinaga in the Tokugawa period.8 A
student of Kamo no Mabuchi, Norinaga argued for a return to the idyllic
simplicity of ancient Japan and the removal of foreign elements from
Japanese culture. Through extensive studies of the Kojiki,
a book that could be described as the bible of Shinto, Norinaga developed
his thesis that in the remote past, (Japanese) people possessed a "kami-given
nature" that allowed them to live in perfect harmony with their
natural surroundings. Part of the success of his teachings stemmed
from the emotionality of his appeal and the sense of nostalgia he
invoked. Jun’ichi Isomae suggests that Norinaga’s "affective" approach
and conflation of the natural and the divine "laid the basis
for the emotional debates on the nature of the heroic age that repeatedly
played out during the postwar era."9 Before
Norinaga, Japanese history had mainly been taken from the Nihon
shoki, ‘Chronicle of Japan’, written in 720 C.E.
in Chinese. The Kojiki (literally ‘Record of Ancient
Things’) was completed in 712 C.E. under the auspices of the
imperial Yamato court, and details the creation myths of Izanagi
and Izanami and events in "the age of the kami," including
how the grandson of Amaterasu Omikami, Emperor Jimmu, was set upon
the imperial throne.
[7] In these ancient times, naturally occurring phenomena that were
particularly awe-inspiring were given the title of kami, or
gods, and were sometimes thought to possess the power of speech.
Around the time these beliefs arose, during the early Jomon (10,000
B.C.E.-300 B.C.E) and Yayoi periods (300 B.C.E.-300 C.E.), it was
believed that respect for the kami was inseparably a part
of the people’s love of nature. Norinaga describes kami as:
The deities of heaven and earth that appear in the ancient texts
and also the spirits enshrined in the shrines; furthermore,
among all kinds of beings–including not only human beings but also
such objects as birds, beasts, trees, grass, seas, mountains, and
so forth–any being whatsoever which possesses some eminent
quality out of the ordinary, and is awe-inspiring, is called kami.
(Eminence here does not refer simply to superiority in nobility,
goodness, or meritoriousness. Evil or queer things, if they are extraordinarily
awe-inspiring, are also called kami.) 10
[8] He continues that the written character for kami, another
way of reading the Chinese character for shin, can be literally
translated as "above" which gives rise to the interpretation
of "god" or "deity." Yet kami are not
omniscient and distant in the Christian or Muslim sense, but were
thought of in a similar way to the Greek gods: capable of human emotion
and accessible to mortal communication. This relationship was characterised
in terms of oya-ko, as ancestor to descendent or parent to
child.11 There was a sense of
familiarity and friendliness between humans and kami; the kami were
respected and honoured, but usually not feared.
[9] Representations of kami and the natural world in Miyazaki’s
films express an underlying belief of the early Shinto worldview,
that is, continuity between humanity and nature. This concept
is also encapsulated by the Japanese word nagare, meaning "flow," and
leads to the conception of vital connections between the divine nature
of the kami, and by extension the natural world, and humanity
(through respectful rituals); between post-mortem souls and the living
(such as the ie construct, or ancestor/descendent link); and
between the inner and outer worlds (as expressed through ideas about
pollution and purity). The ancient Japanese did not strictly divide
their world into the material and the spiritual, nor between this
world and another perfect realm. Miyazaki is very much aware of this
in his work, saying in an interview about Princess Mononoke that "I’ve
come to the point where I just can’t make a movie without addressing
the problem of humanity as part of an ecosystem"12.
[10] Yet Miyazaki doesn’t like to identify his themes with
the religiosity or "official" versions of Shinto. While
referring to his Totoros as "nature spirits" and grounding
his film in the mise-en-scène of a rural
period, Miyazaki was adamant that "this movie [Totoro]
has nothing to do with that [Shinto] or any other religion."13 His
is a common response by Japanese to direct questions about the ideology
of Shinto:
My understanding of the history of Shinto is that many centuries
ago [the originators of Japan] used Shinto to unify the country and
that it ended up inspiring many wars of aggression against our neighbours.
So, there is still a great deal of ambiguity and contradiction within
Japan about our relationship to Shinto, many wish to deny it, to
reject it.14
[11] The fundamental ethos of Shinto arose from a non-organised,
pre-intellectual understanding of nature and this is something that
informs Miyazaki’s work. Helen McCarthy reads Totoro as "deliberately
sidelin[ing] religion in favour of nature… the trappings of
rural religious traditions are clearly visible, but as far as the
plot is concerned, they’re decorative, not functional… Religion
is a human construct and has nothing to do with nature. Nature spirits
live outside it, creatures of simple goodwill who mean no harm"15.
Despite Miyazaki’s ambiguity with identifying his work with
the ethos of Shinto, their presence imbues them with some importance.
His films seem to offer a way forward for Japanese people and global
audiences to enjoy their animistic and beneficent view of the world
without the trappings of religion.
Purity and Pollution: Nausicaa
[12] In order to illustrate the moral world of the ancient Japanese,
the creation myth of Izanagi and Izanami in the Kojiki plays
out notions of good and evil, purity and pollution. The myth goes
like this: when Izanami gave birth to the kami of fire, she
suffered greatly and eventually "died" and entered yomi-no-kuni,
the realm of the dead. She warned Izanagi not to look upon her in
such a state of pollution (i.e., death), but he missed her so greatly
he followed her into the netherworld. When she discovered that he
had broken his promise, she pursued him vengefully and he only just
escaped. Back in this world, Izanagi was "seized with regret" and
felt he had "brought on himself ill-luck," and undertook
the "purification of his august body … from its pollutions
and impurities."16 Izanagi
then washed himself in a river mouth and from the filth and defilement
of his journey to yomi, Magatsubi-no-Kami was born, "the
mysterious spirit of evils." To counter this, Naobi-no-Kami
was immediately born, "the mysterious spirit of rectifying evils." Various
other kami were also born from these ablutions, including
Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi and Susa-no-o, the gods of the sun, the moon,
and the storms respectively.17
[13] In his studies of this ancient text, Norinaga used this story
to draw several conclusions about the moral world of the ancient
Japanese: first, tsumi or "evil"
encompasses more than just moral transgressions. It implies spiritual
and physical impurity or filthiness, and includes natural disasters,
disease and contact with death. Secondly, such evils should be ritually
purified or cleansed (tellingly, the rituals for purification from
filth or from rectifying evil are identical). And finally, good (yogoto)
encompasses spiritual and physical cleanliness and harmony. This
definition can be seen linguistically in so far as akashi (bright), kiyoshi (pure,
clean) and naoshi (upright) were used interchangeably with yogoto in
the ancient Kojiki.18
[14] Hence, the true purpose of purification (harae) according
to Norinaga is to remove what is evil or polluted, in order that
something good or bright can take its place. Such a moral universe
is quite different from a Christian one, as there is no Original
Sin. The nature of humanity is considered essentially good and pure.
Shinto holds that evil does not stain one’s soul, it only obscures
it temporarily. Like a mirror, the sheen and brightness may be dulled
by pollution or dust, but it can be wiped clean again. That even
the powerful deity Izanagi was defiled by his contact with death
shows that this faith recognises evil as an inevitable part of living.
[15] Miyazaki has said that there was one big event that gave him
the inspiration for Nausicaa: the pollution of Minamata Bay
with mercury in the 1950s and 1960s. Because of serious health concerns,
people stopped fishing in the bay, but strangely the fish stocks
in the area increased dramatically. Miyazaki said the news "sent
shivers up my spine," and he admired the resilience of other
living creatures, that they could absorb such poisons and survive.19 In
the thirtieth century world of Nausicaa, the world has been
destroyed in a human-inflicted holocaust called The Seven Days of
Fire. Yet, instead of a dry, radioactive wasteland, the land is abundant
with life. Toxins have caused widespread plant and insect mutations
until a giant breed of insectoid Ohmu arises to rule the planet and
a new ecosystem evolves that is poisonous to humans, variously called
the Sea of Corruption, the Toxic Jungle, the Acid Sea and the Wasteland.
So now it is humans who must adapt to the by-products of a different
species. This kind of ecological influence is apparent in Nausicaa’s many
symbolic moments, which, as Paul Wells suggests, "become the
locus for narrational emphasis and the nexus of spiritual and philosophic
ideas."20 As well as carrying
the trope of the messiah, the character of the princess embodies
certain ideas about how to live with the natural world. Her characterisation
can be read as signifying transitional and purifying aspects, and
the unusual power she possesses as affirmative of the "rightness" of
her mode of thought.
[16] The first glimpse of Nausicaa is as she circles high above a
verdant landscape in her white glider. She descends, lands lightly
and enters the weird forest, walking wordlessly through cathedral-like
caverns, collecting phosphorescent plant samples, and delightedly
discovering the shed carapace of one of the giant insectoid Ohmu.
She pries free the transparent eye casing and rests beneath it during
the snowstorm of pollen as the mushibayashi plants release their
afternoon spores. We can see in this whimsical exploration of her
world that Nausicaa takes a scientific and beatific interest in the
forest, an attitude that parallels the Shinto world-view expressed
by Norinaga: "this heaven and earth and all things therein are
without exception strange and marvellous when examined carefully."21 He
describes the wondrous nature of things as "kami-given," and
in the world of Nausicaa, the princess’ heroic status
lies in her ability to see this essentially good nature in all things.
While other characters either attack the forest or avoid it completely,
Nausicaa is able to see what Norinaga called magokoro, "the
sincere heart," and she values all life.
[17] Between Nausicaa’s home, the Valley of the Wind and the
Jungle lies a netherland of sandy desert where nothing grows; yet
Nausicaa traverses this area every day in her glider. In a discussion
of marginality in Japanese culture, anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney
describes how purifying and polluting forces are those that fall
in the gaps between important classifications in society–particularly
between the clearly defined spheres of the dirty "outside" (soto)
and the clean "inside" (uchi). These transitional
areas harbour what she terms "cultural germs."22 In
her study of various healing deities, both Buddhist and Shinto, Ohnuki-Tierney
found that each one was associated with these border-areas. And this
is where Nausicaa’s powers lie; like a healing deity, Nausicaa
is the embodiment of purification, making amends for the tsumi of
the Torumekians and Pejites.
[18] In Nausicaa, pollution comes not from the reversal of
power relations between humans and insects, but in the interruption
of the continuity or nagare of nature. The violent Torumekians
and Pejites, with their insistence on using the warships and weapons
of the Ancients, continue to fight the Jungle and each other. Commander
Kushana of Torumekia goes to the extreme of rousing a dormant God
Soldier that laid the earth to waste millennia ago. And the Pejites
commit the sadistic cruelty of torturing an Ohmu pupa in order to
provoke the adult Ohmu on a murderous rampage through the Valley.
The Valley people understand the horror of what has been done. Nausicaa’s
grandmother says; "The anger of the Ohmu is the anger of the
earth. Of what use is surviving, relying on a thing like that [the
God Soldier]?"
[19] The Ohmu and the princess also share an important link in terms
of purification. In her secret laboratory, Nausicaa has been growing
spores collected from the Jungle. Given clean water and soil, she
finds that the fungi and plants do not give off poisonous vapours.
She concludes that it is the soil that is toxic, not the plants that
grow in it. Later, after an aerial battle, she crash-lands in the
jungle and finds herself, along with a Pejite boy she was trying
to save, in a subterranean cavern of clean water and non-toxic sands.
They realise that the entire forest operates as a purifying organism;
the trees absorb the poisons from the soil, crystalise and neutralise
them, before eventually dissolving into sand. The Toxic Jungle is
effectively purifying the planet.
[20] The Ohmu are aware of this and act to defend the forest, and
thus the earth, from the actions of humans. They are a god-like race,
intricately connected to the new ecosystem and able to telepathically
feel the pain of all creatures in the Jungle, not just their own
kind. Despite suffering from the aggression of the Torumekians and
Pejites, the Ohmu are not a vengeful race. They acknowledge the sacrifice
Nausicaa makes by returning life to her body. The golden field they
create for her offers hope and a message of unification. They have
seen her magokoro.
Oya-ko: My Neighbor Totoro and Laputa
[21] The distinction between nature’s kami and the spirits
of ancestors was often slight in ancient times. In contrast to the
western concept of a creator/creature relationship between humanity
and god, in Shinto the Japanese people are held to be the children
of the kami, and as such, the kami are their ultimate
ancestors. Norinaga used the term oya-ko to describe this
divine ancestral link, where oya means one who gives birth,
and ko, one who is born:
Generally in ancient times, oya referred not only to one’s
father and mother, but also to one’s ancestors in any
distant generation. There are many indications of this in the
old writings. Thus the father and the mother represented only
one generation of the oya in the above sense. But since they are the most intimate oya among
others, they came to monopolise the name oya in later
ages … Likewise, ko did
not simply mean one’s own children, but also one’s
descendents in successive generations.23
[22] The most apparent instance of this kami-human lineage
in Japanese society lies in the emphasised heavenly origin of the
Imperial family. As the Yamato Clan rose to power in the early part
of the first millennium, they claimed direct descent from the Sun
Goddess Amaterasu Omikami. Even before the consolidation of the Yamato
clan, the early Japanese lived in loose clan-groups called uji,
which had their own kami who was worshipped as an ancestor
and protector. Even into the 1980s, most neighbourhoods had a local
shrine devoted to the ujigami, or the kami of the uji24.
[23] These antique elements of familial and community organisation
form the basis of the dozoku family descent system, still
a part of modern Japanese society to some extent. An essentially
indigenous system, it was reinforced and modified by the introduction
of Confucian ideology in around 600 C.E. The basic unit of the system
is the ie, roughly translated as "family" or "house," although
it carries more of a sense of temporal continuity than its Western
equivalent. Members of an ie include the living members, those
who came before (both the recently dead and the ancestors) and those
yet to be born. It is the primary responsibility of the living to
ensure that the ie continues through both ancestor worship,
lest they are forgotten; and arranging for the ie to survive
into the future.25 The dozoku is
an umbrella grouping of ie that have branched off from one
main family.
A temporal representation of the ie on the
left26
and a cultural structure on the right27
[24] During the revival of Shinto as State Shinto in the period leading
up to the Second World War, the dozoku kinship system was
drawn on heavily to support the "divine right" of the Japanese
aggression. Most Japanese homes had a Shinto "god-shelf" usually
associated with the imperial ancestress Amaterasu Omikami, which
symbolically linked each home to the imperial family.28 This
rhetoric promoted the idea that all Japanese are essentially one
family, one dozoku, and hence all ultimately descended from
the gods. However, the ie is primarily a rural construct,29 and
as the vast majority of Japanese now live in cities, this family
system may have lost its currency. Urbanisation in Japan took place
very rapidly. At the turn of the century, there began a social shift
from farming communities to atomised, metropolitan living, but it
was in the 1960s that the ratio of urban to rural residents rapidly
swung to seven to three.30 The ie was
legally abolished in the 1947 Constitution written at the beginning
of the U.S. Occupation.
[25] Laputa initially seems to be less relevant to discussions
of Japanese society as it is based on Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s
Travels and the landscape is modelled on a Welsh mining town
with distinctly Caucasian characters. Yet on the floating island
of Laputa, there are hints of Japanese culture. This leads to a possible
interpretation of the island as a metaphor for Japan’s past:
a powerful nation (Japan had never been occupied by a foreign power
before the U.S. Occupation in 1947), isolated from the rest of the
world (such as during the Tokugawa period), and engulfed by the spiritual
force of a giant tree (its "embarrassing" Shinto heritage
that post World War II governments have often tried to stamp out).
Orphaned Sheeta’s royal blood bestows upon her supernatural
powers via the Levistone, a piece of Laputa she wears around her
neck. Her royalty could be read as relating to the unbroken succession
of Emperors, while the Levistone, like the symbolic objects of the
Japanese Imperial Family (the sword, the jewel and the mirror) operates
as a physical link with the past. The ancient civilisation from which
she descends has mysteriously vanished but her talisman leads her,
and the villains hot on her heels, to rediscover the mythical island–half
world-tree, half world-destroying weapon.
[26] The majestic camphor tree often plays an important role as signifying
both kami and ancestors. In the case of Totoro, the
giant tree is the home of the King of the Forest, while in Laputa,
it is the repository of the spirits of Sheeta’s ancestors,
the rulers of a mighty civilisation. The "monumental tree" motif
appears in many anime and manga artists’ work,
not just Miyazaki’s; for example, Takashi Nakamura"s A
Tree of Palme (2001) offers a twisted futuristic take on this
with the protagonist literally made of wood. The tree is often portrayed
as containing the spirit of the earth in a Gaia-esque sense. It is
an ancient symbol of the continuity and sacrality of life, for example
Mircea Eliade proposed the term axis mundi for frequent mythological
imagery of cosmic trees. The tree is profoundly important in Shinto
cosmology as it is symbolic of the kami's most highly venerated
powers of productivity and fertility. The Kojiki refers to
a deity "Takagi," whose name literally means "Lofty
Tree." Norinaga interpreted this deity to be the same
as Musubi-no-Kami ("High-Integrating Deity") which was
the very first deity, and produced Izanagi and Izanami. So, following
Norinaga’s interpretation, Takagi could be read as "Lofty
Tree Deity" and could be imagined as the personification of
a cosmic tree.31 So the "world
tree" has a twofold significance: first, as the essence of nature’s
life-giving quality, and second, as both a deity and an ancestor,
and thus the manifestation of the temporal continuation of the divine ie.
[27] The 1950s rural location of Totoro has been modelled
on Sayama Hills, now engulfed by the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo,
but in Miyazaki’s childhood was a mix of farmland and ancient
woodlands. There are shimboku, trees marked with a long rope
of rice straw (shimenawa) and folded paper streamers that
indicate they contain important spirits. The appearance of traditional
elements, while not central to the plot, yet have an ubiquity that
is an accurate representation of their situation in Japan. All over
Japan–from city to country–there are a great many shrines
and torii gates, and to this day construction companies will
use Shinto priests to appease the kami of trees that must
be felled in certain areas. Stuart Picken has suggested that some
of the very earliest Shinto shrines probably took the form of a himorogi, "a
sacred, unpolluted place bounded by rope and surrounded by evergreen
plants and trees."32
[28] The continued popularity of My Neighbor Totoro, manifest
in the easy availability of film-related merchandise, could be read
as nostalgia for a time when people lived more closely with nature
and had an extended family to draw on, as well as the more obvious
yearning for the magical state of childhood. The house the Kusakabe
family move to is very old and traditional, with tatami mats, sliding
screen doors and a communal bath. Here we can see the spare lines
of a traditional Japanese home. Yet it is inhabited with magical
creatures that only children can see. Miyazaki describes his view
of nostalgia to Tom Mes:
I believe nostalgia has many appearances and that it’s not
just the privilege of adults. An adult can feel nostalgia for a specific
time in their lives, but I think children too can have nostalgia.
It’s one of mankind’s most shared emotions. It’s
one of the things that makes us human and because of that it’s
difficult to define. It was when I saw the film Nostalghia by
Tarkovsky that I realised that nostalgia is universal. Even though
we use it in Japan, the word ‘nostalgia’ is not a Japanese
word.33
[29] Considering the emphasis Shinto places on this world,
i.e., not yearning for a paradisal afterlife or a garden of Eden,
it could be understood that there was no need for the term "nostalgia" in
Japan.34 It is relevant that this
nostalgic film was made in 1988, in the peak of the buburu,
the Bubble, a period of economic growth described by some as "the
greatest concentration of wealth in the history of the world."35 Anthropologist
Aoki Tamotsu has described 1980s Japan as defined not by its own
affluence, but by its production of nostalgia for an earlier age
(possibly invented or imagined). The 1980s was, in Tamotsu’s
phrase, a culture of "maturation and forfeiture."36 The
nostalgia that is expressed stems from the sadness of severing spatial
and temporal links with the natural world and the past respectively.
In Japan’s wholesale move to robot technology and a "new
is better" mode of modernisation, Miyazaki’s films regret
leaving behind the richness of a childhood spent in the woodlands,
or the heartfelt spirituality that comes with being a part of nature
and of social tradition.
Respect for Nature: Princess Mononoke
[30] Miyazaki has deliberately chosen the temporal setting for Mononoke–the
Muromachi era (1392-1573). Historians describe it as a time of great
upheaval when the relationship between humanity and nature was radically
changing in Japan. "Hand-cannons" or firearms had been
imported by the Portuguese in 1543 and the Iron Age was dawning.
However, Miyazaki is not attempting historical realism in his depiction
of the era; rather, he appears to illustrate a power shift in the
growing conflict between the natural world and newly industrialised
humans. And so, it was the time when humans declared war on the kamigami,
the wild gods. Miyazaki comments:
I think that the Japanese did kill shishigami [Deer God]
around the time of the Muromachi era. And then we stopped being
in awe of forests … From ancient times up to a certain time in the medieval
period, there was a boundary beyond which humans should not enter.
Within this boundary was our territory, so we ruled it as the human’s
world with our rules, but beyond this road, we couldn’t do
anything even if a crime had been committed since it was no longer
the human’s world … After shishigami’s head
was returned, nature regenerated. But it has become a tame, non-frightening
forest of the kind we are accustomed to seeing. The Japanese have
been remaking the Japanese landscape in this way. 37
[31] Miyazaki’s sympathies lie with the pre-modern world. The
two heroes are both taken from this wild time before the forests
were subjugated. Princess Mononoke of the title (which literally
means "possessed princess"), also called Sen, is modelled
on a Jomon period pottery figure, and Ashitaka’s people, the
Emishi, are suggestive of the Ainu or other groups that, like the
forests, were pushed back by the growing Yamato civilization. Linking
these two are the markings shared by Hii-Sama and Sen–they
both wear decorative headgear. Even the didaribotchi, the
night-time manifestation of the Spirit of the Forest, bears distinctive
rope-like marks on its body similar to those that characterised the
pottery of the Jomon era. They stand in for the original state of
Japan when hunter-gatherer societies lived in relative harmony with
nature. Miyazaki has said before that he sees the agricultural settlement
of Japan as the beginning of the end of the reign of the forest.
In an interview on the ecological world of Nausicaa, the ideas
of which strongly inform Princess Mononoke, he says, "I
was trying to summarise the history of humans since the beginning
of farming, in pre-historic times–since we first began to tamper
with the world … The existence of humans became complicated
with the start of farming."38 He
has also admitted to being heavily influenced by 1970s conservationism
and Marxism.
[32] It I s not only the respect for kami that Miyazaki uses
these characters to represent. They also manifest ideas about a non-intellectual
understanding of spirituality that divorces it from institutionalised
religion per se. Miyazaki has depicted the spirits of the forest
in various ways–from the shishigami, which is a gentle
giver and taker of life, to the active, violent wolf and boar gods.
But he believes his use of the kodama was the most effective:
The idea came to me because what I was interested in portraying was
a sense of the depth and the mystery, the friendliness and the awe-inspiringness
of a forest, and so I came up with the idea of a kodama.
I think you can draw all the huge, giant trees in the world
that you want to. It won’t have the same impact. And I wanted to choose
a form that represented the liveliness and the freedom and the innocence
that a baby represents. And that’s why I chose that form. 39
[33] In a world where magic exists and gods walk the earth, it makes
sense for humans to commune with this liminal realm. So, in the Emishi
village Hii-Sama is respected as she consults her divining stones,
and her words to Ashitaka are filled with portent: "You cannot
change your fate. You can, though, rise to meet it. Go, and see with
eyes unclouded."
[34] This kind of mystically-oriented intuition has been identified
by contemporary Shinto scholar Stuart Picken as key to Shinto experience:
The sense of the mysterious at the heart of life, the desire to commune
with it, and the willingness to express dependence upon it is the
root from which all mythological expressions of religious experience
spring. The way of the kami thus arose in the Japanese people
of ancient times from their reverence for and pre-intellectual awareness
of the structures of being that surrounded them. 40
[35] But when Ashitaka relays his purpose to Lady Eboshi: "to
see with eyes unclouded by hate," she laughs. She rejects, and
via her scorn the pragmatism of modernity rejects the simplicity
of early spiritual thought in favour of the pragmatism and rationality
privileged by modernity.
[36] Eboshi, leader of the iron-mongering Tatara clan (whose name
is perilously close to the tatari, or cursed god, we meet
in the first scene) and the loci of "modern" ideas, admits
she would burn the forest down to get to the iron ore in the mountains,
and is prepared to cut the head off the shishigami to secure
a future for her people. She performs this brutal deed brazenly,
calling to her hunters as she marks the transforming kami with
her rifle, "Watch closely. This is how you kill a god." Yet,
Eboshi is not without "good" qualities: caring for lepers,
empowering women to be more than brothel-workers, building a community
in a hostile world. She epitomises the modern drive that moves towards
progress at any cost. Miyazaki has described her as a "contemporary" character:
I conceived of Eboshi as the most contemporary character in [Princess
Mononoke], and I say "contemporary" and "modern" because
she no longer is the slightest bit interested in the salvation
of her own soul. She kills off a god with the force of her
own will. The monk Jigo is too afraid to do the killing himself,
and so he makes others do his dirty work for him. 41
[37] Eboshi’s actions pose the question: which is more important–humanity's
survival or nature's? Eboshi signifies a break from the pre-modern
past as she moves into the non-ritualistic, non-spiritual future.
And, importantly, she is not judged for this as her character both
has a worthy justification and also learns from the disastrous consequences
of her action. Miyazaki admits that "there can be no happy ending
to the war between the rampaging forest gods and humanity"42.
So while in Miyazaki’s vision these two important tenets of
Shinto, respecting the kami and love of nature, are under
threat from modernisation and industrialisation there is a sense
that, like the infinitely accommodating faith of Shinto, there is
a position where the conflict can be reconciled. This is achieved
not by choosing sides, but by respecting the values of both forces: "Even
in the midst of hatred and slaughter, there is still much to live
for. Wonderful encounters and beautiful things still exist."43
Conclusions
[38] Reading the symbolism and narrative of the films, I have described
how aspects of this pre-modern spiritualism have been transformed
and manifested visually for a largely urban audience, both in Japan
and overseas. Beginning with the sense of wonder and awe in the natural
world, Princess Mononoke had a number of symbolically resonant
moments when the human characters were indeed respectful and awestruck
by manifestation of natural forces and creatures, such as the kodama,
the didaribotchi and the animal kami. The removal of
pollution to restore the essentially pure state of nature, and of
the human spirit, were abundantly present in Nausicaa. Through
the princess’ actions and those of the Ohmu, the irradiated
and polluted state of the Toxic Jungle were gradually reversed and
the tsumi was expunged. And finally, the sense of continuity
that has informed the social structure of Japanese society was found
to have its roots in the ancient world where Shinto was first practiced.
In Laputa, this was manifested through the heavy burden of
lineage that Sheeta must bear–her ancestors were both incredibly
powerful, yet had the capacity for great violence. Totoro took
a gentler approach and suggested that we are spiritually descended
from the natural world as apparent in the kinship the little girls
feel for the forest spirit Totoro.
[39] The key to Miyazaki’s work lies in his knack of transformation
and transfusion. He transforms and reinvigorates the tenets of Shinto
and also elements of Japanese myth such as goblins and gods. He juxtaposes
these with global culture, taking inspiration from American science
fiction writers (e.g., Brian Aldiss’ Hothouse), Russian
filmmakers (like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia), and
Greek myths (e.g., Homer’s Odysseus). His films do not
rework specific stories–rather he draws from these sources
to create a hybrid Japanese "modern myth" that is accessible
(in different ways) to post-industrialised audiences all over the
world. Miyazaki does not take the Disney path of producing sanitised
children’s stories. He is adamantly opposed to simplifying
the world for children: "to make a true children’s film
is a real daunting challenge and this is because we need to clearly
portray the essence of a very complex world."44 His
work can be seen as simultaneously reinventing and subverting cultural
myths and exposing the complexity of life’s problems, rather
than simplifying them.
[40] Miyazaki is cinematically practicing the ancient form of Shinto,
as it was before it was organised (i.e., appropriated) by the growing
Yamato clan and Japanese civilisation. He is reaching back for this
natural Shinto which emphasised an intuitive, non-dogmatic relationship
with nature, an almost child-like state–pre-intellectual, magical,
accepting. Shinto has been a part of Japanese culture for more than
two millennia, and has provided a cultural framework for the integration
of new ideas, while maintaining the essence of old ones. So, aspects
of Shinto can be read as informing Miyazaki’s work in
terms of their themes, concerns and messages. And the fundamental
ideas of Shinto, as described in Norinaga’s "Ancient Way," have
been transformed in these works to offer the same values in the new
context of post-industrial, globalised Japan.
Notes
1 Hayao Miyazaki in "An Interview with Hayao Miyazaki," Mononoke-hime
Theater Program, July 1997. Edited by Deborah Goldsmith. Available
at: www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/m_on_mh.html
2 Margaret Talbot, "The Auteur
of Anime," New Yorker, 17 January 2005.
3 In an interview, Miyazaki has
said: "I'm only worried about how my film would be viewed in
Japan. Frankly, I don't worry too much about how it plays elsewhere." ("Japan's
Animated Film Hit Silver Screen," CNN Today, 3 October
1997).
4 Helen McCarthy, Hayao Miyazaki:
Master of Japanese Animation (Berkeley, CA: Stone Bridge Press,
1999), 186.
5 Susan Napier, "Confronting
Master Narratives: History As Vision in Miyazaki Hayao's Cinema of
De-assurance," positions: east asia cultures critique,
9,2 (2001).
6 Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japanese
Religion (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1972), 14.
7 Joy Hendry, Understanding
Japanese Society (Kent: Croom Helm, 1987), 116.
8 Jun 'Ichi Isomae, "Reappropriating
the Japanese Myths: Moto-ori Norinaga and the Creation Myths of the Kojiki and Nihon
Shoki," Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, l.
27,1-2 (2000).
9 Isomae, "Japanese Myths," 16.
10 Moto-ori Norinaga quoted
in Shigeru Matsumoto, Moto-ori Norinaga: 1730–1801 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 84.
11 Norinaga quoted in Matsumoto, Norinaga,
115.
12 David Chute, "Organic
Machine: The World of Hayao Miyazaki," Film Comment 34
6 (November/December 1998), 64.
13 McCarthy, Myazaki,
121.
14 Mark Vallen and Jeannine Thorpe, "Spirited
Away: Miyazaki at the Hollywood Premiere," The Black
Moon, 13 September 2002. Available at: www.theblackmoon.com/Deadmoon/spiritedaway.html
15 McCarthy, Myazaki,
122-23.
16 Kojiki, I, X, quoted
in Nelson, J. A Year in the Life of a Shinto Shrine (Seattle/London:
University of Washington Press, 1996), 102.
17 Norinaga quoted in Matsumoto, Norinaga,
98.
18 Kojiki, quoted in Nelson, Shinto
Shrine, 98.
19 McCarthy, Myazaki,
74.
20 Paul Wells, "Hayao Miyazaki:
Floating Worlds, Floating Signifiers," Art + Design,
32, 9 (November 2001), 23.
21 Norinaga quoted in Matsumoto, Norinaga,
96.
22 Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Illness
and Culture in Contemporary Japan: An Anthropological View (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), chap. 2.
23 Norinaga quoted in Matsumoto, Norinaga,
115.
24 Hendry, Understanding,
105.
25 Hendry, Understanding,
22.
26 Hendry, Understanding,
25.
27 Akitoshi Shimizu, "Ie
and Dozuku: Family and Descent in Japan," Current Anthropology (Supplement: An
Anthropological Profile of Japan), 28,4 (August-October 1987),
s86.
Shimizu, "Ie," s86.
28 Hendry, Understanding,
29.
29 Shimizu, "Ie," s86.
30 Agency for Cultural Affairs,
91.
31 Basil Chamberlain quoted in
Ichiro Hori, Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change,
Edited by J. Kitagawa and A. Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1968), 192.
32 Stuart Picken, Shinto: Japan's
Spiritual Roots (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1980), 49.
33 Tom Mes, "Hayao Miyazaki
Interview," Midnight Eye, 1 July 2002. Available at: www.midnighteye.com/interviews/hayao_miyazaki.shtml
34 For a further discussion of
nostalgia, see Peter Nosco, Remembering Paradise: Nativism and
Nostalgia in 18th Century Japan (Cambridge, MA: Council on East
Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1990).
35 Karl Greenfeld, Speed
Tribes (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), ix.
36 Aoki Tamotsu, "Murakami
Haruki," in Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture, edited
by John Treat (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1996), 268.
37 Miyazaki, interview 1997.
38 Ryo Saitani, "I Understand Nausicaa a
Bit More Than I Did a Little While Ago: Long Interview with Hayao
Miyazaki," Comic Box (Special Memorial Issue: The
Finale of Nausicaa), January 1995. Available at: www.comicbox.co.jp/e-nau/e-nau.html
39 Miyazaki quoted in Sara Hammel, "An
Interview with Hayao Miyazaki," US News Online, 27 September1999.
40 Picken, Shinto, 75.
41 Miyazaki quoted in Vallen
and Thorpe, "Spirited Away."
42 Studio Ghibli, Princess
Mononoke comes to America (Tokyo: Studio Ghibli, 1997), 4.
43 Studio Ghibli, Mononoke,
4.
44 Miyazaki quoted in Vallen
and Thorpe, "Spirited Away."
