This review contains spoilers for Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain.
Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain is one of those films that everyone watching will come away with a different element having taken hold of their thoughts. The movie is visually enthralling. Initially, the art style is so different, it’s distracting. It’s hard to know what you’re looking at and what to look at. It’s enticing and stunning. Slowly, the narrative starts to push through the art, working in tandem to deliver multiple stories, disguised as one narrative.
As I didn’t read the synopsis before hitting play, my mind tried deciphering what the plot was multiple times. I like this approach because it allows me to develop my own main point of the story, which sometimes doesn’t match the description. In the case of Mononoke, I got the main plot midway through. By then though, some of the underlying stories had taken hold of me.
About Mononoke
Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain is produced by Twin Engine’s EOTA studio. The film is an extension of the 2007 anime, Mononoke. Kenji Nakamura, who worked on the anime, is the director. It stars Hiroshi Kamiya (Attack on Titan), Aoi Yuuki (The Apothecary Diaries), and Tomoyo Kurosawa (Skip and Loafer.)
The film takes place in an Ōoku that houses the harem of the current lord. Two girls, Asa and Kame, arrive at the palace to begin work as maids. The Ōoku is preparing for a birth celebration so things are moving quickly and are chaotic, to say the least. At the same time, two government officials arrive at the Ōoku to investigate why the birth celebration is taking place two months late. The film interpolates the personal journey of Asa, and the weird happenings taking place at the Ōoku.
Friendships in Mononoke
“Would you like one?” Kame asks Asa, offering her a rice ball and instantly bonding the two girls. Both arrive at the Ōoku to work, with the displays of excitement setting them apart. Kame is excited to work at the Ōoku. She secretly wishes for the prince to notice her and make her a concubine of his. She’s loud, forgetful, clumsy, but good-natured. Because she’s not performing her duties as she should, the other maids begin to resent her.
Asa on the other hand is serious and focused. Initially, when she questions the ritual of discarding something precious, it seems that Asa will not fit in at the Ōoku. However, she quickly begins exceeding expectations and is promoted to assist at the birth ceremony.
Despite their differences, Asa and Kame remain very close, often confiding in each other their real thoughts about the ongoing of the Ōoku. Asa sticks up for Kame and truly cares for her. When Mugitani begins berating Kame for her lack of effort, Asa takes responsibility for Kame in an attempt to protect her.
I loved this portrayal of friendship between Asa and Kame because I can’t help but think of how much one loses when leaving home to work at a different place, full of strangers. And with so many women in one place, it would be difficult not to have rivalry, cliques, and hostility. But on the other hand, a place with women can be a place with so much comradery, love, and friendship.
Losing Your “Self”
The theme of losing self in Mononoke is obvious but can get lost in eccentric art. Something made clear is that all maids unless they have a speaking role, do not have individual faces. Instead, their faces are black with a white swirl. Some will alternate faces while speaking, and return to their default “no-face.” Except for Asa, Kame, and the headmaids, no one else has names.
When Asa speaks with Kitagawa through different sequences, she comes to understand that she “musn’t dry out.” I find this being multilayered – with drying out meaning losing one’s self, but also how the women taken by the Mononoke “dry” out, leaving dry and lifeless carcasses behind. In Kitagawa’s self-reflection, Kitagawa realized she dried out because she threw away something precious to her (more on this in the next segment.) While this physically is the doll she discards, it’s also the friendship she lost because she convinces her friend who wasn’t doing well to leave the Ōoku.
In the sequence where Kitagawa throws herself down the well, Asa envisions Kame falling and catches her only for Asa to be the one falling. Then Kame catches Asa and screams “Asa-chan, daijobu!” Essentially telling Asa she will be okay and gives her permission to continue her own goal. I understood this moment to showcase that Asa deemed her friendship with Kame, more important than her roles at the Ōotu, even though she ends up staying. Zooming out, I also find this moment to speak to how much our relationships and friendships inform our “self” and what we deem precious. Asa never establishes what her precious something is, because, in the beginning, she doesn’t throw anything away. I find that for her, that precious something ended up becoming Kame.
Girlhood at the Ōoku
When Asa and Kame join the Ōotu, part of the ritual is to discard something they deem precious. Kame parts with a comb gifted to her by her grandmother for good luck. Asa parts with nothing, since she does not have anything precious. Throughout the film, we see certain items make their way in certain scenes – a ball around Mugitani, a kaleidoscope around Awashima, a doll for Kitagawa, and Kame’s comb. We learn towards the end of the film that these items are at the bottom of the well – the items the girls part with to become a new person at the Ōoku.
Historically, the Ōoku in Edo Castle and other castles in Japan only housed girls and women. Girls from as young as seven worked in the Ōoku, in various roles such as attending to the Midaidokoro (wife of the shogun), attending to the concubines, cooking, cleaning, and other chores.
It’s not lost to me that the new maids entering the Ōoku may still be holding on to their girlhood. And at the encouragement of the older maids, are advised to let that innocence go. While they may not be fully mature, the girls will no longer be treated as children. We see this with Kame, who although gave up her comb, is very youthful and naive. She dreams of the prince picking her to be a concubine. She gushes over the concubine Fuki, she’s loud and clumsy. Her presence irritated the other maids because she still had her youth to her. While everyone else fell in line and abandoned their innocence the day they discarded their belongings in the well.
When the government official discovers the corpses at the bottom of the well, we see the items littered around. Brightly colored boxes, wrapped items, Kame’s comb, the ball, the kaleidoscope, and the doll. And while these items have been “discarded,” they’re not “thrown away” after all. They’re sitting in the water the maids consume daily, almost as if to say “We’re not lost, we’re not far, we’re here tucked away within reach. You just don’t know that yet.”
At the end of the film, when Kame does leave the Ōoku, she’s wearing her comb. As she walks by, all the men can’t help but notice the shine emitting from the comb, as a happy and proud Kame walks away. Although Kame doesn’t fulfill her dream of being the prince’s concubine, she leaves with her self in tact.
In The End
I’m sure I can write dozens more essays with the layers and layers of symbolism behind the beautiful woven story. I find that a story like this one will deserve multiple viewings to try and capture all that’s there. Mononoke found a way to turn an eerie mystery into a nuanced story about girlhood and female friendships and mix that with Japanese history and lore.
I think I was kame with two combs actually?
Also, I think I interpreted Asa and Kame’s relationship more romantic (on Asa’s side) than friendly.
Yes, you’re right about the two combs! I ended up learning that later.