Wee Six

How does it familiarise its historical setting according to Napier (2005)?

According to Napier (2005) conventional ideas about japanese history at the time of the Muromachi period (fourteenth century) are turned upside down, with the conventional ideas of that era, of which were (tea ceremony, noh theatre & zen inspired landscape gardens) all getting shelved and replaced by marginals of history, the likes of women, outcasts and according to Napier (2005) the kami (ancient god of japanese people who embodied or were linked to natures forces) who were are the most unlikely to be adopted out of the pre mentioned group.

According to Napier (2005) how does this anime problematise traditional (or conservative) constructions of gender class and race?

Napier (2005) discusses how this anime challenges the typical gender and class roles an audience would expect the characters to portray. In this anime the females are powerful, strong willed and able to command, whereas in Japanese history this is not the way things would be. Murase (as cited in Napier, 2005, p. 240) suggests that Miyazaki could also be toying with gender boundaries under the guise of the nature/ culture dichotomy. Napier (2005) mentions how elitist Japanese history consists of the all powerful Emperor and his court however in Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki has subverted the traditional ideas on history, asthetics and gender relationships by giving power and authority to females one of whom is a wolf and the other a leader of a weapons manufacturing community of which their memebers are affected by lepprossy a disease usually linked to outcasts of a community.