Princess Mononoke was made in 1997 amid concern about humanity’s destruction of nature, says Studio Ghibli vice president Atsushi Okui. He believes that concern feels even more resonant today. Hayao Miyazaki’s own explanation adds an important qualification: the film is not a simple story of people on one side and nature on the other. It asks what happens when human life, civilization and the rest of the living world cannot be separated.
What Atsushi Okui says the film’s environmental message was
In a March 25, 2025 interview with Gizmodo’s io9, translated by Mihoko Imai, Okui described Princess Mononoke as a film shaped by the concerns of its time. “When we made the film, it was about the environment and how we are destroying it,” he said. He added that the filmmakers do not usually make a film by predicting how its message will land decades later; they make it in response to what resonates with them then.
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Asked how the environmental message had developed and resonated with audiences over the film’s 28 years, Okui said he thinks it is “very much more resonant in today’s day and age” and has come to match what is happening now. That is his retrospective assessment of the message’s relevance, not a claim that the film was written to predict specific later events or measure audience opinion.
Why Miyazaki resisted a simple humans-versus-nature reading
Okui’s account of the film’s environmental concern sits alongside, rather than contradicting, Miyazaki’s explanation of his creative intent. In an interview published by Discover Ghibli, Miyazaki said, “I didn’t make this movie as a message about environmental issues. Rather, I intended to challenge the common understanding of environmental issues.” He did not rule out an environmental reading; he objected to reducing the film to a straightforward lesson.
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Miyazaki described humans, other living beings and the environment as part of one world. Nature, in his account, can be beautiful and kind as well as frightening and violent. Civilization tries to tame it, but that effort can put nature itself at risk. The tension is therefore not simply that people are bad and the forest is good: human beings are inside the world they alter, and their attempts to control it have consequences.
How the story turns that tension into a conflict
Okui points to the struggle between the people of Iron Town and the forest gods, with Ashitaka trying to mediate and find a way for them to coexist. That framing helps explain why the film’s environmental concern is more complicated than a warning about damage alone. It makes room for the human community’s existence while showing the cost of its conflict with the forest.
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Ashitaka’s position is not a neat solution that erases the opposing interests. His effort to bring the sides into relation reflects the question at the heart of Okui’s description: whether people and the rest of the living world can share a future when human activity is destroying nature. Miyazaki’s account broadens that question by refusing to treat humanity as separate from the world it seeks to tame.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the film’s history establishes
Studio Ghibli dates Princess Mononoke to July 12, 1997, in Japan, credits Hayao Miyazaki as writer and director, and lists its running time as approximately 133 minutes. Those details anchor the film in the period Okui describes; they do not, by themselves, establish a particular environmental statistic or quantify its effect on audiences.
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For viewers seeking a current physical edition, GKIDS lists Blu-ray/DVD and Steelbook editions and says the 4K remaster was directly overseen by Okui. Walt Disney Studios Japan lists Japanese DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD/Blu-ray editions, with the Japanese 4K UHD/Blu-ray set released June 24, 2026. These are region-specific listings, so formats and stock may differ elsewhere.
