The Art of Princess Mononoke

Description

The art, from conception to release, of the classic Hayao Miyazaki film Princess Mononoke, including a look at Miyazaki’s original art and the use of computer graphics technology in the film.The latest in the perennially popular line of Studio Ghibli art books, which include interviews, concept sketches, and finished animation cels from classics such as Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro.Princess Mononoke was the first Hayao Miyazaki film to break out into the American mainstream. The journey from initial idea to the big screen is captured here, in the hundreds of images from preliminary sketches to dynamic animation cels. Review: Five Stars - Awesome book. I want more. Review: beautiful, and helps to clear up some confusions - This is one of a series of books related to the films of Hayao Miyazaki, put out by his Studio Ghibli, each of which presents a combination of finished cel art, storyboard drawings, background art, and concept-art sketches from one Miyazaki movie. In this volume, the art is arranged in a way that takes viewers through the story step by step, which is useful because the book doesn’t contain a copy of the script, as some of the other books in the series do. It does, however, contain an afterword about the studio’s then-new use of computer graphics and digital compositing. As with all Miyazaki films, the visuals in Princess Mononoke are gorgeous, and the book is well worth having for that fact alone. I found it especially useful, though, because (to my mind, anyway) the story in Princess Mononoke is more complex and confusing than that in most other Miyazaki movies, and the text of the book helped me understand the relationship among the characters and mythic elements better than I had when watching the movie. I recommend this book, and the others in the series, to all lovers of Miyazaki films, anime, and fantasy art.