Japanese Animation and New Media
Lecture Four: Chapter Eight: Giving Up the Gun
By about the middle of the film, three characters, Ashitaka, Lady Eboshi, and San, are established as the principal actors, and they meet for the first time. Insofar as San and Lady Eboshi present countervailing tendencies, it is not surprising that it falls to Ashitaka to mediate between the two. In some respects his ability to mediate between Town and Forest has already been set up in the depiction of his village, which appears to combine agriculture with hunting and gathering. But it has definitely been highlighted in the combination of his using ballistic arrows (cinematism) and having an animal companion (animetism).
What is particularly interesting is that, when the three principal characters meet, it is neither gun nor animal that comes to the fore but the knife. And the fight with blades seems to combine cinematism and animetism, as if inventing a third style of movement that successfully brings the two tendencies together in a blur of arcs and slashes. And here we can begin to consider character animation as well.
