Although it’s hard to rank the films of Hayao Miyaaki, for many Studio Ghibli fansPrincess Mononokeis usually placed pretty high on the list of his absolute best films. So great is this movie that it is still makingnew fans of Studio Ghibli to this day. When it comes to the quality of the movie itself the only major mark against the film is that it’s one of two films Miyazaki directed that is unquestionably NOT made for family audiences (the other isThe Wind Rises)!
While the film itself is considered perfect by many fans, it is the movie that seems to have the most troubled history out of all his films, at least when it comes to the film in America. In fact, there was a bit of irony in the fact that while fans spent years trying to get the rest of Studio Ghibli’s catalog released in America, whenPrincess Mononokewas announced for release on DVD news about the disc actually prompted fans to boycott the release. What happened?
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Princess Mononoke’s Troubled Release in America
The history ofPrincess Mononokein America is a long and complicated one. While there is along story behind this, if you want the cliff-notes version what you need to know is thatPrincess Mononokewas prepped by Disney to be the first Studio Ghibli film they would release in theaters. Not understanding that the movie wasn’t a typical ‘princess movie,’ Disney foisted the film upon Harvey Weinstein to release the film under the Miramax banner.
Weinstein felt the movie needed to be edited down from the hard PG-13 rating it received to a more family-friendly PG rating. When Miyazaki said no, the movie was released with the PG-13 rating intact. The film promptly bombed at the box office. With no hopes of making money at the box office, Miramax started looking towards releasing the film on DVD, which was the only hope the film now had of turning a profit.
Fans Anticipate the DVD Release
SincePrincess Mononoke’sAmerican release was alimited one, many Studio Ghibli fans never got a chance to see it in theaters. Since this was in a time before Netflix and HBO Max, anime fans would have to buy the DVD if they wanted to see it.
Thousands of fans put this movie high on their wish list, as a Hayao Miyazaki movie coming out on DVD was HUGE deal for the anime community! Many fans even went to Suncoast and Sam Goody to pre-order their copy ofPrincess Mononoke. Soon those pre-orders would start getting canceled when fans found out about something VERY important that was missing on the DVD!
The Omission that Sparked a Boycott
When DVD listings started popping up on sites like Amazon and Right Stuf, fans were noticing a disturbing trend: none of the listings showed a Japanese language track on the DVD. If true, this meant that the original voices that Miyazaki himself had chosen would not be on the disc, and only Miramax’s dub would be viewable. After some prodding it was confirmed that this was the case. ThePrincess MononokeDVD would not have the Japanese subtitled version, meaning that purists who wanted to see the movie as it was originally made were out of luck with this release.
This news immediately prompted fans to write letters, sign petitions, and (worst of all) cancel their pre-orders of the DVD. Seeing that there is a huge percentage of anime fans thatprefer to watch their anime subtitled, this reaction was not exactly surprising. The fact that Miramax considered cutting the film already showed that they didn’t understand anime very well, so it was really no surprise that they wouldn’t understand how important the Japanese audio track would be to anime fans. Thankfully, this complaint DID make its way up the ladder at Miramax.
Miramax Course Corrects
Princess Mononokewas such a huge financial disappointment for Miramax, that no one at the company really gave the DVD much thought. When word got back at how many sales the companystood to loseby not having the Japanese audio track the company backtracked and assured fans that this would not be the case. They realized that thePrincess MononokeDVD release could sell better than expected, so plans were made to include the Japanese subtitled version on the disc.
This didn’t happen overnight; in fact, the DVD had to be delayed a whole six months to properly master the audio and subtitles for the disc. WhenPrincess Mononokewas finally released it sold far better than expected.Princess Mononokemay not have been a box office sensation in America, but coupled with the better-than-expected VHS sales ofKiki’s Delivery Service, Disney was more open to releasing more Studio Ghibli films on DVD. When John Lasseter promised to oversee the releases, Disney released the rest of the catalog on DVD and Studio Ghibli fans were finally happy. It’s weird to think that such an important aspect of thePrincess MononokeDVD was overlooked, but thankfully fans complained, Miramax listened, and everything was alright in the end!
