#emishi

Recently I was asked to write an essay about Solarpunk - and especially the "punk" of Solarpunk and how it is used to tell stories - for a German publication that will be released later this year. Originally someone else had been asked to write an essay, but the publishers were not happy with that essay, becuase that essay very much focused just on the history, and worse, on the history in "the west". So, I did what I already do in this blog over and over: Ramble about Solarpunk. Though for that essay I tried to get it a bit scientific sounding. ;)

I did talk about the history of the genre, too, and about how the punk genre came to be. But with Solarpunk I especially talked about the influence of Hayao Miyazaki and Ursula K. LeGuin. And while discussing how those stories influenced Solarpunk as a genre, I realized one thing: The most Solarpunk Ghibli movie is Princess Mononoke. In fact, that movie is so Solarpunk, that I think it can be used to explain the genre more than anything. And that is despite the fact that this movie is not science fiction, but set in the Japan of the 14th century.

Because, well... I will repeat: No, Solarpunk does not necessarily need to be a SciFi setting. You can write a story that is fundamentally Solarpunk in almost any setting.

Now, let me talk a moment about Princess Mononoke, for everyone who has not watched the movie (at least in a while):

Princess Mononoke is the story of Ashitaka, the prince of the Emishi (one of the technically erased indigenous cultures of Japan). After his village gets attacked by a corrupted god, he travels west to find one of the last mountain gods in the hope that this god can heal him. Before he finds the god, however, he gets drawn into the conflict between a settleman calling itself Irontown and the minor gods of nature living around it. The gods try to bring down Irontown, which is lead by Lady Eboshi, as the iron extraction is destroying nature and with it the gods themselves, too. On the side of the gods, there is also San, a girl who had been abandoned in the forest by her parents and was taken in by the wolf gods. Ashitaka finds, that he will have to help both sides to find a peaceful solution.

Now, the movie is very interesting from so many Solarpunk aspects.

The central conflict is very much a conflict between men and nature, but one where both sides are shown with a lot of nuance. As well as having some aspects that a lot of people tend to overlook - like the importance of Ashitaka's perspective as an indigenous man.

Now, the movie could have been quite simple, but Miyazaki chose to not make it that way. Because the quite interesting point is, that Irontown is filled with people from the Untouchable Caste of Japanese society. (Because yes, Japan has a Caste system - untouchables exist to this day.) Untouchables were prostitutes, people who worked certain other jobs like mortician, sick people and such. And Eboshi is a former prostitute, who knew of this and decided to fill her town with only other untouchables, often rescuing them from abject poverty. And she does care about them. She wants to help those people. She just does not see the value in the nature she is destroying compared to the value she can create for herself and her people by selling weapons.

The mythology shown in the movie, rather than depicting classic Shinto mythology, actually is build more around what we know about pre-Shinto Japanese mythology, which has a lot more animalistic gods than what it evolved to with Shinto.

And again, the very interesting aspect that a lot of people ignore is that Ashitaka is indigenous. He is not Japanese, he is Emishi - he is from a culture that the Japanese culture (that came from Chinese and Korean colonialism of the Japanese islands) eradicated. But within the world of the movie some Emishi have survived and have hidden in the mountains.

Which brings me to the point that actually makes me say, that this is the most Solarpunk movie: The ending. Because the ending of the movie is, that both sides decide that they will need to find a way for both of them to live. And they will learn that with Ashitaka staying with the people of Irontown and helping them live together with nature.

Because the movie quite clearly says: Yes, the methods that Eboshi choses are wrong. But her goals - helping those people outcast by normal society - are still good ones. And there has to be a way that these people can live a good life at this place surrounded by this ancient nature without being antagonistic towards it.

Now, of course the movie leaves in a very open end. It does not say whether they manage and how they manage. But they at least try.

And I think that is what makes this movie so inherently Solarpunk: The mixture of those themes. The indigenous culture. The nature and its protection. And the survival of those outcasts. That is a lot of themes - and it is the themes that I think are at the very core of what Solarpunk should be.

I’ve yet to see the film, but this aspect has me the most intrigued by far. If it weren’t for learning about this film and Ashitaka I would have never known they existed.

Hennauke, Ainu Barbarian - Warchief of the Emishi

my twitter: https://twitter.com/livintrashcan

Like, hello?

San gets reborn as Either an Inuzuka or a Yamanaka “Inonoke” lol 😂 She comes across some ninkin pups and bonds with them and eventually falls in love with Shikamaru

(Yeah I added the Yamanaka because I wanted to make that Inonoke joke, plus I kinda want to see a “Wild Yamanaka”)

😱 what if San gets reborn as Sakura Haruno?! ☺️ (imma sucker for Strong Sakura fic, ngl)

Try n tell me, San and Ashitaka are not the embodiment of an Wild Inuzuka Princess and a Banished Nara Prince?!

Princess Mononoke is a historical fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli, released on the 12th of July, 1997.

Ashitaka, an Emishi prince, is cursed by a mad god while protecting his village.  Banished, he must travel west to save his life, and ends up in the middle of a conflict among gods and men.

This film is set in roughly 1400’s Japan, which meant that I knew it was on shaky footing to begin with, but I held hope in my heart anyway.  This was Studio Ghibli we are talking about after all, and more importantly Hayao Miyazaki.  I have gone on record stating that “Miyazaki is good at airplanes.”  He can normally seamlessly incorporate them in his works, and capture such a raw form of their appeal that it is truly striking. Unfortunately, in this movie, he does no such thing.  Over the two hour runtime of this movie there is not a single airplane, fantastical or otherwise, nor is there even friendly flying god or dragon to give Ashitaka a lift. Out of every Miyazaki movie that I have seen, this one is by far the worst.

Princess Mononoke

does a great job damaging Miyazaki’s credibility, both as an airplane guy and as an artist, and earns itself a big, fat zero out of five airplanes.

I RT’d my article for Indian Country Today on Twitter, but thought I’d make it into a thread specifically talking about Asirpa, Ashitaka, and the representation of Ainu and Emishi people in both Golden Kamuy and Princess Mononoke.

Some questions submitted by @bielzabussy, answered by Sasakawa san, an Emishi man from Iwate prefecture.

“Thank you very much for your questions about the modern Emishi people. To these questions about "modern Emishi," I have to explain who Emishi are, the outline of the "Emishi living in the present period." It will be very complicated right now, so I will tell you about them next time.

A lot of people, including historians out of Japan, seem to consider that Emishi are just an extinct ethnic group, or ancestors of Ainu, or that the descendants are just ethnic Japanese because they have been assimilated to Japan, or some people may think Emishi is just the ethnic Japanese living in the remote region. So they may consider those who are insisting they “the modern Emishi” as insane people.

But if you carefully look them at, you can see the truth that there are quite a few of those who can be identified as modern Emishi, however they have the diversified ways of recognizing Emishi linkages.

In his book ("Minzoku no Soshutsu"(Iwanami Shoten, Publishers, 2014), Sociologist Dr. Masataka Okamoto also reports not only the existence of modern Emishi, but also other hidden ethnic groups currently considered "Japanese people," such as Kumaso/Hayato people living in Kyushu island, Izumo people living in eastern Shimane prefecture, western Honshu island and Ikema people living on Ikema, Irabu and northeastern Miyakojima islands. He is also a member of the Izumo people.

The following answers are based on my individual recognition, study and knowledge. I also identify as one of the modern Emishi people, but I acknowledge that there are still a lot of unknown things about Emishi people.”