Book Review: The Art of The Princess Mononoke—もののけ姫

May 31, 2009 by Parka

You might remember that I've reviewed this book before, but that was the English translated version called Princess Mononoke The Art and Making of Japan's Most Popular Film of All Time. Well, here's the original version from Ghibli the art series.

This is a paperback edition with a dust jacket. All text are in Japanese. Since these are the only differences, I've reproduced the review I did for the English version here.

The poems right at the beginning sets the mood immediately: This is going to be a magical film.

This book is generous with concept art, movie stills, paintings, storyboards, layout drawings and a few computer animation tutorials. They are presented chronologically based on the progress of the movie. Captions for the art pieces explain the scenes instead of the concept behind it. In a way, they help relate back to the film.

The environment paintings are fantastic. The richness in details tries, successfully, in creating a world that looks as if it really exist. There's a certain sense of peace in each of them. Character designs are done in water colour, and a delight to look at.

The 3 computer graphics tutorials covers the making of 3D images, multilayer compositing and digital painting. The technology behind the movie's creation process is explained clearly.

The English version is already out of print and in limited availability. If you don't mind not the Japanese text, then this is still a very attractive art book.

By the way, the Japanese edition has been reprinted 9 times since it was published in 1997. I guess it's pretty popular.