Parents' Guide to Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rain

With a stronger introduction to this world and a clearer narrative, this movie might be more successful. Without these, however, Mononoke the Movie: Phantom in the Rain is a difficult watch. Some viewers might appreciate how little this film holds their hands, but many viewers will be perplexed by various elements, including beautiful but very busy animation, sudden and unexplained "magical" things that happen, and a disconnected narrative that focuses on two women characters whose focus is usurped almost entirely in the latter half of the story. Perhaps by viewing the anime series on which this movie is based that came out almost 20 years ago, the experience would be more palatable, but there's still here a lot that goes unexplained.

Further, main characters Asa and Kame inexplicably want to succeed at their roles at the palace, but it isn't ever shown why, exactly, one of them also wants to be one of the "prince's chosen," a select few who get to join him in his bed chambers. And as Asa and Kame in different ways work their way up the ranks in the palace (also in a suspiciously very quick amount of time), the film implies that this story is theirs. But then all of a sudden, the medicine seller enters the fray more permanently and completely takes over, rendering the earlier focus and attention on Asa and Kame almost completely moot.