WhenSpirited Awaywon the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003, it marked a breakthrough moment for Japanese animation.Studio Ghibliand director Hayao Miyazaki were suddenly household names around the world. The film’s dreamlike imagery and emotional storytelling captivated global audiences, but few realized how long that creative journey had been unfolding. Years before the Oscar, Miyazaki had quietly developed a story that would never reach theaters in its original form. That story, the first version ofPrincess Mononoke, would leave behind traces that shaped some of Ghibli’s most beloved films.
Before Studio Ghibli became synonymous with cinematic magic, Hayao Miyazaki was quietly developing an idea that never made it to the screen as originally imagined. In the early 1980s, he pitched a project calledPrincess Mononoke, a fantastical story about a lost samurai who offers his daughter’s hand in marriage to a strange, cat-like creature. The creature was no ordinary beast; it bore an uncanny resemblance to what would later become Totoro. The story was surreal and steeped in folklore. Though the proposal was rejected, it planted creative seeds that would blossom into some of Ghibli’s most iconic works.
A Glimpse into Miyazaki’s Untamed Imagination
Totoro’s Roots in the Forest of Mononoke
This early version ofPrincess Mononoke, sometimes referred to as “The First Mononoke,” exists today in rough storyboards and picture book form. Published by Viz asPrincess Mononoke: The First Story, it is a window into Miyazaki’s imagination before the global acclaim. The story’s strange tone and mythological logic point to a more experimental narrative. Unlike the 1997 epic we know today, this version ofPrincess Mononokecentered on an absurd but oddly touching tale of duty and transformation. The young girl’s journey through the forest with her feline fiancé was more allegorical than action-packed, but it carried emotional resonance all the same.
Elements from The First Mononoke did not vanish; they migrated.My Neighbor Totoro, released in 1988, borrowed the original’s cat-like creature’s design almost wholesale. The beast’s wide eyes, rounded body, and forest habitat became iconic. Totoro softened the creature’s menace and transformed it into a benevolent forest spirit, but the DNA is clear. The idea of a young girl encountering a strange being in the woods carried over too.Totoro became the heart of Ghibli’s identity, but its roots were planted in a story few ever saw. The whimsical charm ofTotoromasked a deeper origin tied to a stranger, older tale.
The Spirit of Mononoke in the Skies of Porco Rosso
How the Real Mononoke Reimagined the Myth
The repurposing of The First Mononoke continued withPorco Rosso, Miyazaki’s 1992 filmabout an Italian fighter pilot cursed to live as an anthropomorphic pig.Though seemingly unrelated, Porco’s tale also reflects First Mononoke themes. Transformation, resignation, and a lingering sense of melancholy link the two. The idea of characters bound to their fate, yet striving to find dignity within it, echoes the rejected Mononoke’s more tragic overtones. Miyazaki once saidPorco Rossowas about a man who does not fight for honor or country, but just because he is a flyer. That quiet conviction mirrors the emotional core of the lost samurai tale.
By the time the realPrincess Mononokewas released in 1997, Miyazaki had reimagined the concept completely. Gone was the samurai and his daughter. Instead, we met Ashitaka and San, characters locked in a brutal conflict between the gods of nature and the engines of war.But threads from the originalMononokepersisted. The ambiguous morality of the forest spirits, the clash between civilization and wilderness, and the emotional burden of transformation all remained. If the First Mononoke was a prototype,the 1997 film was its powerful evolution, shaped by years of creative refinementand sharpened by Ghibli’s growing ambition.
The Turning Point for Studio Ghibli
Totoro and the Magic of Everyday Encounters
The final version ofPrincess Mononokewas also a turning point for Studio Ghibli. It was the studio’s highest-grossing film in Japan untilSpirited Awaycame along. Critics called it Miyazaki’s most mature work, and audiences responded to its epic scale and emotional intensity. It was the moment when Ghibli’s lush animation met myth and meaning with full force. And yet, it all began with a smaller story, a lost samurai, a weird forest creature, and a pact that sounded like a fairy tale. The finalMononokewas a triumph, but its spirit had first stirred in a stranger, quieter forest.
Totoro, too, became more than a creature. It became a symbol.WhenMy Neighbor Totorowas first released alongsideGrave of the Fireflies, it was considered too quiet and strange. But over time, it emerged as Ghibli’s most beloved film. Children recognized the authenticity of its gentle rhythms, andadults were moved by its subtle realism. That it came from the ashes of an unproduced fantasy made it even more remarkable. Totoro was Miyazaki translating folklore into daily life, fable into memory. The giant cat spirit may be a friend to children, but it also carries the soul of myth.
Ghibli’s Quiet Echoes of the Past
The Dream That Lingers in Every Frame
Porco Rossonever reachedTotoro-level fame, but it carved its own space in the Ghibli canon. The film’s unique tone, part elegy, part adventure, was unlike anything else at the time. Its hero was jaded but noble, its setting rooted in real history but tinged with fantasy. What madePorco Rossomemorable was not its plot, but its mood. That mood was born, in part, from Miyazaki’s earliest narrative instincts. Like The First Mononoke, it was about isolation, transformation, and fleeting moments of grace.Porco Rossoproved that even a failed concept could inspire beauty in an entirely different form.
The tale of the lost Mononoke reminds us that the past is not just a prologue.In the end, the firstMononokenever vanished. It transformed.Like the creatures that populate Miyazaki’s worlds, it slipped between forms and settled into stories that now feel eternal. We may never see the original on screen, but we have seen it all along.
