hello my beautiful doves my name
is mina. i'm gonna be your host for today and today we're gonna have a
really good time. of course it's going to be a good time. why would i advertise this
video as like "hey babes, bad time ahead." i actually got the request to talk about the
historical accuracy in studio ghibli costumes back on my "one year anniversary on youtube"
community post that i posted a couple weeks ago, but i thought it was a cool idea just
because i love studio ghibli movies. am i pronouncing "studio ghibli" right? studio
JI-BLEE? oh my god i need to look that up. i don't want to be mispronouncing studio ghibli
the entire time, that'd be so embarrassing. SIRI: "studio gi-blee" studio gi-blee??? this person on tripadvisor said, "i've always
pronounced this as "gi-blee" the "gh" like the g sound in "give." gi-blee. but i've heard
a japanese person pronounce it as ji-blee. ghibli with a j (sound)! i was right,
i was right this entire time. okay let's get the cameras rolling again. what i think would be cool is exploring how
the clothing in these movies shape and push the themes. of course i will be talking about
the historical references in the clothing, so yes nerds, you're eating today. but for
the most part, this will be like a broader costume analysis. so the two movies that i will be
discussing in this video are princess mononoke and spirited away. they are both directed by hayao
miyazaki and i chose these two specifically because they both take place in japan, and
also i think they share a lot of common themes, specifically on cultural identity, which is
what i'm going to be talking about the most in this video. so sorry for any mispronunciations in
advance. i would like to give a special shout out to my dear friend amity who helped me graciously
with some of the translations and pronunciations. thank you amity for believing in me,
but i will probably still screw them up. also if the way that i pronounce the characters'
names sounds weird, it's because i grew up watching the english dub. um yes, sorry. i'm
also just trying to limit the footage that i use for this movie so there's going to be a lot of
still images and my face, just because youtube is really militant about taking down miyazaki
stuff. so i'm trying to avoid any complications yeah let's break some rules! we're going to be going in chronological order so princess mononoke is up to
bat... after this commercial break. if you're not familiar with skillshare, it
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my description down below will get a free trial of the skillshare premium membership and
after that, it's only about ten dollars a month. so princess mononoke came out in 1997. it is a
historical fantasy drama and it takes place during the muromachi period in japan, which is about the
14th century. the story follows our protagonist ashitaka, the emishi prince who gets cursed by
a demon, and is subsequently executed–executed? no, that would be a really short
movie–is subsequently exiled from his village. he decides to venture west in search
of a cure from the dear god shishigami, and along the way, he meets the absolute baddie lady eboshi.
she is the leader of the industrializing irontown and she is hell-bent on killing the shishigami
and the forest. and we also meet san, aka princess mononoke, who is a protector of
the forest, and she is trying to kill lady eboshi. as i said ashitaka is emishi, which was
an indigenous japanese identity. and this group doesn't exist anymore they were genocided out by
the yamato state, which is the current dominant ethnicity in japan. the yamato emperor pushed the
subjugation campaign in the 8th century but in this universe, the emishi are still living in
remote isolated villages. in terms of dress, ashitaka wears a gho which is actually a bhutanese
traditional garment that was introduced in the 17th century. it's a knee-length robe that is
tied at the waist with a belt called a kera. traditionally, this belt is considered as having
protective powers and is handled very carefully. if you're interested why miyazaki did this, it's
because there's a lack of historical references on what the emishi actually looked like. he said in
an interview: "i thought their clothing must be like those worn by the minority tribes in bhutan
or yunnan. they wore a kind of kimono... i had trouble figuring out what to do with the main
character. putting a top knot on him would suck me into the period dramas of the past, so taking
advantage of the lack of historical references, i made it a chinese style top knot. miyazaki
has also talked about wanting to deviate from the samurai period drama genre that is ever so
popular in japanese media, but i'll get to that in a little bit. the emishi oracle wears clothing
that has an embroidery style similar to ainu folk clothing. you can tell based on the big and
bold patterns. it's also worth noting that some scholars believe that the indigenous ainu
descended from or at least are somewhat related to the emishi. the hat that kaya wears seems to
be modeled after the broad brimmed hat worn by the shan people in southeast asia. the ethics of
culturally blending all these elements together to create an image of a historical identity that
no longer exists is... interesting, but i think miyazaki did this to emphasize ashitaka's
foreignness. but ashitaka wears traditional japanese attire as well such as morokode, which
are the connected sleeves worn by soldiers, kyahan, which are cloth leggings that protects
the wear from the cold, insects and underbush, and a mino, which is a straw cape that was
historically worn as rain gear. and because ashitaka is also wearing yamato japanese clothing,
there are parts of him that are still recognizable to a japanese audience, alluding to the fact that
he is still part of japan, just maybe not the most familiar part. in 1986, miyazaki gave a talk and
one of the audience members asked if he would ever do a samurai movie. in response miyazaki said:
"unless the creators realize for themselves that japanese history is probably different from
what they read in textbooks, hear from others, or see in period dramas and in reality it is far
more diverse, deep, and about various vivid lives of people, there won't be interesting period
dramas. in alternative views of history we can find complexity and richness that cannot be simply
placed under the banner of a single race state." centering in an emishi protagonist serves
miyazaki's idea of rewriting national identity at the end of the movie. lady eboshi
kills the shishigami but the shishigami does destroy irontown and breaks ashitaka's
curse before it dies. it's kind of ambiguous what's going to happen next but lady eboshi
declares that she wants to rebuild irontown and ashitaka decides to stay in irontown and
san decides to return to the forest because she can't forgive the humans. but she and ashitaka
do decide to maintain contact. ashitaka staying with the yamato people reminds us that japan
is a country full of culture and diversity. i will say that miyazaki's framing isn't
without problems though. sociologist kozy k. amemiya wrote a review in 2000 challenging
the ending that implies that ashitaka has fully abandoned his home village. she brings up the
concept of kyosei, which is a philosophy that says that all living–people, animals, plants–should
all live harmoniously together as equals. she says the problem is that "the way in which
princess mononoke ends reveals that kyosei is no more than a self-serving romanticism of
the more powerful richer dominant, majority. rebels like princess mononoke, who rejects the
idea of kyosei, or outsiders like the emishi, who are defeated and forgotten, are
doomed to disappear from this earth. kyosei offers them no alternatives but to swallow
the notion and be absorbed by the majority." let's move on to san, princess mononoke herself.
she is loosely based on another historical identity. eija niskanen points out that san's
costume is actually based on the jomon woman. the jomon period is roughly from 14,000 to
300 bce. from preserved skeletal remains, we can tell that people who lived in this era wore
circular earrings made of pottery earthenware in similar shapes to san's earrings. however, the
jomon earrings were worn as gauges. animal teeth were also used in jewelry, hence san's necklace.
even san's mask bears a significant resemblance to surviving jomon clay masks. this character
design is significant because it creates a more mythical and prehistoric presence around san and
emphasizes her connection with nature. let's talk about san's wolf pelt though. the critic murase
hiromi says something very interesting about this movie. she says that lady eboshi and her
townspeople represent industrial collectivity, the kind of business relationships that came
about in the modern era. on the other hand, san and her wolf-mother moro represent an organic
family connection. the wolf pelt helps to carry this idea. when we see son wearing it, she looks
like she's actually part of the wolf family, despite her being a human. the wolf pelt
creates a pseudo flesh and blood tie between her and her mom. san also wears war paint
throughout the whole movie signifying her constant fight mode. this character design is a
physical manifestation of san's destructive and violent demeanor. this completely challenges
our existing cultural notion that a woman, especially one who is connected with nature, is
nurturing and harmonious. by reversing this and portraying a girl who spends most of the movie
angry, the film destabilizes us. we can't predict what's going to happen because miyazaki is clearly
not following conventional tropes. lady eboshi i guess can be classified as the antagonist of the
story but she's extremely complex, and i think the way they executed her shades of gray morality
was perfect. she is the beloved woman leader of irontown, a town made up of outcasts and misfits.
in the book "the secret of princess mononoke: the scenery from the far away jomon era," image
analyst kano seiji explains eboshi's backstory. she is a daughter of the shimazu clan
who was forced to marry a feudal lord, but she resisted her husband so she was sold as
a sex slave until she was taken by the head of a japanese pirate group whom she eventually kills.
10/10 stunning backstory. cruella wishes she could be lady eboshi. the japanese historian
yoshihiko amino wrote a commentary piece on princess mononoke and in it he says that eboshi's
costume resembles that of a shibayoshi, which was a female performer who wore male costumes and sang
and danced with swords. they appeared at the end of the heian period which is from 794 to 1185 ce.
often the shirabiyoshi were courtesan, who slept with their wealthy patrons. it would make a lot
of sense that the reason about she sympathizes and treats her woman workers so well is because
she was once a part of the sex trade herself. the common performance costume for shirabyoshi is
a suikan overgarment, typically white, nagabakama, a type of hakama that were extremely long,
and a tall stiff hat called a tate-eboshi. hakama by the way is just the generic term for
traditional japanese pants and there are many subtypes. lady eboshi doesn't wear the traditional
shirabiyoshi costume but she does wear menswear, which is i think where people draw the comparison.
women did wear hakama in early japanese history but then they kind of stopped wearing them during
the kamakura period. when she's in her battle gear she looks to be wearing a jingasa, which is a
hat worn by foot soldiers. the nirayama style of wearing it gives it this folded look. nirayama
was also a town that was known for casting guns in the 1800s so i feel like that's a reference. susan
napier, a professor at tuft university's japanese program, writes "eboshi is characterized by an odd
amalgamation of the nurturing and the ferocious. she is clearly protective of her diseased
and outcast citizens but at the same time she is fanatically determined to destroy the
shishigami and by extension the natural world of the forest." the masculine clothes and
feminine makeup are a visual representation of a lady eboshi's inner contradiction: how she
is both a nurturer and a destroyer. and yes, like san, lady eboshi is also a very cool character
because she goes against conventional tropes. because if we think about it, if eboshi was
cast as a male leader, it just wouldn't really resonate with us. like we wouldn't really be
thinking about it still today, because you know, how many times have we seen a warmongering male
leader be cast as the villain in a story? if it's a trope that we've seen before and that we've
seen many times, it kind of makes our brains lazy. if this was a disney movie the message would be
clear: technology and industrialization are evil. however eboshi's nurturing qualities reframe the
black and white "industrialization is evil" theme. instead, by the end, we see what her motive
actually is: to protect her community. and in this sense, technology can be a good thing as long
as we're careful not to over exploit the earth and its natural resources. eboshi vowing to rebuild
irontown represents how industrialization cannot be stopped. the death of the shishigami also
represents how the earth is way more vulnerable now. both of these things... i don't know like,
it's not the greatest news. however ashitaka's joining and his implied future communications
with san signifies that industrialization and, as a byproduct modernization, can still
happen responsibly as long as we're sure to prioritize taking care of nature, taking care of
each other, and listening to indigenous peoples. spirited away came out in 2001 and it follows the
journey of chihiro, our child protagonist. at the beginning of the movie she and her parents stumble
into this abandoned amusement park, and she's like really skeeved out by it, but her parents are like
really into it. and then when they find out that there's some open restaurants, the parents are
like "well we gotta eat," and honestly samesies. i love food, so i totally understand. chihiro,
still skeptical, goes out to explore, and when she comes back, she realizes to her horror
that her parents have been turned into pigs. i literally would have been the
one to get turned into a pig. the park is revealed to be the spirit
world and chihiro has to now take a job at the local bathhouse run by the witch yubaba
in hopes of negotiating her parents' return. when we first meet chihiro she is wearing modern
clothing: a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers. she's characterized as lazy and whiny. here, she
represents the modern girl. rayna denison, a senior lecturer at the university of east
anglia, says that chihiro's clothing throughout the movie is symbolic of her character's national
identity. and i will explain that in a little bit. but i first want to talk about haku, who is
the main boy character in the movie. we first meet haku when he tries to warn chihiro to get
out of town. but it's too late her parents are [NICKI MINAJ RAPPING:] "itty
bitty piggy in the market." he works for yubaba, not by choice, but because
she stole his name from him which is how she controls her workers. so we don't actually
find out his true identity till much later. according to the storyboard haku is wearing
a white suikan, the garment that i mentioned earlier that shirabiyoshi wear. it is a garment
that originated during the heian period. it's sometimes categorized as a subtype
of the kariginu, which has the same shape, but the traditional kariginu has a frog fastening
at the collar instead of a cord fastening. these were traditionally hunting garments. the
slits at the shoulders allowed for a wider range of movement when drawing a bow and arrow,
which made hunting a lot easier. the suikan originated among commoner classes but over time,
higher classes adopted it as everyday wear, and so the garment came to look more refined. this led
to the addition of the kikutoji detail which is a decorative tie-end that looks like a
chrysanthemum. by the kamakura period it was considered to be formal dress. there's
some artistic license here. haku's sleeves are a lot shorter than traditional garments and his
is also missing the cord closure at the neck. haku wears his suikan over what i would guess is
a kosode, which was an undergarment originating from the heian period as well, but transitioned
into an over-garment during the kamakura period. it's clear that he is a commoner based on the
length of his pants. working people would wear shorter hakama, so they could move easily,
while the nobility wore a longer hakama. i'm pretty sure that when chihiro starts working
at the bathhouse, she also wears a suikan and hakama, because her clothes have the same
silhouette as haku's. though back in the day, this would not be considered an appropriate
girl's uniform unless you were a shirabyoshi. editing mina here. so i got to this part in the
editing process and i just realized something that i have to share. her outfit–her uniform–basically
supports the bathhouse-brothel theory. and if you haven't heard about this theory, it's a lot, so
i'm gonna link an article in the description so that you can understand it more if it interests
you. but it basically says that the bathhouse is a metaphor for a brothel, and spirited
away is like this dark warped message warning against child prostitution etc. but yeah like
chihiro is basically wearing a courtesan outfit. to me, haku reads as a representation
of traditional japanese values. he carries a demeanor of
authority. he speaks very properly. this is something i didn't notice,
because i watched the english dub. but james boyd and tetsuya nishimura point out in
their article "shinto perspectives in miyazaki's anime film spirited away" that when haku addresses
sen, he uses the ancient more aristocratic term "sonata," which hints at his real identity
of being an ancient powerful river god. he also stays relatively true to his values,
not shown being as easily driven by money as the other bathhouse workers are. when chihiro
becomes sen, sheds her modern western clothing, and adopts this traditional japanese clothing,
she enters this liminal space where she no longer represents this contemporary japanese girl.
let's look at some of the other characters. these woman spirits look like they might be based
on miko, which are shrine maidens. they're wearing a white kosode with red hakama pants, which
makes me think that. but the tate-eboshi hat is more characteristic of shirabiyoshi or shrine
priests. many of these lady spirits also have these teeny little eyebrows. this was a practice
that started during the heian period as well. upper-class women would shave or pluck off their
eyebrows and repaint little smudges or ovals using charcoal higher up on their foreheads
in a practice called hikimayu. the eyebrows and the hats are features of japanese nobility,
which is interesting, because the characters that wear them are bathhouse workers. i think
this is just an example of miyazaki creating a historical dream. he incorporates elements
that are recognizable by modern day people and that remind them of this older japanese culture
without going into like too accurate territory, because i think if he did that, it would just
lessen the dreamlike carnivalesque quality of the spirit world. speaking of cultural motifs,
let's talk about the bathhouse because i have a lot of things to say about the bathhouse. let's
take a look at the scene when chihiro cleanses the river spirit. for context, a stinky ass
spirit comes into the bathhouse and sadistically, yubaba assigns chihiro to serve him. after
chihiro gives him a proper bath, it's revealed that he's actually a powerful river spirit that
was just covered in muck... because pollution. the scene is one) a literal indication
that rivers are being polluted but also, it's significant that the river spirit is wearing
a noh mask. noh is a form of classical japanese performance art. this one in particular looks
like it might be based on the okina style. okina is the oldest of the noh masks. its
distinct detail is that it has a separated chin. the fact that the river spirit bears the noh
mask poses a figurative interpretation as well: that currently japanese culture is being diluted
and buried under modern life. bathhouses in japan also have a lot of cultural significance in
general. they were originally produced because of naturally occurring hot springs, which were
considered to be this miracle of nature that was sacred to shintoism. scott clark writes in his
book "japan: a view from the bath" that bathing is a metaphor for life renewal, renewing
purity, cleanliness, vigor, energy, health, warmth, tradition, status, relationships, and even
self. so with that context, yubaba is viewed as a really corrupted capitalist girl boss here, taking
a naturally occurring resource and a spiritual practice and making it profitable. we also see her
oppressing the workers by stripping them of their names aka their identities and forcing them to
live in tight cabins, while she lives in luxury. it's also not shocking that her appearance
resembles a western victorian woman nor is it shocking that her living quarters are lavishly
decorated in a western style complete with lush rugs and drapery. she's in direct opposition
to her employees who wear traditional japanese clothing and live in traditional japanese style
rooms. you could see this disparity as symbolizing the control that the westernizing japan had
over the traditional japan during the meiji era, which was 1868 to 1912. the meiji era
was a time when japan was starting to restructure itself after western models. for
instance japan, adopted a parliamentary system as well as a western education system. the emperor
and empress also adopted trendy western attire, because they were concerned with the way that
their japanese clothes would be interpreted by foreign competing governments. the emperor even
went so far as to declare that the kimono was an effeminate garment. upper class women and geishas
followed the empress's example and switched from kimonos to victorian dresses. in terms of
historical accuracy, it's kind of hard to tell with animation especially, but especially yubaba,
because she's just drawn with these extremely cartoonish proportions. and one of the ways that's
really obvious for us to be able to determine historical accuracy is via silhouette and that
just goes right out the window for her. we can't really confidently say, "oh it's clear that yubaba
isn't wearing a corset, shame on them." you know? i will say though that her sleeves look
kind of like leg of mutton sleeves, which were popular in the 1890s. something to
note is that these victorian dresses were only popular in japan for about 10 years, and this was
because a lot of japanese women were uncomfortable by the restrictive silhouettes. they felt the
undergarments made it difficult to sit on tatami mats and the shoes required too much buttoning
and unbuttoning that made it more difficult when entering buildings, because culturally they would
take off their shoes. so needless to say, they returned to wearing the more comfortable kimono.
the fact that yubaba is just always in western clothes goes to show how deep in she is. like the
fact that she wears shoes indoors when everyone else is barefoot says all you need to know. yubaba
also wears her hair in the hisashigami style, which is a pompadour that was inspired by the
edwardian gibson girl hairstyle in the west. this hairstyle wouldn't be popular until the
1900s though. while it may seem like it at first, this is not a total anti-western story, and this
is made obvious to me by the existence of zeniba. zeniba is yubaba's twin sister, and she, like
yubaba, also has a fascination with the west. she wears the exact same dress and lives in a small
cozy western cottage home. miyazaki apparently didn't want them to be twin sisters at first, but
he ran out of time, which is why he ended up using yubaba's design for zeniba. i am really glad
he made them twins though. yubaba and zeniba are completely identical: they have the
same powers, they look exactly the same. the only difference is that yubaba is consumed
by greed and zeniba is not. in fact, her cottage setup harks to a pastoral simple life that implies
her appreciation for nature. despite holding on to western aesthetics, zeniba retains anti-capitalist
values of community and a love for nature. her home swamp bottom arguably is representative of
traditional rural japan that was left out of the economic boom. she has reached a middle ground
between modernization and traditionalism. by showing that yubaba and zeniba's genetic qualities
are completely identical, the movie goes to show that individual agency can be so powerful in
choosing what kind of person you want to become. the movie ends optimistically in my opinion
because of this one scene of chihiro and haku falling and holding hands. as i said before haku
represents traditional japan and chihiro, now back in her modern clothing, represents modern japan.
them coming together is a gesture implying hope, hope in that the youth can embrace the good
aspects of modernity without forgetting their cultural roots. miyazaki really beats down this
message again when chihiro leaves the spirit world and we see a glimpse of the purple hair tie that
zeniba made for her. the hair tie symbolizes the values that chihiro will take with her from the
spirit world into the future. i did peep the sub for the ending scene–only the ending, don't ask me
why. and i realized that they actually changed up the quotes in the dub. because in the english
version, zeniba says something along the lines of: "once you've met someone,
you never really forget them. it just takes a while for
your memories to return." the spirited away english dub
definitely plays up the romance factor between haku and chihiro a lot
more, whereas in the sub, she says... when zeniba says this, she means that
chihiro will carry the lessons she's learned in the spirit world, even if she
doesn't remember the spirit world itself. thank you everyone so much for watching. let
me know in the comments what you think about these two movies, if there's any messages or
themes that you caught on relating to clothing or not relating to clothing, it's all welcome
here. let me know if you disagree with me, if my interpretations are whack,
i'm open to that too and... ugh i just stared into my
light and blinded myself. i'll see you all next time and i hope you
all have a lovely rest of your day! bye.
