A Celebration of the Visual Artistry of Hayao Miyazaki: Exploring the Beauty of Princess Mononoke

Mr. James R. Cummings: Bought it for my grand daughter. She loved it, hence the headline.

United Kingdom on Sep 26, 2023

Marilyn S.: El libro es muy bello, y llegó en una caja adecuadamente sellada. Por desgracia, el libro llegó sin envoltura, con rayones en la contraportada que resultaron ser manchas, además de estar ligeramente roto en la portada.

Mexico on Aug 24, 2023

Jesús Carreras Duro: Muy bonito, merece la pena tenerlo.

Spain on Feb 02, 2023

Patricia E. Bazluke: Bought it for a grandson who is a great fan of Miyazaki and loves all his films. J is also an amateur artist himself so likes reference material as well as art.

United States on Apr 18, 2022

Kerstin Schönauer: Das Buch ist einfach großartig. Wenn der Film gefallen hat, dem kann ich wirklich nur zum Kauf raten. Die Sprache ist zwar auf englisch, dennoch finde ich, dass die Texte recht einfach zu verstehen sind und sie liefern auf insgesamt 225 Seiten sehr viele Hintergrundinformationen. Das Artwork, die Ausführung, die Größe (A4; vielleicht sogar eine Spur größer): Hier gibt es absolut nichts zu bemängeln. Einzig vielleicht beim Versand könnte Amazon noch etwas verbessern. Das Buch war lediglich in einen Umkarton gesteckt ohne Polsterung, was dazu geführt hat, dass die obere rechte Ecke am Frontcover eine kleine Macke aufweist, die man aber zum Glück nicht wirklich sieht. Von daher sollte man vielleicht da noch etwas ändern. Von daher nur vier Sterne, da ich ja den Kauf im allgemeinen bewerte :)

Germany on May 16, 2021

Kyada: Great imagery. Out of all the concept art books that I have for films by Hayao Miyazaki, this one seems the most unique in helping see the world that was built for it. Learning also the traditional Japanese influences that played a part in designing their characters and environments is wonderful. I also thoroughly enjoyed the production diary at the end to show that working for Ghibli is as stressful as any job.

United States on May 03, 2021

Isabel: It is beautiful, I bought it as a gift and the person was fascinated, I hug the book with all my strength, I feel so good for it. It comes in a hard cover, which is great. I loved this book, now I need one for myself. Without a doubt, it is a very good buy.

United States on Apr 11, 2021

lisaleo (Lisa Yount): This is one of a series of books related to the films of Hayao Miyazaki, put out by his Studio Ghibli, each of which presents a combination of finished cel art, storyboard drawings, background art, and concept-art sketches from one Miyazaki movie. In this volume, the art is arranged in a way that takes viewers through the story step by step, which is useful because the book doesn’t contain a copy of the script, as some of the other books in the series do. It does, however, contain an afterword about the studio’s then-new use of computer graphics and digital compositing.

As with all Miyazaki films, the visuals in Princess Mononoke are gorgeous, and the book is well worth having for that fact alone. I found it especially useful, though, because (to my mind, anyway) the story in Princess Mononoke is more complex and confusing than that in most other Miyazaki movies, and the text of the book helped me understand the relationship among the characters and mythic elements better than I had when watching the movie. I recommend this book, and the others in the series, to all lovers of Miyazaki films, anime, and fantasy art.

United States on Dec 08, 2020

Gregory W. German: If you love Miyazaki's fine film, you will love this book. It was the one I was unable to find a copy of for a long time and was thrilled when it was reprinted. I highly recommend all of the art books that represent Miyazaki's films, including the ones accompanying the works he wrote screenplays for but did not direct ("The Secret World of Arrietty", "From Up On Poppy Hill"). The books are all well done and feature a large amount of material relating to how the films were made, drawings, sketches and beautiful art from the films plus a full copy of the script. I am pleased to own art books for "Spirited Away", "Howl's Moving Castle", "My Neighbor Totoro" and "The Wind Rises" as well as most of the other art books in this series. The film's never disappoint and neither do these books. If you love Miyazaki's films they way I do, you owe it to yourself to eventually buy them all. Each one is a revelation into the process of the fine animation only Studio Ghibli creates.

In another note, Joe Hisashi's scores for these films are also wonderful and well worth having. His music for "Princess Mononoke" is gorgeous.

United States on Feb 09, 2015

Ghost: This is another sumptuous volume of Studio Ghibli artwork. I have other of the books published in this series (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle) and I am always delighted with not only the quality of the book binding but also the print quality which is always bright and crisp. It is becoming a common problem in art books that the images have been enlarged beyond their original dimensions, which ultimately leads to grainy or pixelated images. The full colour large images in this book do not suffer this fate though and are extremely well printed.

The book consists of many stills from the movie and lots of concept art too. Practically every page has colour artwork on it detailing everything from the environments to the characters. Often a shot from the film is paired up with the concept art so you can see where the illustrators were coming from and how the final artwork was different, if at all.

In the back of the book are lots of the storyboards which shows how the dynamics of the action was mapped out. Very interesting if you are into film making processes, but personally I'm all about the artwork rather than the storyboards.

The book is slightly bigger than...

United Kingdom on Nov 07, 2014