“He can’t die. He is life itself. He is both life and death.”
At the end of Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 film Princess Mononoke (Official Studio Ghibli), Ashitaka says these words to San. Miyazaki’s direction leaves us feeling something like: ‘I sort of understand, but not quite—and somehow that feels all right!’ So we stop thinking about what Ashitaka means.
There is nothing wrong with stopping there. This time, though, I want to keep thinking.
One important clue, I think, is that the Forest Spirit does not stop turning into the Night-Walker when Eboshi and the others approach.
Didn’t you also wonder, “Shouldn’t he have dealt with the armed humans first before slowly morphing into a giant?“
For me, that oddness offers a hint for understanding Ashitaka’s final words.
I will first explore an interpretation based on a change in the Forest Spirit’s nature, then consider a quite different reading centered on Ashitaka and San. I have not found a depiction or source that definitively settles the meaning of his words. Both readings seem equally possible to me, and both could be present at once.
*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.
- The Forest Spirit’s ‘Death’ and a Change in Its Nature
Miyazaki describes the Forest Spirit as a lesser god. Drawing on that remark, we could read its disappearance as a change into an unseen higher god, an object of fear and faith. Life and death would then express nature’s two sides: the blessings that sustain us and the threats that can kill us. - Encouragement for San
The words are also addressed to San, who has lost the forest that gave her a reason to live. They may offer hope: the forest she protected will return through the Forest Spirit, which both gives and takes life. - Ashitaka’s Own Hope
For Ashitaka, whose curse mark has not completely disappeared, the Forest Spirit remains his hope of healing. His words might therefore be a cry of his own as well as encouragement for San: a wish to keep living despite the absurdity he carries.
On this pageContents
Interpretation 1: A Change in the Forest Spirit’s Nature
Miyazaki’s Remarks on the Forest Spirit
In a conversation with philosopher Takeshi Umehara collected in Turning Point: 1997–2008 (折り返し点: 1997~2008, in Japanese), Miyazaki is asked a very direct question: ‘What is the Forest Spirit?’ He answers:
‘Well, it was something I came up with out of desperation. It is “night,” though. It walks around nurturing the forest. During the day, that disappears and it is there as a creature: a rather makeshift thing with deer antlers, a human face, bird’s feet, and a goat’s body… In fact, I depicted the Forest Spirit as a very low-ranking god. I could not depict anything above that, so I finally made it the “god of the forest,” thinking there must be a higher god beyond it.’
(Original Text in Japanese)
「いや、苦し紛れなんです。『夜』なんですけどね。歩き回って森を育てている。昼間は消えて、一つの生き物としてそこにいるんです。鹿の角をはやした、人面と鳥の足と山羊の身体を持ったような、いい加減なものです。・・・実はこのシシ神も、うんと下級の神様として描いたんです。それ以上はもう描けなくて、結局それを最終的に『森の神』ということにしてしまった。もう少し上級神がいるんだろうと思いながら。」
The Forest Spirit makes grass grow beneath its feet, takes life, and turns into the Night-Walker. Yet Miyazaki calls it a low-ranking god.
To consider what he means by ‘low-ranking,’ let’s turn to another statement. In ‘Forty-Four Questions for Hayao Miyazaki from Overseas Journalists,’ collected in Ghibli Textbook 10: Princess Mononoke (ジブリの教科書10 もののけ姫, in Japanese), he answers a question about animism and his views on religion:
‘There is a feeling that remains strong as a religious sentiment among many Japanese people today: the belief that deep within our country there is an exceptionally pure place that people must not enter, where abundant water flows out and sustains a deep forest. I feel very strongly that returning to a place with that kind of purity is the best thing people can do. It has neither a Bible nor saints. So it may not be recognized as a religion among the world’s religions, but for Japanese people it is a very real religious feeling.’
(Original Text in Japanese)
「今でも多くの日本人の中に宗教心として強く残っている感情があります。それは自分たちの国の一番奥に、人が足を踏み入れてはいけない非常に清浄なところがあって、そこには豊かな水が流れ出て、深い森を守っているのだと信じている心です。そういう一種の清浄感があるところに人間は戻っていくのが一番素晴らしいんだという宗教感覚を、僕は激しく持っています。それには聖書もなければ、聖人もいないんです。ですから世界の宗教レベルでは、宗教として認められないけれども、日本人にとっては、非常に確かな宗教心なんです。」
With these remarks as clues, let’s consider what Ashitaka’s words might mean.
A God Bound by Nature: Why the Metamorphosis Couldn’t Be Stopped
Let’s return to the oddness of the climax. Why does the Forest Spirit keep turning into the Night-Walker when people who want its head are surrounding it? Continuing the transformation allows Eboshi to shoot off its head and take it.
With ‘low-ranking god’ as a clue, would it not make sense to think that the Forest Spirit cannot choose not to become the Night-Walker?
On that reading, the transformation is a natural process beyond its control, like sleep is for us. It is not something it can simply resist.
Seen that way, the Forest Spirit and humans do not seem entirely separate. It certainly has powers beyond ours, but I think it is better understood as part of nature, like us, rather than a supernatural being ruling over nature.
I think this is what Miyazaki meant by a low-ranking god.
The Invisible “Higher God”: What Miyazaki Couldn’t Draw
If that is what makes the Forest Spirit a lesser god, what kind of higher god might Miyazaki have had in mind?
He says, ‘It was something I came up with out of desperation. It is “night,” though.’ I take this to mean that he wanted to depict a higher god, could not, and arrived at the Forest Spirit as a compromise.
Even as a compromise, it should contain clues to that higher god. I am interested in his reference to ‘night.’ In How Princess Mononoke Was Born (「もののけ姫」はこうして生まれた, in Japanese), the Night-Walker is also described as representing the darkness of night itself.
Many of us have felt ‘something’ in the darkness, or been afraid of the night without quite knowing why.
It is natural to see this as a lingering instinct to protect ourselves from threats. But could the fear we feel in the dark also give rise to a kind of faith?
I think that fear is connected to the awe we feel toward nature’s threats—earthquakes, typhoons, and floods—and to a simple faith in nature. What matters is that the nature we regard with awe has no clearly defined form.
Today, we understand something of how earthquakes, typhoons, and floods occur. But perhaps faith in nature concerns not just those specific events, but the ‘something’ hidden behind them that causes them.
I suspect Miyazaki was trying to depict that invisible ‘something.’
But I do not think he wanted to give it an easily recognizable human form. I hear that in his remark, ‘It has neither a Bible nor saints.’ Making it human-shaped would work against that idea. Nor would this only be a rejection of Western or Christian images of God: the gods of Japanese mythology have human forms too, so I think he wanted to move away from those as well.
After that struggle, he produced the Forest Spirit, which he seems to have found unsatisfactory—hence ‘out of desperation.’ To an ordinary person like me, though, its design is wonderful, hardly something I would describe that way.
Ultimately, I imagine that his higher god is the ‘something’ sensed by people who believe in a pure place deep within their country, where no one must set foot and water flows out to sustain a deep forest. Perhaps he called the Forest Spirit a lesser god because he could not fully express that presence.
So, what does it mean when the physical Forest Spirit dissolves into the landscape at the end of the film?
Reading the Disappearance as a Change into a Higher God
To consider Ashitaka’s words, I need to make an assumption about Princess Mononoke that the film does not explicitly show. It may seem obvious, but I will call it an assumption to keep it clear:
After the story’s conclusion, no human ever saw the physical form of the Forest Spirit again.
What happens to the forest after the Forest Spirit disappears? The film shows only a little recovery, but I imagine it becomes a dense forest again over a long period.
Would it not be natural for the legend of the Forest Spirit to remain?
It was already called the Forest Spirit’s forest, and many people experienced a terrible event there. It would be natural for that story to be passed down. Yet, on this assumption, no one sees the Forest Spirit again. The being that existed and could even be injured by a firearm is no longer visible. Its legend remains, or perhaps only the forest’s name.
Someone who senses a presence in the forest might take it to be the Forest Spirit. An unexplained event nearby might be called its curse; typhoons, earthquakes, or floods might be attributed to it. Even peaceful days without such events might be regarded as its blessing. But no one sees it.
Could we not read this as the Forest Spirit becoming the unseen ‘something’ behind natural disasters, and a symbol of the pure place where people must not set foot?
Ashitaka’s words could then be interpreted like this:
By disappearing from sight, the Forest Spirit becomes an object of the fear and sense of purity people instinctively feel. In this reading, it has become a higher presence rather than died. Fear and purity express the two sides of life and death: the threats that may kill people and the blessings that sustain them.
Now, let’s consider a different reading.
Interpretation 2: Words of Hope for San and Himself
The Forest as San’s Reason to Live
One perspective has been missing so far: to whom was Ashitaka speaking?
He was speaking to San. The important context is that the forest has been destroyed by the headless Night-Walker.
That means San has lost something that gave her a reason to live.
Abandoned by her parents as an infant, San calls herself a wolf, though she plainly looks human. Her determination to protect the Forest Spirit’s forest supports the contradiction of living as a wolf while being human.
For San, who has lost that support—or at least feels she has—what else could Ashitaka say at that moment but that the Forest Spirit does not die?
In that context, I read his words this way:
San, the Forest Spirit cannot die! The forest you risked your life to protect will become the Forest Spirit’s forest again. It holds both life and death. Remember what Moro said: it gives life, but it also takes it away.
We could stop here, but I want to take the thought a little further.
The Forest Spirit as Ashitaka’s Hope
Finally, let’s look at Ashitaka himself.
Princess Mononoke begins with Ashitaka’s aimless journey west after receiving an unjust curse. Jiko-bo’s guidance gives him hope in the Forest Spirit, but he faces disappointment when it does not heal the curse. He finds a new reason to live in San, and eventually a new home in Irontown.
In the end, the curse mark does not completely disappear, though it fades considerably.
At the end, Ashitaka seems to have recovered a kind of ease, as though a weight has lifted. But the mark remains. We could read him as accepting the mark and curse as part of himself. Yet it is also possible that something continues to trouble him, and personally, I think that is the more likely reading.
And the Forest Spirit is, after all, the only transcendent being that might completely remove his curse.
Read in this context, Ashitaka’s words might carry this meaning too:
The Forest Spirit does not die—no, it cannot be allowed to die. My curse is not completely healed! Surely the Forest Spirit will heal it!
This would be a painful cry of the soul. It is sad to imagine Ashitaka thinking this at the end of his journey. But it is not so strange in a film concerned with absurdity and unsolvable problems. Princess Mononoke is not a story that ends with ‘Right, everything is solved!’
These three possibilities do not particularly contradict one another. I think it is natural to hear several of these thoughts together in Ashitaka’s words.
When you watch the movie again, what do you hear when Ashitaka says, “He can’t die. He is life itself. He is both life and death”?
The images used in this article are from the Studio Ghibli Still Images collection.
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