I first saw Mononoke Hime, to be released in major markets in the U.S. this week as Princess Mononoke, before I had Flutterby running (apparently), because I can't find the piece I wrote about it on the site.
So maybe I'll supplement this later if I can find that in various mailing list archives.
The movie was, at the time, the biggest grossing movie ever in Japan. Titanic has since displaced it, but for an adult targeted animated movie to have that sort of impact is something, even allowing for the difference in culture.
I saw it subtitled in one of the few U.S. screenings when it was breaking all the records in Japan, and I came away from it thinking "nice movie, gorgeous visuals". But I couldn't sleep that night, the sound track and the moral ambiguity and the images just kept me going.
My office-mate Phil says that the dub kills a lot of the moral ambiguity, but many of the reviews are praising it, so it can't be all that bad.
Anyway, I recommend it, and so do a bunch of others:
Slashdot reviews Princess Mononoke
Salon reviews Princess Mononoke
Thursday, October 28th, 1999 danlyke@flutterby.com