September 8, 2025 • 42 mins
A month has passed and a new conflict has entered the Ooku. Join us today as we dive into and discuss the 2nd installment of the Mononoke movie franchise, The Ashes of Rage
Our review of movie 1 - https://youtu.be/TzfPoD3wiyM
Socials/Discord - https://linktr.ee/whatdoyousayanime
0:00 Intro
1:08 First Impressions
2:51 The Lead in of Movie 1 into Movie 2
12:13 The message of the Spark
24:18 Politics & Otomo
35:21 Final Thoughts and Rating
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Home me now I'm finally fulfilled.
This is what my heart's been waiting for Home me now I'm
finally fulfilled. Pick me up to dance and.
Pick me up and gentlemen, welcome to what you see anime.
I am your house Peter. I'll tell you this episode, we
are diving into the second movieof the Mononoke franchise, The
(00:29):
Ashes of Rage or the Fire rat, depending on where you are
looking. I think it's interesting that
the movie is being called two different things.
You watch on Netflix. It clearly says the Ashes of
Rage, but everywhere else seems to be calling it the Fire rat.
We cover the first movie in the past.
So if this is your first time visiting, you want to hear our
thoughts coming into this movie.I will leave a link to the
(00:49):
description to that below. Joining me today is our Co host
and noted Mononoke fan, Jolene. So we have reviewed the first
movie a little less than a year ago and we were all pretty high
on what we saw. So coming into this movie
knowing that this was movie #2 and we have a 3rd on the way,
what were your initial thoughts of the second movie that we got?
(01:10):
Well, first of all, I was just glad to kind of be back in the
world and getting a chance like I I was glad to have it sort of
reaffirmed that it was going to be a trilogy of movies that were
building upon the same plot. Because I think that one thing
we all agreed on last time was that that movie had a lot of
potential, but it really depended on if they followed
(01:32):
through with what was set up in that first movie.
And I think that even from just the get go, they do that in
spades. Like the animation is just as
great as usual. Starts off with a fucking banger
in the soundtrack. Yeah.
I was just glad to be back, honestly.
(01:52):
What about you? Yeah, no, I'm, I'm in the same
boat because how the original Monoke series is structured is
like 5 different mini series essentially in one season of
show. So I was like, are we getting
three separate stories? Are we getting one continuous
trilogy? And I was glad to find out that
the second movie was continuing off of the 1st.
And actually like in terms of the timeline like pretty soon
(02:15):
after the first movie, like there is not much buffer room.
So we're getting these events inquick succession, which I think
is going to lead to a lot of chaos in the third movie because
I have a feeling that we are going to continue with ramping
up to the finale. I was just really glad to see
the whole cast back. We had some questions like you
mentioned and some concerns about what happened in the first
(02:38):
movie, if that was going to continue into the second movie.
And lo and behold, it did. So that's awesome that we can
maybe fill some gaps and that was maybe missed from the first
one. So we're going to be diving into
that pretty quick here, but justwanted to do a quick synopsis
that will lead into our first discussion topic.
So we're following the events ofmovie one following Lady
(02:58):
Kitakawa's death and leading to the well dweller Mononoke that
was battled in the first movie. And then it leads us to the
second movie, which is a month after the events of the first
movie. And it's now at the helm
surrounding Madame Yuta Yuta Yama, who passed away and was
the former head of the Like Uku administration.
(03:21):
Her death led to the events of picking a new administrator for
the UKU, which ended up being Botan.
During the meeting, there was a bunch of different suitors for
the role, and we landed on Botan.
There's also this silent disagreement at the top of the
hierarchy within the Uku that A lady in waiting, Lady Fuki is
(03:46):
curing the the child of the emperor and thus sparks the
conflict of movie 2. So we wanted to start with sort
of diving into that whole drama and how that sets up the
Mononoke. And I want I just want to start
real quick with how this movie in the beginning felt like a
(04:08):
tale of two tapes, because I thought where we saw with some
characters in the 1st half of this movie, we're going to lead
to different conflicts in the second.
I think that the movie did a fantastic job of sort of setting
up Boton as like the antagonist when really she was sort of
looking out for everybody the entire time.
So I really like that and not looking back at it.
(04:29):
How they set up the new Mononokewas there was like a quote that
said something along the lines of a Mononoke isn't built or
born from like hate or anger or hatred.
It's born from just raw human emotion and from movie one we
saw that that was guilt and movie 2 it was more along the
(04:50):
lines of kindness and love. So we had a new setup for how a
Mononoke can be created and the actions that it does.
So in this one, the Mononoke wasacting as like a guardian or a
defender for Lady Yuki and was just a wonderful change of pace.
(05:10):
I want to get your thoughts on how they set up the Mononoke and
how that led to sort of like therelationships of everybody
within the UKU. Yeah.
And just get your thoughts on that.
Definitely enjoyed the sort of like, no pun intended here form
of the Mononoke a lot better here.
(05:33):
I think that it was a bit easierto grasp the concept of like
this. Like, you know, rats have a lot
of children, so they're protective of them, that sort of
thing. We have swarms of flames and
that are sort of the children ofthis larger entity, that sort of
(05:53):
thing. So I think that that was a bit
easier to understand than like an umbrella spirit just for me
personally. For sure.
And another thing I really enjoyed about it was how it sort
of linked these two women together, Lady Fuki and the
person that we will later discuss who became the Mononoke
(06:17):
as sort of victims of the OR victim and a potential victim of
this sort of the expectations that are created because of this
like institution that is being upheld. 100% yeah.
So with the the politics around the UKU was definitely I felt
(06:39):
more explored and this this to me felt more of like a political
horror in a sense when you're dealing with the spirits
involved with Mononoke. A lot of times we've had these
these instances of the Mononoke being a like being on the
offensive or the horror aspect of it.
(07:00):
And in this case, it was the Mononoke of being a guardian.
And the the other times it felt like while they maybe they were
in like the right, like like in the movie 1, like the the trauma
of Lady Kitagawa essentially committing suicide off through
the well that that her actions created the spirit that ended up
(07:24):
being like hostile and this movie and sort of the way of
also by suicide. I would.
It's not necessarily the same asone, but like.
Yeah, it was definitely like, itwas more like a act of protest.
Yeah. It was like that, like similar
to that monk who immolated himself as like a show of
(07:46):
protest against, I think it was like the Vietnam War or
something like that. It's been a minute.
I think that that was kind of like her final act of protest
was like immolating herself out of regret that this again, this
like hierarchy that is being upheld where these men in a
(08:08):
powerful positions basically usewomen as shogi pieces is how
it's illustrated. That was the only the only way
to win is to for the piece to not be playable essentially.
And that's what and she wants toflip the whole fucking board
after she becomes important. OK.
(08:28):
And so? Yeah, yeah.
So like that whole setup was awesome.
I'm trying to think if there wasanything in particular because
there was, there's just so many different elements because with
the other Monoke movie and this was like, I don't know, 20 ish
minutes shorter than the first movie.
And you can definitely feel thatthe sort of how they were like
(08:50):
ramping up, like the storylines and the messaging and stuff like
that was a little different compared to the first movie.
So I'm in my mind, it's like I like it in some ways and don't
like it in other ways. Because I thought, would you
have something like Movie 1? And the messaging and theming
can get confusing because it's so dragged out.
Or maybe that's so dragged out, but it is.
(09:11):
The pacing felt better in this movie, but like it was an
intentional choice in the first movie to pace it that way
because like the medicine selleris way more of a primary
character in this one compared to like the last one where he's
like this sort of entity that's around.
And we have like the the newcomers to the UKU, right?
(09:33):
Like it's meant to kind of symbolize them being worn down
with the pacing. Where is this?
I mean, it also kind of goes into the elemental theme, like
fire spreads quickly, like it's going to go bright and it's
going to burn out. It's going to be a little bit
quicker pace for this movie. So I think that they angled into
that really well in my opinion. Yeah.
(09:54):
And I'd and we will touch on that in just a second, but I
want to make sure that was thereanything else about like the UKU
that you wanted to touch on before we like jump into
something new? Like the specific characters in
the UKU? Yeah, like because like we some
of these characters, they had screen time in the first movie,
but we didn't really get to knowlike their personalities and
stuff like that. And in this movie we got much
(10:17):
more screen time with some of the other characters.
So like the relationships between the Oogu characters were
stronger compared to, I would say in the first movie.
I think it was focused mostly ontwo people.
I feel like in this one we had more characters of the Oogu that
made a bigger role in the story.Yeah, I definitely enjoyed
seeing like boton expanded into like your whole like faux
(10:41):
villain aspect of her and it being sort of revealed that
well, no, she's just being like her dad is just literally like a
yellow eyed fucking fiend in in their chair.
Like the most. I think we could talk about that
a little bit later where he he feels a little bit like A1
dimensional villain, but he did his role, I guess.
(11:03):
And then like, I also enjoyed seeing Sakashita, the guards
character expanded a lot and seeing that he has guilt for
what happened to this person andit's kind of clinging onto the
past with like those ornaments and such that he has.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Could not agree more. And it's great to see like the
the roles that these characters are playing throughout the first
(11:25):
movie and getting their back story and how it's implemented
in the second movie. You brought the medicine cellar.
The first movie he seemed like a, you know, a guy who's coming
into town and nobody's trusting him.
And then the second movie, we had scenes where like they know
the things that he did in the first movie and they don't even
question like what he does. Like they all, I've already sort
(11:48):
of accepted that he is like helping the Uku and he's helping
this inner palace. You see it with like the guards
who are protecting the Uku essentially just like wave him
in like, all right, it's you're up the bat, my man.
Like like, let's go and he's like he like gives him like Nah,
like thank you. I don't have to go through a
spiel of why I need to save everybody.
So like seeing the the characters get reflected from
(12:10):
the first movie into the second movie was also awesome.
But one thing that I wanted, I mean, it's like the biggest
thing with Mononoke, especially the movies is messaging and
theming. First movie centered around
water. A lot in this movie we're
centered around fire or a spark,and they use the spark metaphor
(12:30):
a bunch of different times in this one.
The biggest 1 though is the spark of new life, the spark of
change. And we see this with Ultimo, the
main antagonist of this, not wanting to have change in the
inner palates with everybody sort of coming together and
(12:51):
rallying around Fuki not being or not carrying the next heir
after the previous lady in waiting gave birth to a
Princess. So now we're in this process of
trying to find a male heir. And when you have a spark, you
have a like a spark of any messaging you want to think of
(13:13):
revolution, just change in general of this new life, this
new life form that will be coming into this world that
would change the world dependingif it's a boy or a girl has huge
repercussion. So I wanted to get your thoughts
on how you felt that like the spark messaging that they use in
(13:34):
this or and or any other messaging that you saw
throughout the the film and get your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I think that this movie was a lot more overt with it.
I think I could. I turned to Simone at one point
while we were watching this. I was like, man, this movie's
woke as hell. Derogatory like in a positive.
(13:54):
Way oh 100. Percent, it does feel like it's
very much about like gender roles and how hierarchy effects
both, you know, all types of people, not just necessarily
like one gender over the other. But there is very much a focus
on like women and how their bodies are treated like
(14:15):
commodities by the men in their lives and that sort of thing.
Like the abortion plot line where, you know, like you have
Otomo basically like keeping hishands clean by saying like, oh,
yeah, I never actually told anybody to abort their own
child. But he literally like he more or
less got like the court physician to make the drug and
(14:38):
then like their fathers to talk to them and convince them to do
such a thing. So like, I don't know, I just I
really enjoyed that it was so overt in this one.
I think that it was really powerful messaging, especially
in today's like were like poco climate of the US and just the
(14:59):
world in general has never been like more hostile to like
women's bodily autonomy. And I think that for such a bold
and masterful art piece, to incorporate that overtly into
its messaging is huge. Agreed.
And one thing that I thought wasreally interesting was Fuki's
dynamic with the Emperor becauseI I thought how they were going
(15:23):
to sort of set up what Fuki was doing was that like she was
actually in love with the emperor and the emperor was
actually in love with her. And sort of set up this dynamic
of, you know, maybe not like a Romeo and Juliet, but like
because Fuki came from like a traitor's family, she is seen as
lesser. She is not from a noble or royal
family. And so it's like, oh, true love
(15:45):
always wins type of thing is where I thought it was going to
go with this. But it's like, Nah, like Fuki is
also playing the game like. Yeah.
I, I think she, yeah, I think she likes the emperor, but like,
they're not like soul base or anything like that.
And she realizes like she's in the position that she's in,
might as well make the best of it and be the mother of the
(16:07):
emperor or the future. Emperor.
She's doing a Cersei basically. Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's
actually a perfect way to brace it.
And so like, so how they set that up with and it's why I kind
of like view this as more of like a political horror than
like the other spiritual horrorsthat we've gotten in the monoque
(16:28):
series. A lot of the chess pieces are
being moved for a political gain.
And I guess in the the monoque sense for this is the political
gain is like, let women just live their life.
Like let them raise their own children if they have a
Princess, because we see this earlier with Yukio Yuki Yukiko,
(16:50):
who is giving birth to the Emperor's Child, but it's a
Princess and she's not allowed to raise her own daughter like
that. That's the political climate
that we have in this Uku. And we're sending out this
message of, you know, it's it should be the mother's choice to
like let them do what they like they want.
(17:13):
Like Yuki Yuki Ko wanted to raise her Princess like her
daughter. And she wasn't given that right
and that that choice. And so like, we have like these
subtle messages of actually, it's not even subtle.
We just have these messages clearly.
Like, I don't know why I said subtle.
They we are murdering people whoare going against.
(17:35):
We literally murdered somebody who gave people involuntary
abortion. Yeah, so I, I mean, I thought it
was just awesome. Like it was fantastic.
Sort of like how they're saying this up, but like the whole
spark message from the beginningwas so cool.
Or fire, fire spreads. They don't want this ideology to
get out of like the the their palace.
(17:58):
They even mentioned it early when they thought that the
people wouldn't. Like there's so many names.
Who's the pregnant one that we were just talking about?
Fookie. Fookie, they were talking about
how they thought the people of their nation would hate that
Fookie would be like essentiallylike the queen.
(18:20):
And they're like, we can't have a like normal person be queen.
And everyone's like, actually the public thinks that's really
cool. Like they think that's really
neat that just like commoner is now, you know, a part of the
royal family. It shows that like everybody can
like rise to this level. And then freaking Ultimo was
(18:46):
like, Nah, we can't have that happen.
No, we have to we have to keep the order.
So then we see it early with thefire guards of those two ladies
in waiting that well, I'm assuming we will be more
prevalent in the third movie, but I mean, they're in the first
movie as well. But like it's, it's all about
(19:07):
like preventing the flame from happening to begin with,
controlling the spark. And just that whole message
throughout the movie I thought was awesome.
And I can't wait to see how it'simplied or what we're getting
for the third movie since we gotwater fire and now the third
one's a serpent. So I don't know if we're going
to keep moving on with like the elements.
(19:29):
Did you notice the hints there? There's a.
Lot. Yeah, there's a.
There's quite a few hints. Like the serp, there's like
serpent patterns in the walls that move at points.
Yeah, at the end, the movie, it moves.
There's also one with the emperor's mom, her headdress
that she wears. It's like a it's like a circle
that holds her hair, like her hair up.
(19:53):
And there's like a really famousstatue of, of a, of a headdress
like that with a serpent behind it.
So it it's, it makes me sort of think that she is going to be
the antagonist of the third movie.
I think makes perfect sense to me since Fuki would now once the
(20:14):
child is born, would take over the emperor's moms.
Role position, yeah. So which makes me lead to
believe that she is going to be a major part of the third movie
and maybe she's the serpent. But I also want to see if
anything gets implied with like nature since we've had elements
dealing with the 1st 2 movies. Yeah, I also think that the
(20:37):
priest will be more involved in the third movie since he again
didn't really do too much and heis just too designed to not do
something by the third movie. And the, the twins are his
daughters. Yeah.
So yeah, 'cause I, I did watch avideo, like kind of documenting
(20:58):
some of the characters. And like, he, along with the
medicine seller, don't have, like, official invites or passes
to be at the inner palace. So why he is there I feel like
is perfectly wide open to explore in the third movie for
him to be a prevalent character they.
(21:19):
Mentioned that the family has like special privileges.
I know that, but I'm not sure. Like they have like a
relationship with the water God that's in the well that makes so
I I figured the water God in thewell is going to be a serpent.
No, and that's just going to be like it's at the base of the UKU
too. So it shows that it's like at
(21:41):
the heart of everything. Is this like serpent curse or
whatever? Yeah, I'm trying to think since
we had like the well was so prominent in the first movie and
then at the end of this movie wesaw the serpent along the walls
moving. So I'd be intrigued to see how
they sort of implement the serpent and like where they come
(22:01):
from because they each sort of had a reason of why they were
created. And we've only gotten hints of
the serpent and it being on the wall I feel like has to mean
something. So that's but I would love it.
Yeah, like it's part of the actual, like UKU itself.
Yes. Exactly.
I wonder if it's going to be like the combined, like it's
(22:24):
like the generational like trauma of the UKU or something
like that, like a sort of like mass idea.
You know, it's whereas these arelike one person's thing.
This is like all of the women that have been like subjugated
into the Uku and by the hierarchy and the palace in
(22:46):
general. Yeah, that the 'cause they each
like each, like each movie has like a clear like symbol, like
the first movie's water, the second movie is fire.
The third movie, it's called theserpent.
It's going to be a snake. So what does the snake
represent? And that's what I'm it.
It can it can mean so many. It can mean like, you know, like
(23:08):
the greed is it's simple as a snake.
Like there's so many like being,I don't know, there's just so
much stuff that you can dive into with what especially.
If it's like a dragon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is it? Yeah.
Is this because it's called a serpent?
Like, is it like a water dragon?Is it like a like a dragon
dragon? Is it just a snake?
I think there's so many different elements, and that's
what Monoke is so great for, is taking this idea and sort of
(23:32):
expanding it into multiple different things.
We saw that with the spark. The spark in this movie
represented not only life, but like ideology, classism, all
these different things that likeone item can be presented in a
show can represent multiple different things.
And so, I mean, it's just the beauty of mine, OK?
(23:55):
Yeah, some of the best symbolismin the game, honestly.
Hopefully if these movies are successful, maybe we can get
like another season or somethinglike that.
Yeah, I mean, I would the fact that we even have we're getting
3 movies like 16 years after theseries is incredible.
So I'm going to take with what Igot.
But they're they were cooking with the first movie.
(24:17):
They cooked with this movie. I can't wait to see how
everything is like wraps up. One other thing I want to talk
about, and I mentioned it earlier was sort of the
political side of this movie. It was it's very, very
political. And it and one of the the main
reason is Ultimo, which is a villain that I don't see
(24:39):
represented enough in anime where his actions are all
political. It's for, you know, under the
guise of it's all for the Emperor, but it's actually
solidifying like his family's role going forward for future
generations. And I sort of really enjoyed how
the behind the scenes stuff thathe did were so evil and so
(25:01):
meticulous and so conniving thathe was like a massive focal
point of like my attention in this movie.
Was there anything like political that he did or just in
general that you enjoyed throughout watching this movie?
Yeah, I think it's interesting. Like he is somewhat of a
(25:21):
self-serving character, obviously, but I do think that
more shows that are going to lean into like a political
intrigue aspect should have characters where like they
believe that they're doing the right thing by upholding the
system. Like they have a genuine like
hot take villains who believe they're that they're doing the
(25:44):
right thing. Pretty good.
Yep, right. But like, I don't know, I think
that like this kind of similar to like the Apothecary Diaries
or something like that just did a great job of like not making
them into like a mustache twirling like demon Lord.
This is just like a very mundaneevil that exists to this day.
(26:06):
Basically is like people who will uphold a system that puts
down others for their own gain to solidify things for
themselves and keeping people subjugated because it doesn't
ever come back to them and they know they're going to get away
with it. I mean, we see that literally.
(26:27):
I mean, yeah, yeah. I don't even have to say
anything, you know? Yeah.
Yeah. I I love this villain where you
know you. I'm going to play devil's
advocate just in defensive ultimate, you know, I think he's
a terrible person, but like you're through his eyes.
It's like his family has their their family, like his daughter
(26:48):
has a pivotal role within the Ooku.
He has a pivotal role within theOoku.
The things that have been done in the past have gotten his
family to where they are now. So why would I want to have
change within the system? So he's like, OK, I don't want
the UKU to change, so I'm going to start doing XY and Z.
(27:09):
He thinks I think I I really do think in his mind, he thinks
it's because he's doing this in favor of the emperor when really
it's for himself and his family and sort of start contracting
ways to have people who elicit change within the UKU to be OFT
(27:30):
in the ways I would say. So you saw it earlier where in
the flashbacks convincing somebody who owes him a favor
that, hey, I'm not going to tellyour daughter this, but just
hint, hint, nudge, nudge. Maybe she should not be carrying
the baby inside of her stomach. And if things don't change,
(27:55):
things are going to happen. You get my, you get my hint.
Like I, I like these characters.It's like sort of like a mob
boss in a way. Yeah, I was literally just
thinking that I know this DoctorWho might be able to fix this
problem. Exactly.
It's like, yeah, he, he talks like he has like a wiretap going
on where like he can't illicitlysay what he's thinking, but
(28:15):
like, you know what? Yeah, you know what you kind of
need to do, don't you? And so setting up all of these
things and all these horrors that he has done throughout the
Ooku to essentially get where heis.
I thought he was a fantastic villain.
Just just pure, I love like the pure evil hiding behind the
(28:37):
guise of doing what's great for everybody.
It's like, it's not like I, I think he thinks it's like a, I
don't want to say like a Doctor Manhattan thing, but he's like,
if I do this, it's actually going to help out like a bunch
of different people. But it's actually, it's like,
no, it's actually going to help out like my family and everyone
else is going to deal with the issues.
Did you have any like thoughts about Ultimo and his politics?
(29:01):
I thought that he played really well into the sort of like
sparks metaphor, Like he even mentions like, you know, I
smothered the sparks for the good of the country, that sort
of thing. And just him plotting so hard to
for a working class aired and thus eventual working class
(29:22):
emperor to not happen like again.
It's just it speaks to the current time that we're in.
I mean, it probably speaks to like the majority of times in
like human civilization, but like, I don't know, just with
how stuff is. Yeah, very realistic villain and
I like that. Yeah.
(29:42):
No, no, for sure. It's I, I also feel like, you
know, throughout the years, women's rights and just in
general haven't really been the greatest.
So it it sort of being tied backto a bunch of different spots as
I mean, you can just place it and you sort of get the
messaging. But like you, like you said, him
stomping out. I mean, he was the extinguisher
(30:02):
like he was, he was also like a proactive villain instead of a
reactive villain, which I thought was cool.
A lot of times you see this withlike in heroes.
On the hero side, it's reacting to the actions of the villain,
flipping it. It's preventing the hero from
being created in general, preventing the change from
(30:25):
happening in general. You, you extinguish the spark,
you extinguish the, the life that can provide change to the
world. And then the that change never
comes. And so it's like, how do you
kill a message? How do you kill an ideology?
How do you kill a theory? And it's just stomping out
anything at like the base level of whatever you're trying to
(30:50):
accomplish. And I've like really for in
terms of villains, it's I, I don't really see like the mental
side of the chess game being played.
A lot of times it's more of the physical violence of being a
villain. This was just, I don't know,
cunning and calculated it was itwas awesome to see that in this
(31:14):
type of show where I expect, andwe got this too, don't get me
wrong, but like I expect this big end game boss fight to
defeat the villain and that typeof stuff.
And we did get that. But like, there's also ways to
defeat the villain in this storythrough other means, which we
also saw with stuff like Pookie deciding that no matter what is
(31:38):
going to happen, I'm not giving up my baby.
Like I'm not going to be Yukiko.Like if it means losing my
position, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to lead the same
path that the other lady did. And like you saw that in the
scene where like he was overhearing this message and he
starts to cry because the first time that this happened, I can't
(32:01):
remember the name of the the guard, the guard of the Ooku, he
didn't step in. And then this time he came back
to step in and he luckily he didn't have to.
Yeah. And it, it's just there's so
many different levels, I should say so many, but there are
levels to this that in the the amount of time that we got, the
hour and like 10 minutes, I feellike they filled these gaps in
(32:22):
really well. I don't think it was perfect,
but I thought it was well enoughto build a really good
foundation of this political horror that we got into
Mononoke. So a huge shut out to sort of
what Ultimo brought to this story versus what we got in the
first movie and other series. Just a very different and fun
(32:43):
villain to dive into. So I wanna give a shout at that.
Did you have anything else that you wanted to talk about?
No, I think we covered it prettywell honestly.
Yeah, I knew this is going to bea quick episode with just us
too, but I want to make sure that we filled in all the gaps
we can mention. You brought it up earlier.
You know, the animation is always stunning in the in
(33:04):
Mononoke. I was looking to see if they
use, they use like this filter where it kind of looks like they
crumpled up the scene a little bit and then folded it out if it
was a piece of paper and trying to see if they use like the same
filter for every single scene. And I counted like 12 different
filters just just to see if theywere like, you know, no one's
going to notice if you use the same filter for everyone.
(33:24):
So they used a bunch of different ones.
So that was awesome to see. And you mentioned it also
earlier. The sound design and music of
mine OK, is always great. I I did think, if I recall
correctly, I did like movie one sort of like OST better than
this one, But this one did have like some moments, especially
the final, like boss battle between the mess and cellar and
(33:47):
that other form guy, which is funny because that that scene, I
feel like to me, probably, I don't know, it didn't really
have like a bigger impact than Ithought it would be, if that
makes sense. Like I feel like everything
that's surrounded like the Ooku was more interesting than like
this giant final boss battle. I don't know if you had the same
(34:09):
thoughts or not. Yeah, I would actually agree
with that. I mean, I think that for me the
sort of boss battle fight at theend was just like a cherry on.
Top. Yeah, right.
Yeah, it was like. That's not what it's not really
what I came here for honestly, but it's nice that they let the
animation like the animators just have some fun at the end.
(34:33):
Yeah, if I recall correctly in the first movie that we were
like building up to like a sceneand they had like this awesome
fight and I was like, that was awesome.
That was a great resolution to sort of like what was going on
in the and movie 2 is more of like, I just want to see like
these girls just like be badass and like not take shit and not
(34:53):
like adhere to like these socialnorms and these things that are
restricted because of who they are.
I'm like that was way more interesting in this movie than
movie 1. So maybe that's just like a
telling of like good writing in general that you can sort of
have both of these conflicts handled in different ways or at
(35:14):
least have different. Maybe like the level of
resolution is higher in different ways from movie 1 to
movie 2. And they're still great in their
own way. So I want to give a shout the
Mon, OK, Because I know the original series does that as
well. But I think if we had no other
talking points, we can just wrapup.
We can do final thoughts and ourrings.
(35:35):
Jolene, would you like to start?Sure, I think that this was
completely worthy follow up to agreat first movie.
I liked the development of the characters in the UKU
specifically. The political mocking nations in
the inner court intrigue were awesome and that's just always
(35:56):
something I enjoy in a series ifit's done well.
The music and sound design top notch.
Once again, I love the like visual sort of style that
they're going for. I think that we need stuff that
takes more bold risk like Mononoke does nowadays.
(36:18):
And there is stuff doing it, butwe need more of it, is what I'm.
Trying to say it really isn't like, I feel like it's like in a
class of its own for like what it does, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, for now, nowadays. Nowadays I think.
In the I've been watching a couple series that do something
similar and it's stuffed from like 2004.
So like people just started doing that sort of thing that
(36:40):
much anymore I guess. But other than that, I think
that my absolute favorite part of the movie compared to the
first one, which I did it, I gave the first one A9, was just
like the overt messaging of likepolitical hierarchy and as well
as like woman's bodily autonomy was done really well in a, in
(37:03):
both in a metaphorical and just like general sense of like just
being overt. And honestly, I pray I have
nothing but praise for the moviefor that 'cause it was.
Yeah, I liked it. For me this is like a nine out
of 10. Right on.
Oh yeah. I gave it like a 9.5 on though.
Right on coming into this, I hadreally high hopes for this
(37:25):
movie. It was sort of done in a
different way than I thought, movie compared to movie 1.
So it's both good and bad. I did prefer, I did prefer sort
of, you know, breaking down as agroup all the themes and
messaging of movie one. With movie 2, it was way easier
to consume where we didn't need to spend 45 minutes breaking
(37:47):
down theming and messaging. What did this mean?
What did that mean? It was very straightforward in
this movie. So it's like both A plus that
almost anybody can like consume that compared to the first movie
where we needed five people to sort of help break each other
down. What we thought this was just
like spark means this, fire means this bad guy does this and
(38:10):
so like that. It was really easy to consume,
but I do really like the more complex stuff that they can be
more detailed with. And I'm sure there's something
that we miss in the movie that we could probably pull and be
like, OK, they did have this more, but I guess maybe I missed
it, but I thought this movie wassignificantly simpler and easier
to consume than the first movie and liked it.
(38:35):
I did like it for that. Ultimo being a huge standout to
me and this movie, I think with movie one with like AUSA, I
thought she was way more of a standout from the other
characters and I like that more because that was more of a focal
point of like the UKU itself andlike the girls themselves were.
Ultimo being the villain and being my favorite character I
(38:58):
would say is both good and bad. I guess I would wish I got more
funky time. I wish I got more of these other
characters involved with it, butit was just like Ultimo to me
was just such a good villain of everything that was going on
with it that it was hard not to like focus my attention on him
and like what he was doing to affect everybody around him.
(39:19):
So well written villain, but it did make me kind of miss sort of
like, I don't know, like like the sisterhood AUSA had type of
thing from movie 1. Didn't really get that.
They tried that a little bit with Fuki and Photon, but I feel
like that connection wasn't the same compared to what we got in
(39:41):
the first movie. And I really like that in the
first movie. Love the spark metaphor in this
entire thing. I, I loved like the idea of
sparking change, sparking ideology, sparking a movement,
sparking anything within this confined and controlled life
that these people have. And sometimes when you look for
(40:03):
change, it's hard to get it because of the people that are
in power. So great just messaging and
theming throughout. I gave this an 8A high 8, but it
ain't. Nonetheless, I do feel like we
could have gotten 1015 minutes more to sort of add to some of
the other characters that I wishwe got or what we got from the
(40:25):
first movie compared to what we got from the second movie.
But like, it was still good in its own sense.
I guess it's just the preferred way of I, of me consuming mine.
OK, I like the first movie more than the second, so still great.
Can't wait for the third. I think the third is going to be
there's so many things in my brain running right now that it
can be that I can't wait for us to get to it.
(40:46):
So I have to double check when it comes out.
But this was the the break between movie 1 and movie 2 was
nine months from right now it looks like it just says 2026.
Sometime in 2026, we'll be getting Movie 3, and if I'm
still here, we will be reviewingit.
So I look forward to that. Jolene, do you have any parting
(41:06):
thoughts, words that you maybe missed that you want to get off
your chest right now before we head out?
No, you made me, but my train ofthought was obliterated.
I'm not going to lie. My bad.
No, all good if if, if you don'tgot nothing.
We can just go forward and want to thank everybody out there who
is watching or listening to us. If you want to support us, the
(41:29):
best way to do so is to like comment, subscribe, leave a
review or whatever platform you're watching or listening to
us on. If you watch us on YouTube, they
have like this hype thing. Now you like 3A week.
It helps smaller content creators help with the
algorithm. So if you want to help me out,
use your height points or whatever they're called to help
this video out. That would be greatly
appreciated. Next week for Watch Club, we're
(41:52):
going to do Maebashi Witches to look forward to that.
Otherwise, for seasonal content,we're already looking into fall.
Summer is over. The AC is getting shut off and
the sweatpants are getting put on.
They're going to be checking outall the new properties that are
coming for fall. So on behalf of Jolene, I want
to say thank you for everybody out there who takes the time to
listen, and we will see you nexttime.
(42:12):
Bye, bye, bye.
Home me now I'm finally fulfilled.
This is what my heart's been waiting for Home me now I'm
finally fulfilled. Pick me up to dance and.
Pick me up and gentlemen, welcome to what you see anime.
I am your house Peter. I'll tell you this episode, we
are diving into the second movieof the Mononoke franchise, The
(00:29):
Ashes of Rage or the Fire rat, depending on where you are
looking. I think it's interesting that
the movie is being called two different things.
You watch on Netflix. It clearly says the Ashes of
Rage, but everywhere else seems to be calling it the Fire rat.
We cover the first movie in the past.
So if this is your first time visiting, you want to hear our
thoughts coming into this movie.I will leave a link to the
(00:49):
description to that below. Joining me today is our Co host
and noted Mononoke fan, Jolene. So we have reviewed the first
movie a little less than a year ago and we were all pretty high
on what we saw. So coming into this movie
knowing that this was movie #2 and we have a 3rd on the way,
what were your initial thoughts of the second movie that we got?
(01:10):
Well, first of all, I was just glad to kind of be back in the
world and getting a chance like I I was glad to have it sort of
reaffirmed that it was going to be a trilogy of movies that were
building upon the same plot. Because I think that one thing
we all agreed on last time was that that movie had a lot of
potential, but it really depended on if they followed
(01:32):
through with what was set up in that first movie.
And I think that even from just the get go, they do that in
spades. Like the animation is just as
great as usual. Starts off with a fucking banger
in the soundtrack. Yeah.
I was just glad to be back, honestly.
(01:52):
What about you? Yeah, no, I'm, I'm in the same
boat because how the original Monoke series is structured is
like 5 different mini series essentially in one season of
show. So I was like, are we getting
three separate stories? Are we getting one continuous
trilogy? And I was glad to find out that
the second movie was continuing off of the 1st.
And actually like in terms of the timeline like pretty soon
(02:15):
after the first movie, like there is not much buffer room.
So we're getting these events inquick succession, which I think
is going to lead to a lot of chaos in the third movie because
I have a feeling that we are going to continue with ramping
up to the finale. I was just really glad to see
the whole cast back. We had some questions like you
mentioned and some concerns about what happened in the first
(02:38):
movie, if that was going to continue into the second movie.
And lo and behold, it did. So that's awesome that we can
maybe fill some gaps and that was maybe missed from the first
one. So we're going to be diving into
that pretty quick here, but justwanted to do a quick synopsis
that will lead into our first discussion topic.
So we're following the events ofmovie one following Lady
(02:58):
Kitakawa's death and leading to the well dweller Mononoke that
was battled in the first movie. And then it leads us to the
second movie, which is a month after the events of the first
movie. And it's now at the helm
surrounding Madame Yuta Yuta Yama, who passed away and was
the former head of the Like Uku administration.
(03:21):
Her death led to the events of picking a new administrator for
the UKU, which ended up being Botan.
During the meeting, there was a bunch of different suitors for
the role, and we landed on Botan.
There's also this silent disagreement at the top of the
hierarchy within the Uku that A lady in waiting, Lady Fuki is
(03:46):
curing the the child of the emperor and thus sparks the
conflict of movie 2. So we wanted to start with sort
of diving into that whole drama and how that sets up the
Mononoke. And I want I just want to start
real quick with how this movie in the beginning felt like a
(04:08):
tale of two tapes, because I thought where we saw with some
characters in the 1st half of this movie, we're going to lead
to different conflicts in the second.
I think that the movie did a fantastic job of sort of setting
up Boton as like the antagonist when really she was sort of
looking out for everybody the entire time.
So I really like that and not looking back at it.
(04:29):
How they set up the new Mononokewas there was like a quote that
said something along the lines of a Mononoke isn't built or
born from like hate or anger or hatred.
It's born from just raw human emotion and from movie one we
saw that that was guilt and movie 2 it was more along the
(04:50):
lines of kindness and love. So we had a new setup for how a
Mononoke can be created and the actions that it does.
So in this one, the Mononoke wasacting as like a guardian or a
defender for Lady Yuki and was just a wonderful change of pace.
(05:10):
I want to get your thoughts on how they set up the Mononoke and
how that led to sort of like therelationships of everybody
within the UKU. Yeah.
And just get your thoughts on that.
Definitely enjoyed the sort of like, no pun intended here form
of the Mononoke a lot better here.
(05:33):
I think that it was a bit easierto grasp the concept of like
this. Like, you know, rats have a lot
of children, so they're protective of them, that sort of
thing. We have swarms of flames and
that are sort of the children ofthis larger entity, that sort of
(05:53):
thing. So I think that that was a bit
easier to understand than like an umbrella spirit just for me
personally. For sure.
And another thing I really enjoyed about it was how it sort
of linked these two women together, Lady Fuki and the
person that we will later discuss who became the Mononoke
(06:17):
as sort of victims of the OR victim and a potential victim of
this sort of the expectations that are created because of this
like institution that is being upheld. 100% yeah.
So with the the politics around the UKU was definitely I felt
(06:39):
more explored and this this to me felt more of like a political
horror in a sense when you're dealing with the spirits
involved with Mononoke. A lot of times we've had these
these instances of the Mononoke being a like being on the
offensive or the horror aspect of it.
(07:00):
And in this case, it was the Mononoke of being a guardian.
And the the other times it felt like while they maybe they were
in like the right, like like in the movie 1, like the the trauma
of Lady Kitagawa essentially committing suicide off through
the well that that her actions created the spirit that ended up
(07:24):
being like hostile and this movie and sort of the way of
also by suicide. I would.
It's not necessarily the same asone, but like.
Yeah, it was definitely like, itwas more like a act of protest.
Yeah. It was like that, like similar
to that monk who immolated himself as like a show of
(07:46):
protest against, I think it was like the Vietnam War or
something like that. It's been a minute.
I think that that was kind of like her final act of protest
was like immolating herself out of regret that this again, this
like hierarchy that is being upheld where these men in a
(08:08):
powerful positions basically usewomen as shogi pieces is how
it's illustrated. That was the only the only way
to win is to for the piece to not be playable essentially.
And that's what and she wants toflip the whole fucking board
after she becomes important. OK.
(08:28):
And so? Yeah, yeah.
So like that whole setup was awesome.
I'm trying to think if there wasanything in particular because
there was, there's just so many different elements because with
the other Monoke movie and this was like, I don't know, 20 ish
minutes shorter than the first movie.
And you can definitely feel thatthe sort of how they were like
(08:50):
ramping up, like the storylines and the messaging and stuff like
that was a little different compared to the first movie.
So I'm in my mind, it's like I like it in some ways and don't
like it in other ways. Because I thought, would you
have something like Movie 1? And the messaging and theming
can get confusing because it's so dragged out.
Or maybe that's so dragged out, but it is.
(09:11):
The pacing felt better in this movie, but like it was an
intentional choice in the first movie to pace it that way
because like the medicine selleris way more of a primary
character in this one compared to like the last one where he's
like this sort of entity that's around.
And we have like the the newcomers to the UKU, right?
(09:33):
Like it's meant to kind of symbolize them being worn down
with the pacing. Where is this?
I mean, it also kind of goes into the elemental theme, like
fire spreads quickly, like it's going to go bright and it's
going to burn out. It's going to be a little bit
quicker pace for this movie. So I think that they angled into
that really well in my opinion. Yeah.
(09:54):
And I'd and we will touch on that in just a second, but I
want to make sure that was thereanything else about like the UKU
that you wanted to touch on before we like jump into
something new? Like the specific characters in
the UKU? Yeah, like because like we some
of these characters, they had screen time in the first movie,
but we didn't really get to knowlike their personalities and
stuff like that. And in this movie we got much
(10:17):
more screen time with some of the other characters.
So like the relationships between the Oogu characters were
stronger compared to, I would say in the first movie.
I think it was focused mostly ontwo people.
I feel like in this one we had more characters of the Oogu that
made a bigger role in the story.Yeah, I definitely enjoyed
seeing like boton expanded into like your whole like faux
(10:41):
villain aspect of her and it being sort of revealed that
well, no, she's just being like her dad is just literally like a
yellow eyed fucking fiend in in their chair.
Like the most. I think we could talk about that
a little bit later where he he feels a little bit like A1
dimensional villain, but he did his role, I guess.
(11:03):
And then like, I also enjoyed seeing Sakashita, the guards
character expanded a lot and seeing that he has guilt for
what happened to this person andit's kind of clinging onto the
past with like those ornaments and such that he has.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Could not agree more. And it's great to see like the
the roles that these characters are playing throughout the first
(11:25):
movie and getting their back story and how it's implemented
in the second movie. You brought the medicine cellar.
The first movie he seemed like a, you know, a guy who's coming
into town and nobody's trusting him.
And then the second movie, we had scenes where like they know
the things that he did in the first movie and they don't even
question like what he does. Like they all, I've already sort
(11:48):
of accepted that he is like helping the Uku and he's helping
this inner palace. You see it with like the guards
who are protecting the Uku essentially just like wave him
in like, all right, it's you're up the bat, my man.
Like like, let's go and he's like he like gives him like Nah,
like thank you. I don't have to go through a
spiel of why I need to save everybody.
So like seeing the the characters get reflected from
(12:10):
the first movie into the second movie was also awesome.
But one thing that I wanted, I mean, it's like the biggest
thing with Mononoke, especially the movies is messaging and
theming. First movie centered around
water. A lot in this movie we're
centered around fire or a spark,and they use the spark metaphor
(12:30):
a bunch of different times in this one.
The biggest 1 though is the spark of new life, the spark of
change. And we see this with Ultimo, the
main antagonist of this, not wanting to have change in the
inner palates with everybody sort of coming together and
(12:51):
rallying around Fuki not being or not carrying the next heir
after the previous lady in waiting gave birth to a
Princess. So now we're in this process of
trying to find a male heir. And when you have a spark, you
have a like a spark of any messaging you want to think of
(13:13):
revolution, just change in general of this new life, this
new life form that will be coming into this world that
would change the world dependingif it's a boy or a girl has huge
repercussion. So I wanted to get your thoughts
on how you felt that like the spark messaging that they use in
(13:34):
this or and or any other messaging that you saw
throughout the the film and get your thoughts on that.
Yeah, I think that this movie was a lot more overt with it.
I think I could. I turned to Simone at one point
while we were watching this. I was like, man, this movie's
woke as hell. Derogatory like in a positive.
(13:54):
Way oh 100. Percent, it does feel like it's
very much about like gender roles and how hierarchy effects
both, you know, all types of people, not just necessarily
like one gender over the other. But there is very much a focus
on like women and how their bodies are treated like
(14:15):
commodities by the men in their lives and that sort of thing.
Like the abortion plot line where, you know, like you have
Otomo basically like keeping hishands clean by saying like, oh,
yeah, I never actually told anybody to abort their own
child. But he literally like he more or
less got like the court physician to make the drug and
(14:38):
then like their fathers to talk to them and convince them to do
such a thing. So like, I don't know, I just I
really enjoyed that it was so overt in this one.
I think that it was really powerful messaging, especially
in today's like were like poco climate of the US and just the
(14:59):
world in general has never been like more hostile to like
women's bodily autonomy. And I think that for such a bold
and masterful art piece, to incorporate that overtly into
its messaging is huge. Agreed.
And one thing that I thought wasreally interesting was Fuki's
dynamic with the Emperor becauseI I thought how they were going
(15:23):
to sort of set up what Fuki was doing was that like she was
actually in love with the emperor and the emperor was
actually in love with her. And sort of set up this dynamic
of, you know, maybe not like a Romeo and Juliet, but like
because Fuki came from like a traitor's family, she is seen as
lesser. She is not from a noble or royal
family. And so it's like, oh, true love
(15:45):
always wins type of thing is where I thought it was going to
go with this. But it's like, Nah, like Fuki is
also playing the game like. Yeah.
I, I think she, yeah, I think she likes the emperor, but like,
they're not like soul base or anything like that.
And she realizes like she's in the position that she's in,
might as well make the best of it and be the mother of the
(16:07):
emperor or the future. Emperor.
She's doing a Cersei basically. Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's
actually a perfect way to brace it.
And so like, so how they set that up with and it's why I kind
of like view this as more of like a political horror than
like the other spiritual horrorsthat we've gotten in the monoque
(16:28):
series. A lot of the chess pieces are
being moved for a political gain.
And I guess in the the monoque sense for this is the political
gain is like, let women just live their life.
Like let them raise their own children if they have a
Princess, because we see this earlier with Yukio Yuki Yukiko,
(16:50):
who is giving birth to the Emperor's Child, but it's a
Princess and she's not allowed to raise her own daughter like
that. That's the political climate
that we have in this Uku. And we're sending out this
message of, you know, it's it should be the mother's choice to
like let them do what they like they want.
(17:13):
Like Yuki Yuki Ko wanted to raise her Princess like her
daughter. And she wasn't given that right
and that that choice. And so like, we have like these
subtle messages of actually, it's not even subtle.
We just have these messages clearly.
Like, I don't know why I said subtle.
They we are murdering people whoare going against.
(17:35):
We literally murdered somebody who gave people involuntary
abortion. Yeah, so I, I mean, I thought it
was just awesome. Like it was fantastic.
Sort of like how they're saying this up, but like the whole
spark message from the beginningwas so cool.
Or fire, fire spreads. They don't want this ideology to
get out of like the the their palace.
(17:58):
They even mentioned it early when they thought that the
people wouldn't. Like there's so many names.
Who's the pregnant one that we were just talking about?
Fookie. Fookie, they were talking about
how they thought the people of their nation would hate that
Fookie would be like essentiallylike the queen.
(18:20):
And they're like, we can't have a like normal person be queen.
And everyone's like, actually the public thinks that's really
cool. Like they think that's really
neat that just like commoner is now, you know, a part of the
royal family. It shows that like everybody can
like rise to this level. And then freaking Ultimo was
(18:46):
like, Nah, we can't have that happen.
No, we have to we have to keep the order.
So then we see it early with thefire guards of those two ladies
in waiting that well, I'm assuming we will be more
prevalent in the third movie, but I mean, they're in the first
movie as well. But like it's, it's all about
(19:07):
like preventing the flame from happening to begin with,
controlling the spark. And just that whole message
throughout the movie I thought was awesome.
And I can't wait to see how it'simplied or what we're getting
for the third movie since we gotwater fire and now the third
one's a serpent. So I don't know if we're going
to keep moving on with like the elements.
(19:29):
Did you notice the hints there? There's a.
Lot. Yeah, there's a.
There's quite a few hints. Like the serp, there's like
serpent patterns in the walls that move at points.
Yeah, at the end, the movie, it moves.
There's also one with the emperor's mom, her headdress
that she wears. It's like a it's like a circle
that holds her hair, like her hair up.
(19:53):
And there's like a really famousstatue of, of a, of a headdress
like that with a serpent behind it.
So it it's, it makes me sort of think that she is going to be
the antagonist of the third movie.
I think makes perfect sense to me since Fuki would now once the
(20:14):
child is born, would take over the emperor's moms.
Role position, yeah. So which makes me lead to
believe that she is going to be a major part of the third movie
and maybe she's the serpent. But I also want to see if
anything gets implied with like nature since we've had elements
dealing with the 1st 2 movies. Yeah, I also think that the
(20:37):
priest will be more involved in the third movie since he again
didn't really do too much and heis just too designed to not do
something by the third movie. And the, the twins are his
daughters. Yeah.
So yeah, 'cause I, I did watch avideo, like kind of documenting
(20:58):
some of the characters. And like, he, along with the
medicine seller, don't have, like, official invites or passes
to be at the inner palace. So why he is there I feel like
is perfectly wide open to explore in the third movie for
him to be a prevalent character they.
(21:19):
Mentioned that the family has like special privileges.
I know that, but I'm not sure. Like they have like a
relationship with the water God that's in the well that makes so
I I figured the water God in thewell is going to be a serpent.
No, and that's just going to be like it's at the base of the UKU
too. So it shows that it's like at
(21:41):
the heart of everything. Is this like serpent curse or
whatever? Yeah, I'm trying to think since
we had like the well was so prominent in the first movie and
then at the end of this movie wesaw the serpent along the walls
moving. So I'd be intrigued to see how
they sort of implement the serpent and like where they come
(22:01):
from because they each sort of had a reason of why they were
created. And we've only gotten hints of
the serpent and it being on the wall I feel like has to mean
something. So that's but I would love it.
Yeah, like it's part of the actual, like UKU itself.
Yes. Exactly.
I wonder if it's going to be like the combined, like it's
(22:24):
like the generational like trauma of the UKU or something
like that, like a sort of like mass idea.
You know, it's whereas these arelike one person's thing.
This is like all of the women that have been like subjugated
into the Uku and by the hierarchy and the palace in
(22:46):
general. Yeah, that the 'cause they each
like each, like each movie has like a clear like symbol, like
the first movie's water, the second movie is fire.
The third movie, it's called theserpent.
It's going to be a snake. So what does the snake
represent? And that's what I'm it.
It can it can mean so many. It can mean like, you know, like
(23:08):
the greed is it's simple as a snake.
Like there's so many like being,I don't know, there's just so
much stuff that you can dive into with what especially.
If it's like a dragon. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Is it? Yeah.
Is this because it's called a serpent?
Like, is it like a water dragon?Is it like a like a dragon
dragon? Is it just a snake?
I think there's so many different elements, and that's
what Monoke is so great for, is taking this idea and sort of
(23:32):
expanding it into multiple different things.
We saw that with the spark. The spark in this movie
represented not only life, but like ideology, classism, all
these different things that likeone item can be presented in a
show can represent multiple different things.
And so, I mean, it's just the beauty of mine, OK?
(23:55):
Yeah, some of the best symbolismin the game, honestly.
Hopefully if these movies are successful, maybe we can get
like another season or somethinglike that.
Yeah, I mean, I would the fact that we even have we're getting
3 movies like 16 years after theseries is incredible.
So I'm going to take with what Igot.
But they're they were cooking with the first movie.
(24:17):
They cooked with this movie. I can't wait to see how
everything is like wraps up. One other thing I want to talk
about, and I mentioned it earlier was sort of the
political side of this movie. It was it's very, very
political. And it and one of the the main
reason is Ultimo, which is a villain that I don't see
(24:39):
represented enough in anime where his actions are all
political. It's for, you know, under the
guise of it's all for the Emperor, but it's actually
solidifying like his family's role going forward for future
generations. And I sort of really enjoyed how
the behind the scenes stuff thathe did were so evil and so
(25:01):
meticulous and so conniving thathe was like a massive focal
point of like my attention in this movie.
Was there anything like political that he did or just in
general that you enjoyed throughout watching this movie?
Yeah, I think it's interesting. Like he is somewhat of a
(25:21):
self-serving character, obviously, but I do think that
more shows that are going to lean into like a political
intrigue aspect should have characters where like they
believe that they're doing the right thing by upholding the
system. Like they have a genuine like
hot take villains who believe they're that they're doing the
(25:44):
right thing. Pretty good.
Yep, right. But like, I don't know, I think
that like this kind of similar to like the Apothecary Diaries
or something like that just did a great job of like not making
them into like a mustache twirling like demon Lord.
This is just like a very mundaneevil that exists to this day.
(26:06):
Basically is like people who will uphold a system that puts
down others for their own gain to solidify things for
themselves and keeping people subjugated because it doesn't
ever come back to them and they know they're going to get away
with it. I mean, we see that literally.
(26:27):
I mean, yeah, yeah. I don't even have to say
anything, you know? Yeah.
Yeah. I I love this villain where you
know you. I'm going to play devil's
advocate just in defensive ultimate, you know, I think he's
a terrible person, but like you're through his eyes.
It's like his family has their their family, like his daughter
(26:48):
has a pivotal role within the Ooku.
He has a pivotal role within theOoku.
The things that have been done in the past have gotten his
family to where they are now. So why would I want to have
change within the system? So he's like, OK, I don't want
the UKU to change, so I'm going to start doing XY and Z.
(27:09):
He thinks I think I I really do think in his mind, he thinks
it's because he's doing this in favor of the emperor when really
it's for himself and his family and sort of start contracting
ways to have people who elicit change within the UKU to be OFT
(27:30):
in the ways I would say. So you saw it earlier where in
the flashbacks convincing somebody who owes him a favor
that, hey, I'm not going to tellyour daughter this, but just
hint, hint, nudge, nudge. Maybe she should not be carrying
the baby inside of her stomach. And if things don't change,
(27:55):
things are going to happen. You get my, you get my hint.
Like I, I like these characters.It's like sort of like a mob
boss in a way. Yeah, I was literally just
thinking that I know this DoctorWho might be able to fix this
problem. Exactly.
It's like, yeah, he, he talks like he has like a wiretap going
on where like he can't illicitlysay what he's thinking, but
(28:15):
like, you know what? Yeah, you know what you kind of
need to do, don't you? And so setting up all of these
things and all these horrors that he has done throughout the
Ooku to essentially get where heis.
I thought he was a fantastic villain.
Just just pure, I love like the pure evil hiding behind the
(28:37):
guise of doing what's great for everybody.
It's like, it's not like I, I think he thinks it's like a, I
don't want to say like a Doctor Manhattan thing, but he's like,
if I do this, it's actually going to help out like a bunch
of different people. But it's actually, it's like,
no, it's actually going to help out like my family and everyone
else is going to deal with the issues.
Did you have any like thoughts about Ultimo and his politics?
(29:01):
I thought that he played really well into the sort of like
sparks metaphor, Like he even mentions like, you know, I
smothered the sparks for the good of the country, that sort
of thing. And just him plotting so hard to
for a working class aired and thus eventual working class
(29:22):
emperor to not happen like again.
It's just it speaks to the current time that we're in.
I mean, it probably speaks to like the majority of times in
like human civilization, but like, I don't know, just with
how stuff is. Yeah, very realistic villain and
I like that. Yeah.
(29:42):
No, no, for sure. It's I, I also feel like, you
know, throughout the years, women's rights and just in
general haven't really been the greatest.
So it it sort of being tied backto a bunch of different spots as
I mean, you can just place it and you sort of get the
messaging. But like you, like you said, him
stomping out. I mean, he was the extinguisher
(30:02):
like he was, he was also like a proactive villain instead of a
reactive villain, which I thought was cool.
A lot of times you see this withlike in heroes.
On the hero side, it's reacting to the actions of the villain,
flipping it. It's preventing the hero from
being created in general, preventing the change from
(30:25):
happening in general. You, you extinguish the spark,
you extinguish the, the life that can provide change to the
world. And then the that change never
comes. And so it's like, how do you
kill a message? How do you kill an ideology?
How do you kill a theory? And it's just stomping out
anything at like the base level of whatever you're trying to
(30:50):
accomplish. And I've like really for in
terms of villains, it's I, I don't really see like the mental
side of the chess game being played.
A lot of times it's more of the physical violence of being a
villain. This was just, I don't know,
cunning and calculated it was itwas awesome to see that in this
(31:14):
type of show where I expect, andwe got this too, don't get me
wrong, but like I expect this big end game boss fight to
defeat the villain and that typeof stuff.
And we did get that. But like, there's also ways to
defeat the villain in this storythrough other means, which we
also saw with stuff like Pookie deciding that no matter what is
(31:38):
going to happen, I'm not giving up my baby.
Like I'm not going to be Yukiko.Like if it means losing my
position, blah, blah, blah. I'm not going to lead the same
path that the other lady did. And like you saw that in the
scene where like he was overhearing this message and he
starts to cry because the first time that this happened, I can't
(32:01):
remember the name of the the guard, the guard of the Ooku, he
didn't step in. And then this time he came back
to step in and he luckily he didn't have to.
Yeah. And it, it's just there's so
many different levels, I should say so many, but there are
levels to this that in the the amount of time that we got, the
hour and like 10 minutes, I feellike they filled these gaps in
(32:22):
really well. I don't think it was perfect,
but I thought it was well enoughto build a really good
foundation of this political horror that we got into
Mononoke. So a huge shut out to sort of
what Ultimo brought to this story versus what we got in the
first movie and other series. Just a very different and fun
(32:43):
villain to dive into. So I wanna give a shout at that.
Did you have anything else that you wanted to talk about?
No, I think we covered it prettywell honestly.
Yeah, I knew this is going to bea quick episode with just us
too, but I want to make sure that we filled in all the gaps
we can mention. You brought it up earlier.
You know, the animation is always stunning in the in
(33:04):
Mononoke. I was looking to see if they
use, they use like this filter where it kind of looks like they
crumpled up the scene a little bit and then folded it out if it
was a piece of paper and trying to see if they use like the same
filter for every single scene. And I counted like 12 different
filters just just to see if theywere like, you know, no one's
going to notice if you use the same filter for everyone.
(33:24):
So they used a bunch of different ones.
So that was awesome to see. And you mentioned it also
earlier. The sound design and music of
mine OK, is always great. I I did think, if I recall
correctly, I did like movie one sort of like OST better than
this one, But this one did have like some moments, especially
the final, like boss battle between the mess and cellar and
(33:47):
that other form guy, which is funny because that that scene, I
feel like to me, probably, I don't know, it didn't really
have like a bigger impact than Ithought it would be, if that
makes sense. Like I feel like everything
that's surrounded like the Ooku was more interesting than like
this giant final boss battle. I don't know if you had the same
(34:09):
thoughts or not. Yeah, I would actually agree
with that. I mean, I think that for me the
sort of boss battle fight at theend was just like a cherry on.
Top. Yeah, right.
Yeah, it was like. That's not what it's not really
what I came here for honestly, but it's nice that they let the
animation like the animators just have some fun at the end.
(34:33):
Yeah, if I recall correctly in the first movie that we were
like building up to like a sceneand they had like this awesome
fight and I was like, that was awesome.
That was a great resolution to sort of like what was going on
in the and movie 2 is more of like, I just want to see like
these girls just like be badass and like not take shit and not
(34:53):
like adhere to like these socialnorms and these things that are
restricted because of who they are.
I'm like that was way more interesting in this movie than
movie 1. So maybe that's just like a
telling of like good writing in general that you can sort of
have both of these conflicts handled in different ways or at
(35:14):
least have different. Maybe like the level of
resolution is higher in different ways from movie 1 to
movie 2. And they're still great in their
own way. So I want to give a shout the
Mon, OK, Because I know the original series does that as
well. But I think if we had no other
talking points, we can just wrapup.
We can do final thoughts and ourrings.
(35:35):
Jolene, would you like to start?Sure, I think that this was
completely worthy follow up to agreat first movie.
I liked the development of the characters in the UKU
specifically. The political mocking nations in
the inner court intrigue were awesome and that's just always
(35:56):
something I enjoy in a series ifit's done well.
The music and sound design top notch.
Once again, I love the like visual sort of style that
they're going for. I think that we need stuff that
takes more bold risk like Mononoke does nowadays.
(36:18):
And there is stuff doing it, butwe need more of it, is what I'm.
Trying to say it really isn't like, I feel like it's like in a
class of its own for like what it does, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, for now, nowadays. Nowadays I think.
In the I've been watching a couple series that do something
similar and it's stuffed from like 2004.
So like people just started doing that sort of thing that
(36:40):
much anymore I guess. But other than that, I think
that my absolute favorite part of the movie compared to the
first one, which I did it, I gave the first one A9, was just
like the overt messaging of likepolitical hierarchy and as well
as like woman's bodily autonomy was done really well in a, in
(37:03):
both in a metaphorical and just like general sense of like just
being overt. And honestly, I pray I have
nothing but praise for the moviefor that 'cause it was.
Yeah, I liked it. For me this is like a nine out
of 10. Right on.
Oh yeah. I gave it like a 9.5 on though.
Right on coming into this, I hadreally high hopes for this
(37:25):
movie. It was sort of done in a
different way than I thought, movie compared to movie 1.
So it's both good and bad. I did prefer, I did prefer sort
of, you know, breaking down as agroup all the themes and
messaging of movie one. With movie 2, it was way easier
to consume where we didn't need to spend 45 minutes breaking
(37:47):
down theming and messaging. What did this mean?
What did that mean? It was very straightforward in
this movie. So it's like both A plus that
almost anybody can like consume that compared to the first movie
where we needed five people to sort of help break each other
down. What we thought this was just
like spark means this, fire means this bad guy does this and
(38:10):
so like that. It was really easy to consume,
but I do really like the more complex stuff that they can be
more detailed with. And I'm sure there's something
that we miss in the movie that we could probably pull and be
like, OK, they did have this more, but I guess maybe I missed
it, but I thought this movie wassignificantly simpler and easier
to consume than the first movie and liked it.
(38:35):
I did like it for that. Ultimo being a huge standout to
me and this movie, I think with movie one with like AUSA, I
thought she was way more of a standout from the other
characters and I like that more because that was more of a focal
point of like the UKU itself andlike the girls themselves were.
Ultimo being the villain and being my favorite character I
(38:58):
would say is both good and bad. I guess I would wish I got more
funky time. I wish I got more of these other
characters involved with it, butit was just like Ultimo to me
was just such a good villain of everything that was going on
with it that it was hard not to like focus my attention on him
and like what he was doing to affect everybody around him.
(39:19):
So well written villain, but it did make me kind of miss sort of
like, I don't know, like like the sisterhood AUSA had type of
thing from movie 1. Didn't really get that.
They tried that a little bit with Fuki and Photon, but I feel
like that connection wasn't the same compared to what we got in
(39:41):
the first movie. And I really like that in the
first movie. Love the spark metaphor in this
entire thing. I, I loved like the idea of
sparking change, sparking ideology, sparking a movement,
sparking anything within this confined and controlled life
that these people have. And sometimes when you look for
(40:03):
change, it's hard to get it because of the people that are
in power. So great just messaging and
theming throughout. I gave this an 8A high 8, but it
ain't. Nonetheless, I do feel like we
could have gotten 1015 minutes more to sort of add to some of
the other characters that I wishwe got or what we got from the
(40:25):
first movie compared to what we got from the second movie.
But like, it was still good in its own sense.
I guess it's just the preferred way of I, of me consuming mine.
OK, I like the first movie more than the second, so still great.
Can't wait for the third. I think the third is going to be
there's so many things in my brain running right now that it
can be that I can't wait for us to get to it.
(40:46):
So I have to double check when it comes out.
But this was the the break between movie 1 and movie 2 was
nine months from right now it looks like it just says 2026.
Sometime in 2026, we'll be getting Movie 3, and if I'm
still here, we will be reviewingit.
So I look forward to that. Jolene, do you have any parting
(41:06):
thoughts, words that you maybe missed that you want to get off
your chest right now before we head out?
No, you made me, but my train ofthought was obliterated.
I'm not going to lie. My bad.
No, all good if if, if you don'tgot nothing.
We can just go forward and want to thank everybody out there who
is watching or listening to us. If you want to support us, the
(41:29):
best way to do so is to like comment, subscribe, leave a
review or whatever platform you're watching or listening to
us on. If you watch us on YouTube, they
have like this hype thing. Now you like 3A week.
It helps smaller content creators help with the
algorithm. So if you want to help me out,
use your height points or whatever they're called to help
this video out. That would be greatly
appreciated. Next week for Watch Club, we're
(41:52):
going to do Maebashi Witches to look forward to that.
Otherwise, for seasonal content,we're already looking into fall.
Summer is over. The AC is getting shut off and
the sweatpants are getting put on.
They're going to be checking outall the new properties that are
coming for fall. So on behalf of Jolene, I want
to say thank you for everybody out there who takes the time to
listen, and we will see you nexttime.
(42:12):
Bye, bye, bye.
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