Review: Mononoke is back with a familiar-feeling second chapter

This might end up being one of the shortest reviews I've written on here. I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about the Mononoke movies where I just can't quite get into them. On paper, it seems like these should be my bread and butter: stylishly animated, fast-paced, set amongst the political intrigue of a king's harem, demons. Like, these are just flat-out cool movies, and I like watching them, but I find myself kind of zoning out when I watch them. They just wash over me. Which can be nice, but I find myself frustrated and a little confused as to why I don't love these movies. 

He's still hot!

I recently revisited the first Mononoke - Phantom in the Rain - to prepare myself for this second chapter. That revisit clarified my feelings a bit. The first time I saw it (at Animation is Film last year), I was tired, a bit under the weather, just not in a great space for it. I still enjoyed it, especially just looking at it. But on a rewatch, I was able to keep up with the story a little more, which can be difficult, because it's a lot of characters with a lot of motivations to keep track of, and the information is doled out at a pretty rapid-fire pace.

Which gives this second movie - The Ashes of Rage - a bit of an advantage in the story-telling department because most of that groundwork has already been established. For some reason, I thought this was going to be a totally separate story that found the Medicine Seller in a different place, with different characters, doing whatever he was doing. Not so! This one picks up shortly after its predecessor, and tracks the political fallings-out of the first movie's proceedings. So if the first one felt fast-paced, this one is pretty breakneck. It clocks in at like 75 minutes, so we hit the ground running, and the mystery unravels at an even more lively clip.

Which works well here. I also found the story easier to follow, probably because so much was already established before. This time around, the king's favored concubine, Lady Fuki, finds herself pregnant with an heir. Which is, largely, the goal of the harem, but it isn't to the liking of the king's political allies. Lady Fuki is low-born, and the king's court worries that if the heir comes from her, it might spark revolution, since the lower-ranked people already resent the higher classes. Meanwhile, the newly-appointed head of the Ooku (the name of the harem facilities) is looking to get other concubines and consorts a chance to sleep with the king by imposing new rules about "night work", since he tends to sleep with Lady Fuki every night. Pretty classic story-telling beats overall, but they're handled well.

The supernatural element comes in because Lady Fuki's predicament mirrors that of a former concubine, whose story ended tragically. So in comes another mononoke (angry spirit) for the Medicine Seller with his magic sword to deal with. Honestly, this all ends up feeling super similar to the first movie. The rhythms, the music, the kaleidoscopic. It all has a definite feeling of been-there-done-that. Of course, the "there" is gorgeous and the "that" is cool, so I can't complain too much.

But ultimately, that was the feeling I had for the most part while watching The Ashes of Rage. I've already seen all this before. I've been in this place, with these characters, watching them scheme and argue and ultimately fight a demon. It feels almost more like a second episode of a TV show (or, I guess, a sub-arc of an anime), which makes the experience feel less special overall.

But it's still a cool-looking movie (also, the editing has settled a bit here, which is nice, since the first one was super-frenetic), it's short, and it tells its story well. I imagine we'll be in for more of the same with the third chapter, but there are worse movies to watch, so I'm game.