Princess Mononoke is the 9th highest grossing anime film of all time. 

That is no mean achievement for a film that is actually deeply complex of the relationship between man and nature, life and death, purity and vice.

Mononoke Hime is used as the ending song in the movie followed by the song “The Legend of Ashitaka”, without vocals. The song does a good job of compressing the main message of the whole Princess Mononoke film into one short song.

Here is my new translation of the lyrics and interpretation of the song’s meaning.

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Mononoke Hime Lyrics Romaji

haritsumeta yumi no 　 furueru tsuruyo

tsuki no hikari ni zawameku 　 omae no kokoro

togi sumasareta ha no utsukushī

sonokis saki ni yoku nita 　 sonata no 橫顔

kanashimi to ikari ni hisomu 　 makoto no kokoro o shiru wa

mori no sei mo no noketachi dake 　 mono noketachi dake

kanashimi to ikari ni hisomu 　 makoto no kokoro o shiru wa

mori no sei mo no noketachi dake 　 mono noketachi dake

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Mononoke Hime Lyrics in Japanese & English Side By Side

はりつめた弓の　ふるえる弦よ

月の光にざわめく　おまえの心

With taut bow and quivering string

Unquiet in the light of the moon is your heart

とぎすまされた刃の美しい

そのきっさきによく似た　そなたの橫顔

Like the beauty of the very point

of the sharpened blade,

Is the profile of your face

悲しみと怒りにひそむ　まことの心を知るは

森の精 もののけ達だけ　もののけ達だけ

‘Tis only the spirits of the forest, only the Mononoke

that know the true heart that hides within sorrow and rage

悲しみと怒りにひそむ　まことの心を知るは

森の精 もののけ達だけ　もののけ達だけ

‘Tis only the spirits of the forest, only the Mononoke

that know the true heart that hides within sorrow and rage

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About the Princess Mononoke Theme Song

What are Princess Mononoke and the Mononoke Hime song about?

Princess Mononoke tells the story of villager Ashitaka who is infected with a curse/sickness when he does battle with a rather gross looking Mononoke monster in the hills near his home. He embarks on a journey to heal himself. Along the way he encounters San, a human living among the wolves who is determined to wreak vengeance on human beings for the harm they have been bringing to the mountains, environment and the animalistic way of life. 

The theme song to Princess Mononoke poetically touches on these themes in a highly stylised, abstract way. 

The language style of the Mononoke Hime lyrics

The Mononoke Hime closing theme is written in a style of Japanese that sounds archaic, almost classical. The way the language is used gives us a sense that the words are imparting a sense of ancient wisdom or knowledge.

So in translating this text, I’ve tried to use an English tone that is similar to the original.

Mononoke Hime lyric themes

The imagery used in the Mononoke Hime song reflect items that are associated with the main characters of Ashitaka and San.

Ashitaka is seen in the film as a highly skilled bowman. After he is infected or cursed by the monoke on the hill, he finds that he has special powers to let arrows fly with a supernatural force. In a scene that is uncharacteristically gory for a Ghibli film, we even see Ashitaka the head of a foe clean off with his arrow.

But there is a price to pay. Every time Ashitaka lets forth one of his magical arrows he gives over a little more of his life to the magical sickness that is taking over his body. 

The lyrics of the Mononoke theme reference this phenomenon, and the conundrum that it places in the mind of Ashitaka:

はりつめた弓の　ふるえる弦よ

月の光にざわめく　おまえの心

With taut bow and quivering string

Unquiet in the light of the moon is your heart

We get the sense of someone poised with bow in hand, arrow drawn back in bowstring, ready to strike. But we also get a sense of hesitation, of someone ill at ease. 

If we take the interpretation that this verse is depicting Ashitaka, perhaps he has the conundrum of his powers playing in his mind, mixing a sense of fear with a sense of anticipation at what will happen when he unleashes his arrow. 

The intriguing thing to think about in this verse is who is the “your” in “your heart” referring to? Perhaps it is Ashitaka talking to himself effectively trying to steel himself for what he has to do. 

Or is Ashitaka aiming his bow at San and is Ashitaka seemingly “viewing” her heart and resolve.

In my translation, I have taken the interpretation that Ashitaka is having an inner dialogue with himself, but you could take other readings. 

Either way, you get the sense that someone is having a moment of uncertainty that has been spotlighted by the pure, truth-telling light of the moon.

From the image of the bow, we move across in the next two lines of the song to the imagery of the knife or the sword. This verses talks about the beauty of the 刃, which is the same word for a blade that we see in the name of the highest selling anime movie for Demon Slayer, which we have discussed the meaning of here.

Of course the most obvious blade-wielding character in Mononoke-Hime is San, who is seen using her blade in a violent way at several points, most notably to to attempt an assisination of the head man of the village of Tataraba.

As is often seen with Japanese Weapons, the blade is often revered as a symbol of purity and courage. 

I think the best interpretation of these lines is seen from the perspective of Ashitaka looking at San and observing that she seems somehow sharp like a blade, with all the nuances and sense of meaning that that goes with in Japan:

とぎすまされた刃の美しい

そのきっさきによく似た　そなたの橫顔

Like beauty of the very point

Of sharpened blade

Is the profile of your face

So we have a couple of lines describing Ashitaka, a couple describing San, and then we move to the central repeated sections of the song that describe the Mononoke or spirits.

As we have looked at in guides to the meaning of mononoke and symbolism of shinto, the place that supernatural beings like kami, mononoke and yokai occupy in Japanese culture is complex and multi-faceted. There are certainly no shortage of shinto imagery influenced anime. 

These mystical beings, or perhaps anti-beings, are neither all-good nor all-bad, all-kind or all-evil. 

Rather, they are more like the elements. 

Is the wind good or bad? How about a breeze? How about a storm? How about a tornado?

In the same way, the mononoke depicted in Miyazaki’s Mononoke Hime are sometimes benevolent, and sometimes benign, sometimes vengeful. Sometimes they switch back and forth between these things, sometimes they are all of them at once.

But ultimately, both the Mononoke Hime song and film tell us that it is the deities that know the ultimate Truth about nature, life, death and the universe. 

Japanese often like to say that they are an irreligious people. This may or may not be true depending on how you interpret the word “religious” but Miyazaki’s words hint at the fact that many Japanese people exhibit a significant faith infallibility of greater power than themselves:

悲しみと怒りにひそむ　まことの心を知るは

森の精 もののけ達だけ　もののけ達だけ

‘Tis only the spirits of the forest, only the Mononoke

that know the true heart that hides within sorrow and rage

悲しみと怒りにひそむ　まことの心を知るは

森の精 もののけ達だけ　もののけ達だけ

‘Tis only the spirits of the forest, only the Mononoke

that know the true heart that hides within sorrow and rage

Who sang the Song Mononoke Hime?

Monoke Hime is sung by Yoshikazu Mera in the film Princess Mononoke.

Mera is one of Japan’s leading countertenors. He has a voice range that puts his voice in a similar region to where many women sing, leading many to mistake his voice for that of a girl.

Mera has an interesting backstory in that he suffers from congenital osteogenesis imperfecta, a serious and extremely rare illness.

As a result, Mera has exceedingly brittle bones, and he has said that he has had broken bones at regular intervals throughout his life.

In spite of this adversity, Mera managed to hone his singing craft and gain entrance into music college with high marks.

He has said that he sings so high because, as a boy, he loved the pop singer Seiko Matsuda and was obsessed with being able to replicate the way that she sang. The story goes that it was this obsession that led to him developing the ability to produce a high vocal range comparable to that of a female.

His role in singing Studio Ghibli theme songs brought his talents to a mainstream, world wide audience.

Who Wrote the Song Mononoke Hime?

The lyrics to the Mononoke Hime song were written by Miyazaki Hayao, and the music was written Joe Hisaishi.

The Mononoke Hime song, like the Ghibli movie itself, gives us a sense of our own humanness, and how we are bound to interact with the natural sensual world in which we are inextricably bound. 

For more ghibli song lyrics, see our translations of Kimi wo nosete from Laputa.