REVIEW: ‘Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain’ Delivers A Striking Visual Spectacle

Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (also called: Mononoke Movie: Paper Umbrella), produced by EOTA explores the mysterious happenings at the Ooku, the home of maidens who devote their lives to serving the Emperor. Just as Asa (Tomooyo Kurosawa, Arknights PRELUDE TO DAWN) and Kame (Aoi Yûki, NieR Automata ver1.1a) arrive to join the ranks of the woman within, so too does an unnamed medicine seller (Hiroshi Kamiya,  The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting) with unknown intentions. All three are soon thrust into the mystery of the Ooku and come face-to-face with the monster who haunts it.

The first thing that anyone approaching this movie will notice is the art style. The line work creates the feeling of a classical Japanese painting coming to life. A fixed texture on the screen remains in place as the objects and characters move across it, making it feel like the story is moving across a tapestry. The animation that plays out across this digital tapestry is masterful.

The biggest moments pop so well in part due to the restrained personality of much of the cast. Most of the side characters show little emotion and move through the film with minimalist action. So when a chase or other action-heavy moment plays out the detail within comes across even stronger, making Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain burst into its own with animation that is detailed and emotive.

Giving more life to the base art style is the most colorful setting I’ve ever seen. Bright primary colors are used with abandon to create imagery, always striking in its vibrancy. The only place where Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain’s visuals fail is its overabundance of patterns. So many objects have intricate patterns worked on them that it is frequently hard to keep track of what’s going on during the faster sequences. Characters sometimes become lost in the visual excess, leaving the viewer momentarily bewildered.

Mononoke The Movie sometimes loses itself in its visual style.

This overabundance of visual design can also occasionally interfere with the subtitles. With so many patterns dancing across the screen, the plain white text can get lost as the eye struggles to decipher what is happening on screen. However, there is also an English dub, so there is a way around this stumble.

While the art style will attract many to Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain, the narrative also provides a solid reason for viewers to commit to the hour-and-a-half runtime. The story crafts a compelling mystery tinged with a bit of horror as the events at the Ooku become increasingly strange. While the pacing is a little slow in the movie’s first half, it does a respectable job of setting up the personalities of the key members of the cast. Central to these is Asa.

Asa serves as the viewer’s perspective into the world of the Ooku. Wanting to succeed, she is also resistant to blindly obeying what is presented as the way things should be. Through her eyes, we learn much about Ooku’s past and the mystery haunting it.

Asa also forms one half of the emotional heart of Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain, along with Kame. Kame is eager but unskilled, and quickly struggles with her assigned duties. As the more experienced maids start to bully and harass her, Asa provides a lifeline for the struggling woman, repeatedly seen falling asleep holding hands with her.

The Phantom in the Rain also offers action that rivals any we’ve seen in animation.

When the film reaches its final moments, it delivers a stylish action sequence that rivals some of the best we see in anime. The medicine seller reveals his true powers, confronting the monster. The design of the transformed “man with no name” is fantastic. While the moment is brief, it delivers a satisfying conclusion with both spectacle and scale that makes it feel like a worthy wrap-up to what built up to it.

The only thing about this moment that some will struggle with is the nature of the medicine seller. How his powers work and why he has waited as long as he does is addressed, but not entirely. The film expects its audience to be familiar with the character from its 2007 predecessor. If you aren’t, you won’t fully understand his abilities’ whys and hows. That being said, as long as you can accept that he simply can do what he does and there is a reason for when he does it, it won’t provide a significant speed bump to your enjoyment of the closing confrontation.

Despite some unclear character motivation and visual excess, Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain delivers a tale worth experiencing. Its mystery and characters will draw viewers into a unique world that they won’t soon forget.

Mononoke The Movie: The Phantom in the Rain is streaming now, exclusively on Netflix.

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