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I don't think Miyazaki is that unnuanced. The town is a refuge for unfortunates, abused prostitutes, lepers, etc. We even see Eboshi tending to the lepers herself. It's clear she has given the people there a much better life than they were from, and that they were very grateful for it. The time they lived in wasn't pleasant at all for most humans, certainly much less than it is now, and they were doing the best they knew how. The real villains are the ones trying to steal the forest god's head in my opinion. Pure greed and ignorance. Just my take.
I agree, Miyazaki has never had black and white villains/good guys. But I don't think that calling Eboshi capitalist discounts all of the good that she's done for the quality of life of the community, just like there are positive effects of real life capitalism. But taken as a whole, flawed.
Wait, Eboshi hired them to steal the head, didn't she? I don't remember any moment where she would have tried to stop that, it was her goal to disable the forest spirit so she could keep going with her venture.
I think she supported it but the emperor was the original founder of I recall correctly. He doesn’t appear in the movie though.
Huh, don't remember. You know what that means. Time for a rewatch!
I actually don't remember, it's been a long time since I last saw it. I thought I remembered that the emperor had sent them to and she either didn't know or didn't care either way. I do remember that she was literally waging war on the forest, so certainly not friendly to nature. In a way, Miyazaki was too charitable. Eboshi was doing what she did because she thought it helped her people. Her flaw was only caring about the immediate needs of humans and not understanding their connection to nature, seeing nature only as something to be conquered for human benefit. In reality, capitalists aren't even thinking that far, they're just doing whatever makes them the most money individually in the short term. Eboshi has higher motives besides self-aggrandizement at least. Most real life capitalists couldn't care less about anyone else.