I'm stoked about it. I've seen a fansubbed copy of the Japanese version and really liked it. It's an interesting movie with some great visuals and ultimately a pretty strong point about humanity's role in nature (that goes a bit further than the trendy "man is bad; trees are good" mentality). The plot is extremely strange though, which is why I'm glad Gaiman wrote the translated copy (Gaiman can do dark/strange extremely well, in preperation for the flick I started reading his "Sandman" comic series and was impressed). And since the dubbing is hopefully done well (easily the biggest turn off for me to watch anime that's been brought over is the total lack of quality voice acting), I'm very excited to see the movie on a big screen. If nothing else, the quality of the animation and classic Miyazaki-style surreal stuff makes it worth watching.

Now, whether or not this movie will sell anime to the U.S. mainstream is a totally different question. "Mononoke Hime" is EXTREMELY strange, though it comes in a time when suddenly every movie I've seen has been odd ("American Beauty", "Three Kings", and "Fight Club" to name the last three films I saw in the theater) so perhaps it'll fit in well. I highly doubt it will hit Disney-like proportions, but I think it will do fair box office and will help pave the way for anime after it. But again I just don't see it becoming a huge hit though it should do well critically. It'd be nice if it grossed over $100 million though, as it certainly deserves to :P

Ste "Any movie that features the line 'I return your head!' has got to be a classic" phen