Why Zelda’s Breath Of The Wild and Tears Of The Kingdom looks like Ghibli
I absolutely love both Studio Ghibli and The Legend of Zelda. I started watching Studio Ghibli when I was in high school and the first Zelda game I ever played was Ocarina of Time. After playing 2017's Zelda Breath of the Wild I began to notice many similarities to Ghibli and realized that this was Princess Mononoke. Now I am in no way comparing the two to see which is better. Both Ghibli and Zelda are great.
Breath of the Wild and its sequel Tears of the Kingdom were the Ghibli games that fans of Ghibli had always wanted. Playing the games further I began to notice that Nintendo took inspiration from other Ghibli works such as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Spirited Away, and Castle in the Sky. Keep in mind that Nintendo and Studio Ghibli are both from the same culture and some similarities might be a cultural thing.
Breath of the Wild (BTOW) and Tears of the Kingdom (TOTK) follow the protagonist Link. Link wakes up after a 100-year nap a total amnesiac. Throughout the game, he regains his memory. Link remembers that he was a royal knight and personal escort to Princess Zelda. Zelda in this game is trying her hardest to unlock her power passed down through the other Zeldas in her family. She had to find her power before the Great Calamity. The Great Calamity is when Ganon came and took over. Ganon in this game is hard to describe he is more like an embodiment of evil than a person. The King employed four Champions to drive four ancient machines to defeat Ganon. However, in battle, they all died. Link would have almost died himself if the Princess had not used her newfound power to stop a Guardian from killing him and then seal herself and Ganon in the castle to stop him from coming to full power. After 100 years her power is declining.
In Tears of the Kingdom Link and Zelda are investigating a cave underneath the castle. They come across a mummified body with a glowing hand on it grabbing the chest. The body talks to Zelda and Link somehow knowing their names. Malice goes to grab Zelda. Malice is an evil, pink substance that can embody anything and turn it evil. Link jumps in the way with his master's sword to defend her. The master sword is supposed to absorb evil. The sword breaks and the malice runs up Link’s arm leaving it scared with evil.
In the film, Princess Mononoke, we meet Prince Ashitaka of the Emishi tribe. His arm is poisoned by hate similar to Malice when a boar named Nago. Nago was turned into a demon when he was shot by an iron bullet. Ashitaka must leave his village and explore the world with “eyes unclouded by hate”(Princess Mononoke, 1997). This movie is PG-13.
Zelda has the most in common with Princess Mononoke than with any other Ghibli film. In Princess Mononoke, there are animal gods. The god of all animals is the Deer God. The Deer God can give and take life. Nintendo President Satoru Iwata passed away in 2015. In BOTW and TOTK there is a deer like yokai that lives up on Satori Mountain. Like the Deer God in Princess Mononoke, it gives life and takes life and protects the animals. It is not only Satori the Lord of the Mountain that takes inspiration from Princess Mononoke in their design but also Rauru does as well. Rauru is one of the Sages from Ocarina of Time. Rauru in this game looks like the Deer God from Mononoke. Rauru is a past king of Hyrule.
In BOTW and TOTK there are about a thousand little koroks hiding throughout Hyrule. The koroks are very similar to the kodama in Mononoke in that they are small little forest spirits. Both are very playful. Both love to play games. They both make a jingling sound when they appear. Both Link’s and Ashitaka’s arms are cursed by evil. They both gain supernatural abilities. Though Link’s abilities are much tamer than Ashitaka’s because well this is Nintendo. Both Ashitaka and Link are fighting to rid themselves of their curses. For Ashitaka if he does not get rid of the curse he will die. In TOTK Link’s right arm is cursed by mummified Ganon. In Princess Mononoke Nago is filled with hate and rage caused by an iron bullet.
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is about a young Princess Nausicaa. She lives in a Valley where the wind always blows. She rides a wind glider. One thousand years before the land was destroyed by a war and the Toxic Jungle started to spread. The Toxic Jungle is filled with spores that will kill. It is believed that the insects spread the Toxic Jungle and should be feared. Nausicaa is a cautionary tale of how important the environment is and the effects of war.
Link wears a light blue tunic in BOTW, similar to the ones that both Nausicaa and Ashitaka wear. His tunic has the symbol of Hyrule on it which highly resembles the symbol on the dress that Nausicaa wears towards the end of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.
Like Nausicaa, Link soars through the sky. Nausicaa uses a wind glider and Link uses a cloth paraglider. Both the wind glider and the paraglider serve the same purpose to get from point A to point B. There is an item that looks like Nausicaa’s wind glider in TOTK, but it is useless unless it is fuzed with something else to make it fly. Castle in the Sky is about two kids named Pazu and Sheeta. Pazu is a mine worker and Sheeta is a farm girl. Sheeta is the heir to the throne of Laputa. Laputa is a floating city in the sky. Another man named Muska is also after Laputa too. It will take Pazu, Sheeta, and a family of Pirates to save Laputa from Muska.
Zelda has much in common with Castle in the Sky as well. Nature has been a key element of Zelda games since at least Ocarina of Time. While playing the first game I came upon homes and villages that had been abandoned, and hundreds of the king’s guardian robots just stuck in the grass while nature grew and reclaimed what was theirs. The Temple of Time was once a proud building in previous games and was now being overgrown with trees and wildlife due to neglect. It broke my heart to find Lon Lon Ranch from Ocarina of Time was almost gone. Director of Castle in the Sky, Hayao Miyazaki is an environmentalist. Laputa was not much different from Hyrule. Laputa too had one robotic guardian left to care for the animals and plants. The other robots had broken down and nature was reclaiming the robots and the grand buildings. TOTK literal castle in the sky. There are also sky islands too. Thousands of years earlier the people of Hyrule used to live up in the sky on one of these islands. The robots, left by the Zonai people, take care of the plants and animals just like the robots in Castle in the Sky.
The character that is most similar to Ghibli is Princess Zelda herself. It is very evident that Nintendo has looked to Ghibli for inspiration over decades for her characterization. The hero Link is designed to be silent so that the player can sort of be him in a way. Zelda and the other characters actually talk in these games. Zelda has rarely been truly been a damsel in distress. She has been a girl who could usually hold her own. In Ocarina of Time, she crossed dress as Shiek and saves Link from a tumbling castle tower. In Windwaker she is disguised as a pirate. In Breath of The Wild and Tears of The Kingdom, this Zelda is no different from her predecessors. In BTOW Zelda uses her powers to keep Calamity Ganon contained for 100 years. She is a scholar and curious about her world and the history of her people.
Music has always played an important part in the Zelda games. None of the characters could talk but that did not stop Link from playing his Ocarina. The music of the original Zelda games sounded more like a video game. The work of Ghibli music Director Joe Hisashi is unlike anything heard in American cinema. Joe Hisashi is the John Williams of Japan and has created some of the most iconic music for some of Japan's most iconic films. The music in both the games and Mononoke is very similar to one another. Both Zelda and Mononoke give a sense of atmosphere and feeling. Both give that sense of the fight over evil. Both Zelda and Mononoke have that sweeping score. Nature is a central theme in both Zelda and Mononoke in both their scores too. Zelda’s theme focuses more on the quiet nature themes to allow the player to soak it all in.
It is the visuals of the BTOW and TOTK that really make you feel like you are in the world of Princess Mononoke. BTOW and TOTK use a technique called cell shading to give the game an anime look similar to Ghibli and animated cells. Nintendo has used this technique before on older Zelda titles such as Windwaker but to such a great effect as in BOTW and TOTK. The Ghibli feel can be felt when you are up in the Akala region of the map riding a deer. The Hateno Village looks like the Valley of the Wind from Nausicaa.
Breath of The Wild and Tears of the Kingdom both take lots of inspiration from Ghibli. Some of the inspiration might be because both companies come from the same culture. I truly feel like I am in a Ghibli film whenever I play BTOW or TOTK. I truly hope that Nintendo and Ghibli will take it one step further and make a Zelda anime with Hiromasa Yonebayashi directing.
I also suggest checking on YouTube the video “With Eyes Unclouded” by Beyond Ghibli. While I did notice the references for myself, this video led me further down the rabbit hole and it is worth checking out.
