"Come, Aoki-san, let's take a photo together," Hayao Miyazaki invited.
"Alright."
Aoki Haruhi moved closer, making a V-sign between the two of them.
The scene looked particularly odd because Aoki Haruhi was noticeably taller, and he was the only young person there.
But then again...
The scenery of Yakushima was indeed beautiful; it would have been a great pity not to capture it in a photo.
For inspiration, Miyazaki carried his camera everywhere, snapping photos non-stop.
Just along this journey, Aoki Haruhi had already seen many landscapes that would appear in the future princess mononoke.
He originally thought Miyazaki's drawings were beautiful, but he never expected the actual locations for inspiration to be truly stunning.
Here, one couldn't help but marvel at the natural world's extraordinary craftsmanship.
...
However, a 10-hour round trip was quite daunting.
After walking for over an hour on the mountain path, Aoki Haruhi was already out of breath.
Looking at the two old men beside him, both in their 40s or 50s, they were in a similar state.
He had thought these two were extraordinary.
"Let's rest here for a bit."
Miyazaki waved his hand.
So Aoki Haruhi found a small log to sit on and began to drink water and rest.
Looking up, the entire sky was so squeezed by the trees that it looked like only a narrow opening.
Near their resting spot was a river with large, beautiful stones, and the water of the entire river was green.
In short, Aoki Haruhi felt as if he had entered a fairytale world throughout this journey.
After a while, Joe Hisaishi and Hayao Miyazaki began to work.
One was drawing with a sketchpad, and the other was humming, recording it with a recorder.
Only Aoki Haruhi didn't know what to do.
"Aoki-san, what do you feel?" Hayao Miyazaki asked while drawing.
"What do I feel?" Aoki Haruhi was momentarily stunned.
He glanced at Miyazaki's board; it already had the composition of a line drawing.
It was beautiful.
Even without color, one could feel the tension in the image.
Perhaps this was Hayao Miyazaki.
Or perhaps, Aoki Haruhi thought, nature itself was full of tension, merely captured by Miyazaki's brush.
"How should I put it?" Aoki Haruhi looked around. "To be honest, Miyazaki, I didn't have high expectations at first, but after coming here, it truly feels like a fairyland."
But that would be too pathetic.
Nao Tsuda wasn't there to enjoy the beautiful scenery; instead, he was with two old men.
This feeling was truly exasperating.
Didn't someone once say?
Traveling isn't important; who you travel with is what matters.
Aoki Haruhi missed Nao Tsuda terribly right now.
"Right?"
Miyazaki smiled.
"This is the charm of nature," Miyazaki said.
"Mm." Aoki Haruhi nodded, showing strong agreement.
Some people say scenery is as beautiful as a painting, while others say a painting looks as real as scenery.
These two statements are quite contradictory.
However, here, looking at Miyazaki's drawings and then at the surrounding scenery, you would feel that the two truly blended together very naturally.
"The beauty of nature is very difficult to draw.
But humans can create different natural landscapes through imagination, that is true."
"Eh?"
Hearing Aoki Haruhi's words, Miyazaki was slightly stunned.
Good heavens, you’re a philosopher!
Joe Hisaishi, sitting nearby, also became interested.
"There's no conflict. The power of nature is truly difficult for humans to imitate, but humans have their own civilization and creativity, and this is humanity's most precious asset," Joe Hisaishi chuckled.
Aoki Haruhi nodded. "Just like music, although it draws from nature, after processing, it becomes structured and forms its own characteristics, transcending nature itself."
Joe Hisaishi was momentarily stunned. He had wanted to say something, but then realized Aoki Haruhi had already said it all.
He felt so stifled inside that in the end, he could only blurt out one word—
"Right!"
But for some reason, despite feeling stifled, Aoki Haruhi's words inexplicably made him a little happy.
Thinking back carefully, this guy had praised him right to his core.
"Each has his own specialty. The things we are good at are simply different," Joe Hisaishi smacked his lips. "Like me, I don't have such good expressive ability. But I can use music as my tool of expression, that is true."
"Hmm, so the question is," Miyazaki said while drawing, "Aoki-san, what kind of relationship do you think exists between humans and nature? Is our existence good or bad for this world?"
Oh, this...
Aoki Haruhi frowned deeply. I didn't come here to discuss philosophical questions with you!
What is the meaning of human existence? What does it have to do with me!
After being reborn, I just want to make money.
"Can you talk and draw at the same time?"
"Yes, the human brain is separated," Miyazaki chuckled. "People can work and chat at the same time. Can't you, Aoki-san?"
"I..."
I'm single-threaded.
Aoki Haruhi stated that a man with such strong focus wouldn't have any remaining CPU to chat with others while working.
Teacher Miyazaki, are you not focused enough?
"The relationship between humans and nature, huh."
But since Miyazaki asked, Aoki Haruhi had actually already prepared an answer.
After all, the theme of princess mononoke is precisely humans and nature.
Aoki Haruhi pondered for two seconds and replied, "Humans and nature should be contradictory, right?"
"Contradictory?"
"Yes, contradictory. Essentially, they are both opposing and unified," Aoki Haruhi said.
Uh...
Good heavens, this person is directly applying Marxist philosophy.
"To put it plainly, the history of human development is a process of struggling against heaven, against earth, and against other humans," Aoki Haruhi said. "Great floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, mudslides—for their own development, humans naturally have to resist natural disasters.
Overcoming them step by step led to today's modernization."
"Humans need their own development, so they naturally extract raw materials from nature to advance technology and transform their living environment."
Oh?
Not bad.
Miyazaki and Joe Hisaishi both felt their eyes light up.
"But this also brings pollution and destruction to nature. Many species have disappeared in this process, and the emission of toxic gases, overfishing, hunting, and felling trees have caused many originally beautiful landscapes to vanish," Miyazaki said.
"So from this perspective, aren't humans also very hateful? For their own development, they disregard everything else, destroy nature, and ultimately will reap what they sow."
Aoki Haruhi said nothing, just looking at Miyazaki with a relieved expression.
The old man's thinking was quite profound; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to create a great animation like princess mononoke, which explores humans and nature.
On one side, the forest; on the other, humanity; and the male protagonist caught in the middle.
If only the politicians of Japan were like Miyazaki, then such bizarre and self-destructive acts like dumping nuclear wastewater in the future wouldn't happen.
Relying solely on the ocean's self-purification capacity.
Will it truly work, and how much effect will it have?
Aoki Haruhi still had to put a question mark on that.
"Miyazaki, why do you think humans destroy nature and then also protect it?"
Before Miyazaki could speak, Aoki Haruhi continued:
"Humans protect nature primarily because nature has the power of 'backlash,' right?"
Hmm?
Both men paused, falling into a brief contemplation.
"Humans are just such creatures. Or rather, living beings themselves are selfish.
Giant pandas are very precious animals, aren't they?
But when you're starving and will die if you don't eat, you'll unhesitatingly kill it to fill your stomach."
"Those who oppose whaling are the same. It's only because there are other alternative foods that they oppose and protect endangered animals. But once a person is in a desperate situation, protecting nature or caring for animals is all nonsense.
Protecting oneself is what truly matters."
"If destroying the environment didn't cause tsunamis, hurricanes, mudslides, earthquakes... if destroying the ocean didn't cause future generations who eat seafood to get sick or be deformed, then I think, based on human nature, we wouldn't protect nature."
"Emmm... a very interesting perspective."
"In other words, if nature didn't backlash and didn't make humans bear the corresponding cost, then humans wouldn't protect nature."
"It's not because nature is exceptionally beautiful, nor because it becomes lonely when only humans are left on Earth, that one wants to protect nature?" Miyazaki asked.
"I don't know, there should be such people, at least there should be," Aoki Haruhi said.
"Eh? That's too pessimistic, Aoki-san." Joe Hisaishi shook his head, handing him a small dried fish. "I, ah, still hope to move towards something beautiful."
Aoki Haruhi chuckled, took the dried fish, and chewed a couple of bites.
"But, nature, living beings, the environment—these are all interdependent," Aoki Haruhi said. "Actually, no one can do without anyone else."
"It's true there are contradictions, but the Earth and the creatures on it nourish humanity, and humanity is also improving all of this in its own way. Wouldn't it be better to coexist harmoniously and embrace the future?
Why must we always be in opposition?"
Ah... Mm... Uh...
The two old men were silenced. How did it feel like he was saying everything?
But Miyazaki still thought seriously for two seconds.
"So, Aoki-san, do you think I should give it a harmonious coexistence ending?" Miyazaki asked.
"Eh?"
This question stumped Aoki Haruhi.
The ending of princess mononoke is actually open-ended.
But through a series of intensified and then resolved conflicts, it can better provoke thought in the audience.
If I were to change the ending with just one sentence...
Aoki Haruhi quickly said, "Miyazaki, you haven't even shown me the storyboards, how would I know what kind of story it is?"
Aoki Haruhi indicated: If the ending changes, I can't take the blame for it.
"Besides, this question itself is very difficult to have a unified answer," Aoki Haruhi said. "The three of us have different ideas, let alone the audience. Such a profound topic should be left for the audience to ponder themselves."
Miyazaki chuckled, "You're right, you're right. That's what I originally thought."
Digging out the current situation and contradictions and presenting them to the audience is enough.
The three fell silent for two seconds.
"Humans, ah, are too insignificant," Miyazaki sighed, smacking his lips. "On a cosmic scale, we are nothing at all."
"But humans are also great, aren't they?" Aoki Haruhi asked with a smile.
Miyazaki frowned slightly. Good heavens, this conversation couldn't continue.
"Yes! Humans are also great," Miyazaki nodded reluctantly.
...
The few people sat silently by the small river, the guide standing by, unable to interject a single word, seeing them so engrossed in thought that he didn't know whether to urge them on.
After all, it was a 10-hour round trip.
Just then, Joe Hisaishi, sitting nearby, pulled a short flute from his backpack and began to play it.
Aoki Haruhi was dumbfounded.
My goodness, when did you get that thing?
However, a melodious flute sound quickly echoed through the forest. Aoki Haruhi listened for a moment. Although it differed slightly from the princess mononoke theme song in his memory, he could already hear the nascent form within it.
His little heart beat with the flute's melody, and Aoki Haruhi involuntarily saw the image of princess mononoke standing on the mountaintop, stroking the white wolf's body.
A gust of wind blew, raising layers of waves across the sea of trees.
The pentatonic scale, which is precisely very Eastern.
As for Japan, they mostly prefer to use 4 and 7, both of which are semitones.
It had a very peculiar feeling.
"Oh, no wonder."
Aoki Haruhi thought, no wonder he felt such a surge of emotion when listening to princess mononoke; it turned out to be because its soul was Chinese in flavor.
Very Eastern music, only performed by Joe Hisaishi through an orchestra, making it grand and magnificent on the foundation of Eastern charm.
Listening to the wind, the rustling sounds coming from the forest.
Aoki Haruhi suddenly had a strange realization.
This trip was not in vain.
Miyazaki also put down his brush, listening intently.
However, Joe Hisaishi himself had only written a few measures.
The music abruptly stopped, and Aoki Haruhi was almost moved to tears.
"Wow, what wonderful music," Miyazaki exclaimed. "I can already see the imagery."
He turned to look at Joe Hisaishi, "If it were to be sung by a human voice,"
"We'd need to find a girl with an ethereal voice to sing it, right?"
"Mm." Joe Hisaishi nodded. "Otherwise, it would be a child, but a child might not be able to understand it as deeply."
Aoki Haruhi remained silent beside them.
It was quite interesting, speaking of which.
Because the final performer of "Mononoke Hime" was a male.
His name was Yoshikazu Mera.
But if you didn't know him, you'd think his voice sounded like a female's.
Yoshikazu Mera later became a famous singer in Japan. In the field of singing, his unique style of singing is called countertenor.
Zhou Shen, who later became very popular, followed this path.
...
Ah... this is great, these two are so efficient!
However, Aoki Haruhi couldn't help but worry; these two could find their own inspiration and their own unique elements.
But as for how to make the game game for princess mononoke, and what it should look like, Aoki Haruhi had no inspiration at all in his mind.
It wasn't that he had no inspiration at all; mostly, they were fragmented pieces that couldn't be put together.
Damn it, if it wasn't done well, it would ruin his own reputation and disappoint Miyazaki's expectations.
If such a good IP were messed up, Miyazaki might really never cooperate with the game industry again.