Mononoke are vengeful spirits that visit suffering and death on the living (you may know of them thanks to Studio Ghibli’s 1997 film “Princess Mononoke,” to which this film has no connection). The 2007 anime series “Mononoke” traced the adventures of an unnamed medicine seller as he traveled Japan during the late Edo Period (1603-1868), exorcizing mononoke using a mysterious sword.
The medicine seller (voiced by Hiroshi Kamiya, replacing Takahiro Sakurai in the role) is back in “Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain,” a long-in-development cinematic sequel to that series.
In the new film, directed and co-written by original series director Kenji Nakamura, the medicine seller visits Edo Castle, where two young women, Asa (Tomoyo Kurosawa) and Kame (Aoi Yuki) are about to begin work as servants in the Ooku, the women’s quarters of the castle that men are forbidden to enter. Asa and Kame discover that within the deeply hierarchical and rivalry-ridden Ooku lurks a vengeful spirit that threatens to destroy the pair and potentially the entire castle. Good thing the medicine seller is nearby.