9 Famous Storylines That Hollywood Stole From Anime

5. Avatar (Princess Mononoke)

There was a huge amount of discussion and criticism aimed at Avatar after its release, with many claiming that the film's story was almost identical to Disney's Pocahontas. While it's true that James Cameron's epic shares more than just a passing resemblance to the Disney classic, there's another animated film out there that Avatar owes its success to. Princess Mononoke. Given how successful Studio Ghibli films have been both in Japan and the West, it's hardly surprising that there would be at least one huge Hollywood film that borrowed heavily from them. Princess Mononoke was released more than 10 years before Avatar, but features a story that's eerily similar to the big-budget James Cameron film. It follows Ashitaka, a prince that travels to Irontown searching for a cure for a curse he received after killing an exiled forest dweller. Upon arriving at Irontown, it becomes apparent that the town's founder - Eboshi - has been gradually destroying the nearby forest - the home of animal gods and spirits - for the procurement of valuable ironsand. The forest spirits despise humans because of this destruction, and eventually go to war with them to stop the continuing destruction.

It sounds familiar right? It's an almost word-for-word retelling of Avatar's story, just with different names and locations. The humans in Avatar want to harvest the valuable minerals of Pandora, home of the Na'vi, with the two races eventually coming to blows over the destruction of a forest world that's home to a god. Heck, the only difference between the two films narratives is the whole concept of an Avatar - the process of transferring human consciousness to an empty Na'vi body.