I guess I was a little underwhelmed by the plot. Compare it to Nausicaa, which has a similar situation in which the Tolmekians initially seem “evil” but eventually it seems they just want to bring back humanity. The climax of the film is pretty obvious in Nausicaa, and as I remember Mononoke had it’s own “moment of finding balance”, but it was a little less convincing. So yeah, maybe I’ll get more out of it this time.