San (Mononoke Hime)

San, otherwise known as Princess Mononoke or the "Wolf Girl," is the main character along with Ashitaka, in Princess Mononoke anime film.

San acts, behaves, and resembles a wolf due to the fact that she was raised by wolves themselves. San is the Princess of the Wolf Gods.

Appearance
San is a beautiful young woman of average build who wears ragged clothing and a cape made of a wolf's fur, and has what appears to be red war paint on her face. She wears a head necklace with a single small gem in her front. She also bears short, straight, fluffy hair and has blue eyes with bangs slightly parted in the middle. She has a medium necklace with three fangs tied across her neck. She wears long dangling, oval shaped earrings during the whole film. She is also very agile, fast, fairly strong and appears to be really good at using daggers and spears. She wears a mask which is her iconic feature. The mask is red with ears and white wavy lines and three yellow holes for a mouth and eyes.

Personality
Albeit a literal warrior-princess, San is fundamentally defined by her appreciation of nature. Being adopted by the wolf goddess Moro when she was but a infant, the "Wolf Girl", as expected, develops a wild personality. However, despite her (justified) coldness towards humans, she is highly capable of compassion.

This is initially a quality she only exhibits towards the inhabitants of the forest (animals, gods, and other beings), but as later shown throughout the movie, by the slow and gradual, but real progress of hers and Ashitaka's bond, she is also able to accept and even develop admiration, and even affection for a fellow human - process that also helps her accept her own humanity.

She is stubborn, short-tempered, courageous, and protective, her primary concern being to protect the forest and animals she lives with. At first, San rejects her own humanity and seems to be quite misanthropic, also thinking of herself only as a wolf. Despite this, she eventually falls in love with Ashitaka, who was the first to fall for her.

Trivia

 * In the original concept of Princess Mononoke, San was the third princess of a kingdom that was sent off to marry a monster, hence her current name, San, meaning "three". However, it was later changed to the movie's current plot, San being the third "child" of Moro.