I usually have a "great artists steal" attitude but given so many Chinese animations/pop culture works are unfairly sullied by accusations of plagiarism by fans of Japanese pop culture (not implying you are one of them), I want to point out that a case can be made that Mononoke Hime is basically a Japanese adaptation of the first two books of Ursula K. Le Guin's Earth Sea cycle.
I just glossed over wiki synopsis of both books. It is true that Miyazaki liked the Earthsea Chronicles, but I dont quite see large 1 to 1 plot and story translation towards this work in particular.
Can you please elaborate where Monoke it intersects with the earthsea cronicles, I havent read the books only online synopsis so I definetly dont know things.
Spoilers.
From what I see is that Monoke is deeply rooted in japonic cultural setting and beliefs, less so in magic and personal strife, as in earthsea's 1&2 books.
Set in a time, late Heian, early Kamakura, where mythical beasts still roamed the vast forests of japan (even today 68% of japan is forest) and the conflict between Emishi, Nature and Yamato boils to a lethal convergence.
With the dying Emishi/Ezo people and their male heir being cursed by a deadly disease, this reflects the vanishing of the emishi people ( same can be said about the hayato and later ainu and ryukyu).
Then the internal strife between warlords (Taira and Minamoto wars), also deeply japonic as is zhanguo shidai is deeply sinic.
Lady Eboshi, being a strong female lead, outclassing any male character in the film even ashitaka maybe, very uncommon at that time , 11th century in the story, and even by inception of the film, 1980s.
The treatment of the poor, former prostitutes, slaves and the leprose by lady eboshi.
All very unusual, yet very forsighted.
The conflict between man and nature in terms of Iron town vs. the Cedar forest, a leitmotif even for today. In it intertwined mankinds conflict with itself, see Eboshi vs. Asano's Samurai/The Mikado.
Mononoke Hime, a feral Child, born by human, raised by the Wolf Spirits of the forest, having seen mankinds transgressions against nature, sees herself not as man but as beast.
Reflecting an immigrants view towards their roots. For example ABC or overseas Chinese in general.
Mononoke frequently denies herself to be human, insisting to be wolf, only the cataclysm leads her to change.
Young Ethnic Chinese, who dont know where they belong neither white nor chinese (in cultural terms) have the same internal fights as mononoke, denying, even hating their chinese-ness and whoreshipping white culture. Maybe they to, can embrace their roots, as mononoke in the end did.
The destruction of the forest by humans, causes ailments to its inhabitants, the apes get insane, wanting to eat humans, the boars lose their sapience and ability to speech, rendering themselves to mear lifestock. The wolfs die out.
Religion and superstition being the poison it is, is the main antagonistic factor towards the end. With emperor mikado wanting to consume a gods head to become immortal, while his delusional wish is causing the deaths of a many thousands.
In total I see a deeply rooted connection to japanese mythology and philosphy, many of which have importance in the sinic world too.
Many of the aspects are 1 to 1 also in chinese nature, culturally, historically, and in frequent times with enviromental protection.
And I wish that chinese animation can achieve an equally capable way of telling the Chinese story, with Nezha: New Gods and Jiangziya we have to good contenders, but they just scratch the surface in comparison to what mononoke revealed.
