MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Since it’s release in 1985, Mamoru Oshii’s film Angel’s Egg has remained an enigma, it’s strange allegorical nature continues to raise many questions about it’s true meaning and the director’s purpose for creating it, all of which have remained unanswered. Unfortunately, without any official confirmation and little to no information written about the film itself the message of Angel’s Egg is left up to mere speculation making a decipher of the film difficult, but not impossible. This essay explores my personal interpretation as well as outside opinions of symbols seen throughout Angle’s Egg and considers Mamoru Oshii’s connection to those symbols in order to come to a conclusion as to what the film represents as a whole. To reach said conclusion I decipher apparent Christian symbols individually while referring to biblical texts and finding many possible meanings for each, then by using interviews, biographies, and past films of the director I analyze Mamoru Oshii’s own negative outlook on religion itself, finally presenting the possible meanings that Angel’s Egg holds and the message the director was trying to convey. Angel’s Egg demonstrates an ability to create multiple interpretations through the overall allegorical nature of the film while acting as a window into the mind of Mamoru Oshii and his own feelings he has for both religion and art. I argue that, although interpretations of the film are not official they, in their own respect, are crucial to analyzing Angel’s Egg, understanding Mamoru Oshii, and answering the lingering questions viewers have and will have about Angel’s Egg.