In 'Princess Mononoke', the wolf goddess is Moro. She is an enormous, ancient wolf who leads a pack in the forest and raises the human girl San as her adopted daughter. Moro fiercely opposes the expansion of Irontown and its destruction of the natural world.
Moro is not simply a large animal; she is one of the film's animal gods, or kami-like spirits. Her conflict with Lady Eboshi reflects the film's central tension between industrial development and the living forest. Although Moro distrusts humans, she accepts San and treats her as family, which makes San's position between humanity and the gods especially important.
The name can be confused with “Mononoke,” the title's term for a supernatural or vengeful spirit, or with the Forest Spirit, a separate deity who appears as a deer-like being and the Night-Walker. Moro is also distinct from San, who is the human girl commonly called Princess Mononoke. The film was released in Japan in 1997.