Windaria

[sothis]

Windaria
(a.k.a. Once Upon A Time)

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Story/Summary:
(Taken from the Anime Rec. DB)
In a land filled with magic and mystery, two rival kingdoms are readying for war: Isa, the beautiful water-laden city, and Paro, the industrialized wasteland. Windaria follows the tale of two sets of lovers: Marin and Izu, a young pair of farmers who are devoted to one another, and Ahanas and Jill, princess and prince of the rival kingdoms. With war approaching, these star-crossed lovers will experience the true depth of tragedy as they struggle to survive.

As stated above, Windaria is a tragedy, period. It's interesting because when you first start watching it, it seems fairly light-hearted fantasy, but after a bit the foreshadowing is quite strong and you realize that this is perhaps not a movie for the kiddies.

Windaria (as said above) follows two pairs of star-crossed lovers, and how they become involved in the upcoming war. Marin and Izu are two younger people who are completely devoted to each other, and like selling their vegetables at Isu, the beautiful city on the water. Jill (yes, that's a guys name in this movie for some reason) and Ahanas are the prince and princess (respectively) of the two kingdoms. They are in love, but cannot be wed, for the rulers of the two kingdoms are set on war. Betrayal and duty are two huge themes in this, since Jill is torn between his duty to go to war, and his reluctance to do so because of his promise to Ahanas that he would never do so. In any event, you can be sure that many, many sad things happen.

Animation:
For something from 1986, I was really shocked. BEAUTIFUL colors were used, and the scenery was amazing. The huge tree of Windaria was always a stunning site, and the ghost ship with the eerie red spirits of the dead were creepy. The character designs were the only thing that showed its age... huge older looking eyes, and Izu looked a bit wacky all the time. Other than him, everyone else looked great, regardless of the passage of time. There was a decent amount of violence, which I guess was censored from the dubbed release.

Music:
Really good. Reminiscent of a Ghibli movie, but more sweeping and interesting than some of the older Ghibli works. A foreshadowing tune definitely got the point across when appropriate, just as an evil tune did. Very appropriate music all the way around.

Overall: 9/10
Windaria is just great. Great storyline (though, admittedly, not completely unique.. Romeo and Juliet definitely comes to mind), very tragic and depressing in general (complete with the really depressing, but fitting ending), great animation, great music... great all around. I would highly suggest not reading reviews from other sites, since they do sometimes spoil the main tragic events which occur. (BOO!! why don't people realize they shouldn't spoil in a review?). Many reviewers also reviewed the DUBBED version, which, based on what I have read, is almost like watching an entirely different movie. It was ported over to be aimed at very young children, thus the script is almost totally rewritten. About 6 minutes of violence has been cut out, music changed, etc. Supposedly it makes the seriousness totally get thrown out the window, and I guess they even changed the text at the end so it wasn't as sad. As far as I'm concerned, if that is true, only watched the subtitled version, because as a tragedy, this movie was quite effective.

Wow. Thanks for the review, Sothis...

This little flick, though it looks older, seems right up my alley. Depressing in that uniquely asian way.

(God, I've gotta stop doing school stuff and start posting more of the reviews I've meant to put up.)

[ParaParaJMo]

YouTube - GrapplerJMo Anime Review Windaria

Story and Characters
In the fantasy world of Windaria, based on a novel by Fujikawa Keisuke, two kingdoms, Itha and Paro (also known as Lunaria and the Shadowlands in the dub) are on the brink of war. Despite that, Princess Ahnass of Itha and Prince Jill of Paro are in love and hope war can be prevented. But Jill’s father is hell bent on taking over Itha, and Ahnass’ mother feels it is her duty to defend her kingdom. However, a minister of Paro looks to Izu, our main character, named Allen in the dub, a carefree farmer who resides in the valley of blossoms that borders both kingdoms to report to the royal family in hopes of preventing a war. If he succeeds in his mission, he will be handsomely rewarded.

All I can say is, if you want pure literature in anime, something along the lines of Shakespeare and a true anime classic, then this it. It was previously released by Streamline and Harmony Gold in 1987, a year after its release in Japan originally under the title Once Upon a Time, but later re-named back to its original title. This anime tells a great tale of not just love and war, but about duty and loyalty to your family and yourself. The characters are captivating and unique, but I don’t like what the Streamline version did with Izu. In the original Japanese version, Izu is more care free and doesn’t really fear for the worst, while in the dub, he’s presented more as serious and is more idealistic and an older version of him narrates the story in the dub while there was no narration in the original Japanese version. Even though the changes present are significant in relation to the context, it doesn’t overall deviate the intentions or violates the quality of this anime, for the story and characters, I give a 9.25/10.

Art and Animation
The style and design for 1986 was far beyond its time. Though considered old school by our standards today, when you view it from the point of view of its original release, it just truly amazes me of how well detailed the characters and settings are. The designs like I said are not only detailed, but you’re getting a huge range that isn’t stylistically one-dimensional though they are archetypical. Of course you got the pretty looking girls like Marian, Izu’s wife, and you also have the testosterone-taking Queen despite having a beautiful daughter. So I’m glad there’s really no repetition to the design. Though I wouldn’t say the art and animation is the same league of Akira, which came out a few years later, the execution of its respective concept just truly made it breath taking. But then again, they are different styles so you really can’t compare them in that approach. The battle sequences aren’t really at the levels of something like Braveheart but they do a good job of conveying how pointless and trivial the war between the two nations is. But some of the mechanical concepts in context to medieval setting of the story brings a Miyazaki like quality to it in both presentation and story telling. For the art and animation, I have to give it a 9/10.

Music and Voice Acting
Despite significant script changes and characterization, the acting in the dub is still very superb and masterful. I say it’s far superior to a lot of dubs to this day. The selected actors do a tremendous job of bringing their characters to life and you feel their portrayals. I don’t really know the names of those involved in the dub, but I feel that these are the best-unknown dub actors you’ll ever hear regardless of what was changed. But if you want to watch Windaria for the story it was intended to be told in, naturally you’ll have to go to the Japanese version. I was able to distinct some iconic names. To start off, Izu is played by Furuya Tooru, most famous as being Amuro from Gundam, Seiya from Saint Seiya, and Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon. He’s excellent in Izu’s portrayal of being carefree and optimistic, while the English actor does a great job of portraying him as serious and realistic in context to the situation. And Inoue Kazuhiko, who is famous to casual fans of Naruto and to Narutards alike as the voice of Kakashi, also plays a huge role as Prince Jill who brings a unique kind of charisma to the character as he does with all of his roles. For the English dub, rather than script and dialog change as mentioned earlier, the execution is enough to be convincing that Windaria still shares its unique distinction in Japanese anime and animation as a whole.

The soundtrack also accurately depicts the timeless romanticism that is demonstrated throughout this series as well as its fantasy setting. The Japanese track has a few insert Japanese pop songs that still capture what Windaria is all about. To sum it all up, the music and voice acting get a 9.5/10.

Overall
To conclude, I will address the outrage that some fans would have over the changes and omissions the English release has, and this goes for other anime throughout the 1980s such as Robotech and Voltron. You have to keep in mind that when those series came to America, there was really no official anime market at the time and this was the only way to have any direct exposure to Japanese anime. Fansubs weren’t yet conceived and who the hell heard of subs vs dubs debates? I feel that Carl Maceck is in no ways an Al Kahn or a Haim Saban. Granted that Robotech upon initially watching it during its heyday didn’t exactly tell you what anime was nor was it 100% a true American adaptation of its Japanese counter parts, I felt that Robotech nor was the American version of Windaria dumbed down to a point where it loses their unique distinctions rather than the fact they are from Japan. I still feel they tell excellent quality stories with realistic characters and a new way to view animation, though the why wasn’t really there. While with 4Kids, they want to omit every Japanese reference as possible and their edits are just of course stupid and trivial to a point where it truly loses its distinction as an anime. But look at Ronin Warriors and Sailor Moon in English. Granted there were some changes, but Japanese references and settings weren’t edited out. And hell, those two animes in their English versions kept their death scenes. I felt the English Windaria still retains its distinguishing qualities such as the presentation of Japanese values such as giri ninjo meaning duty and obligation in a more universal presentation with its fantasy setting which gets an overall score of a 9.25/10.

[sothis]

changing the ending of one of the best tragedies around from an utter tragedy to something with happy music and a positive twist is more than an outrage.

[ParaParaJMo]

I felt if the changes were applied today, I think I'd be upset about it. But I try to be forgiving just because of the differences of the anime in American twenty five years ago, and now. I mean, it's not like I had internet "alternatives" available to me at the time.

But I don't think I'll have the same level of forgiveness come the time I review Go Lion

[valondar]

Originally Posted by ParaParaJMo

Fansubs weren’t yet conceived and who the hell heard of subs vs dubs debates?

Windaria was held up as the poster child for the sub debate.

[ParaParaJMo]

was there ever an official sub release of windaria?