Windaria (Once Upon a Time)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Tales of Windaria, Windaria: Legend of Fabulous Battle, Douwa Meita Senshi Windaria

Japanese: ウインダリア, 童話めいた戦史ウインダリア

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 19, 1986

Producers: Gallop

Licensors: ADV Films, Harmony Gold, Streamline Pictures

Studios: Kaname Productions, Idol

Source: Original

Genres: Action, Drama, Fantasy, Romance, Sci-Fi

Duration: 1 hr. 40 min.

Rating: R+ - Mild Nudity

Statistics

Score: 6.60¹ (scored by 4,191 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #6790²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #6409

Members: 10,017

Favorites: 30

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Synopsis

The non-aggression pact between the flourishing maritime city of Itha and the barren military state of Paro comes to an end when the latter's greedy monarch attempts to sabotage Itha and target its riches. Following this dreadful incident, the escalating animosity on each side disturbs the happiness of Itha's princess Ahnas and Paro's prince Jill, both of whom are deeply in love.

The peaceful farmers from the village of Saki are worried as well. With their land separating Itha and Paro, they risk getting caught in the crossfire of an upcoming battle. Yet there is one among them that does not share such fear. Izu—an ambitious, energetic young man—sees this war as an opportunity to gain fame and wealth. Enticed by Paro's promise of a generous reward, he readily answers the kingdom's call for help, vowing to his beloved wife Marin that they will soon reunite.

Feeling heartbroken, Marin becomes engrossed in prayer for her husband's safe return. Meanwhile, Ahnas and Jill are determined to not let their positions or their families' hostilities come between them. But will these young people's genuine love prevail over human foolishness and vices, or will it be sacrificed to petty ambitions?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Although the story was originally conceived for the production of an anime, Windaria first appeared as a novel titled Douwa Meita Senshi Windaria four months prior to the movie's release. As stated in the postscript, the author believed this reading would further entice people to watch the film.

The movie was broadcasted several times on Yomiuri TV's Anime Daisuki! program. An English version was made available under the title Once Upon a Time by Harmony Gold in 1987. However, in order to make it suitable for a younger audience, major changes were made: the exclusion of some nudity and violent scenes, modification of the script, new character names, and added narration.

In Japan, Windaria was initially distributed to home video by Victor Entertainment, which later released it on DVD on December 16, 2000. In the US, it was made available on VHS as Windaria by Streamline Pictures on August 1, 1993, and on DVD as Once Upon a Time by ADV Films on March 16, 2004. Additionally, a video game adaptation titled Dungeon of Windaria was released in Japan by Nintendo on May 15, 2008.

Kinoshita, Yumi
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Macek, Carl

Producer, Script, ADR Director

Yuyama, Kunihiko

Director

Watanabe, Jun

Sound Director

Matsuura, Noriyoshi

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

"Yakusoku" by Akino Arai

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Ending Theme

"Utsukushii Hoshi (美しい星)" by Akino Arai

Reviews

Oct 11, 2008

ParaParaJMo

Recommended

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.

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.

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 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.

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Mar 24, 2014

vigorousjammer

Mixed Feelings

So, I just finished watching Windaria. To be specific, it was the original Japanese version, subtitled by the "Live-eviL" fan-sub group.

Well, let's start with the art. For a film from 1986, it looks VERY nice. The animation is smooth, varied, and has a lot of nice, subtle touches. It still looks dated by today's standards, but is still pretty easy to appreciate. The world is also pretty beautifully realized, with some gorgeous looking background art. The character art is all pretty standard for the era, but the quality of the animation makes them stand out more than they otherwise would.

As for the story, this is ... where it really falls apart for me. The movie starts off fine, and the characters start to develop. You start to get a feel for the world, and the story arc, and despite it being paced somewhat slowly, it still seemed pretty well put together. However, about halfway through the story, things change. Characters that were developed early-on start arbitrarily changing their motivations left and right, seemingly for no reason. Yet, other characters feel lifeless, like an empty shell, with no real depth to them whatsoever. This makes it difficult to like any of the characters, and as such, the story ends up falling flat, since it's very focused on them.

The pacing also seemed to get slower and slower as the film went on. There's a lot of filler shots, and it made me feel like I was just waiting for the next thing to happen. However, even when that next thing happened, I wasn't satisfied with it, because it usually involved one of the characters, who are all so completely unlikable that anything that happened involving them didn't matter to me. The film entirely failed to be captivating, and by the last 30 minutes, I was kind of just waiting for it to be over. Then it ended, and I still didn't feel satisfied. I felt like the ending was supposed to make me cry, but it didn't, because I wasn't emotionally invested in any of the characters. After all was said and done, I kind of just felt like I wasted my time.

Yet, despite all that, I still find the movie oddly charming. I don't think it's good by any stretch, but it has a few decent moments in the beginning and middle of it. Also, the animation probably would have really wowed me 10 or 15 years ago, and it's still good today, but it's not good enough to push everything else to the side and focus solely on that. However, that seems like exactly what this movie tries to do. It substitutes well-formed characters and a well-paced story arc for some visual flair. It ultimately ends up being far less than what it could have otherwise been, if a little extra care went into the story and the characters.

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May 24, 2014

Fel_Temp

Not Recommended

The most frustrating movies to watch are the ones where a good director is trying to work with a garbage script, and I don't think there's a better example of this in anime than Windaria. The characters are two dimensional at best, and their motivations rarely make much sense. Why does the one kingdom want to invade the other? Because they're evil, I guess. Why do they think the best way to do this is to flood the city, thereby destroying anything of value within? Who knows? Why does the prince, who had previously been begging his father to ...