Ranked #2252

Sirius no Densetsu

Hey this is my second review for a show that hasn't gotten any recognition.

Story-Well its the Romeo Juliet esque plot line with two sets of parents and or families in which despise each other. The introductory part of the story tells how the Water god and Fire god came into conflict.The sea prince is the son of the Water god at first he shows a trait for running away on his escapades. Conversingly the fire princess and or fire child is dutiful to her mother at first( guarding the flame etc..). After the two main characters encounter each other is less friendly with an exchange of verbose name calling, but this is due to their parents respectively portraying the other side in a pejorative manner. Then of course after several meetings the veneer that taught them to hate each other was reproved. Afterwards segments of conflict insue in whether they can coexist and love one another.

Art-This show finished airing in the early 1980's. Don't expect pristine depictions of any scenery or setting. However the animation looked disney liked at times or similar to the style used by Ghibli films. For its epoch its quite well done and rarely are there any inconsistencies with the characters.

Sound-The music is clandestine and classical, almost scintillating that it illustrates the relationship between the characters.It's quite profound with the calming effects and peacefulness gained with the two main characters together without interruption.

Character-Sirius the sea prince is more akin the adventurous and disobient type. He adjusted rather quickly with the fire society disproving of his relationship with Malta. Malta however is calculating, calm and obedient for the most part but she also has her curious nature. Sirius had a direct influence on her changing of character in developing to become less dependent or questioning.

Enjoyment- The movie had its cheesy moments but that's what you should expect from Romeo and Juliet type romance. Childish and facile at times making it a proponent of disney themes but that doesn't trump the serious and poignant relationship that the main characters have for each other.

Overall-If you would like to diversify your list with an antiquated theme thats been done before but with different characterisations. The dosage of disney themes that this show ascribes to maybe be perilous to some. Overall a pretty good movie for its intended audience.


read more

ANIME MOVIE DEPOT SERIES
Full list of the review series can be found on this page, 3rd post from bottom:
http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?uid=251338&show=userpage&do=blog&blogid=29009&page=0

Another one of those works you could easily misplace for cartoon. Legend of Sirius is an oldie most don’t remember, yet it packs a lot of magic and artistic expression despite its years. In fact, for a family movie it is quite unorthodox as it is not cheery and easygoing.

As most who have watched and commented it, I also see it as a crossbreed between the fairy tale of The Little Mermaid and Shakespeare’s novel of Romeo and Juliet. The visuals are quite close to those of Walt Disney’s version of the Little Mermaid. Everything looks full of life and movement, with vivid motions, and perky grimaces. The Sea World in particular is amazing with its set of unique house features, sea creatures and underwater temple. The Fire Land is not shown as much and lacks the focus of the sea but it is still quite unique at its presentation as well.

I must point out that it could look a lot better than it does. The animators preferred a very stylish and simple way of depicting the characters, yet you see in the ending credits the original sketches. Frankly, the movie is wonderful to look but it is not exotic enough as you may expect for an otherworld setting. The original imagery was much closer to Norse mythology than central Europe modern cartoons, so it kind of looks inferior to the original.

Still, for what it shows it feels quite epic and inspiring, with worlds colliding, tsunamis and huge fireballs and eclipses, heavenly sunrays, and omnipresent elemental Gods, accompanied by orchestra music pieces, full of angst and raw power, conveying feelings in a flash. And they do so in a lot more successful way than most modern series and movies do.

Still, don’t be fooled to think that the movie is just like Walt Disney’s Little Mermaid. If you didn’t know, the normal ending of the fairy tale is not a happy one. Several characters die in it, despite looking cheery enough to believe they do not deserve to die. And in the Japanese fashion, there are lesbian tendencies in one of the characters. Plus, although the story features a bad guy, he is never shown doing anything. He is already defeated by the beginning of the film. In fact, all the conflict in the movie revolves around the aftereffects of his scheme, and not a scheme that can be avoided by defeating him. So, yeah, it feels quite original to have a story where two sides are not separated in good and evil and don’t even try to defeat the big bad as an objective for a good ending. The bad guy is gone, yet the two sides refuse to forgive one another.

Just in the case of Romeo and Juliet, it is about selfishness and egoism and not some clear-cut ideal of righteousness. Still, the ending is not a complete tragedy just like in the case of Romeo and Juliet. It is very sad but has its spark of hope.

In all, this movie is almost a must for all retro lovers and people who can still appreciate an animated drama. To be honest, it is a lot better to see it as art and on an emotional level and not as a complete story on a logical level. The scenario is quite simple in all and has an almost dualistic approach to everything. Plus, the ending is a bit forced, with unknown powerful magic doing all the work and love breaking the fabric of reality just like that. Still, if you don’t try to reason everything it is a wonderful family movie, far better than most of Walt Disney’s classics, as it is not politically correct and does not pass the idea that evil is external to the heroes and personified enough to be killed and get rid of that easily.

SUGGESTION LIST
Windaria
Gall Force read more

Legend of Sirius is a Dis­ney Movie. OK, it’s not by Dis­ney or by any of the staff from Dis­ney, but not a single aspect of it makes me feel like it ori­gin­ated from Japan, obvi­ously helped by watch­ing the dub. It’s a re ima­gin­ing of the clas­sic Romeo and Juliet tale except this time set in a myth­ical land between Fire People and Water People. Because if there’s ever two things that don’t get along, fire vs water is only beaten by light vs dark and moe fans vs mecha fans. So much of this is clas­sic Dis­ney. The main char­ac­ter has a wise-cracking smal­ler friend who helps him out when he is in a des­per­ate state towards the end of the movie. He also has doo­fus rival who comes in and messes up his plans in a sig­ni­fic­ant way where as earlier he was just a minor annoy­ance. There’s even the ever clas­sic ‘for­bid­den zone’, that is actu­ally called in-story the ‘for­bid­den zone, where the main char­ac­ter can’t go but does so any­way and makes his father angry. The more you look at it, the less it becomes Romeo and Juliet and the more it looks like The Lion King.

The anim­a­tion style has come straight out of Fantasia. Again, none of this looks like anime in any way. The pen­cil lines to depict the roar­ing waves is very Night on Bald Moun­tain. The way the show sets it’s frames comes out of clas­sic Dis­ney as well with the way it draws the centre focus of the pic­ture in a eth­er­eal glow next to the hard pen­cil lined back­grounds they were set against. This was pretty under­stand­able given the centre focus of a shot was often a Being of Fire and hence are meant to glow. It’s often been touted that Ghibli are a Japan­ese Ghibli, which is a pretty accur­ate descrip­tion. How­ever the fact remains that Ghibli still feels Japan­e­sey and has it’s own unique style. Legend of Sirius is not Ghibli. It is Disney.

None of this is a bad thing, des­pite my descrip­tion of it sound­ing like look­ing like the work of the most suc­cess­ful anim­a­tion com­pany of all time would be a bad thing. It’s just the easi­est way to get you to pic­ture what this movie is like. Because this movie, like much of clas­sic Dis­ney, is really damn good. There is the slight feel­ing that I’m in the wrong age bracket for this movie obvi­ously, neither being below the age of 10 nor old enough to hav­ing 10 year olds call me dad. This is very much a fam­ily movie, des­pite the obvi­ous tragedy that is the Romeo and Juliet story. The movie does work the story into a hope­ful and beau­ti­ful end­ing, but I still found myself feel­ing pretty sad by the end of it all. I’d got­ten myself really into the corny ideal­istic romance of Malta and Sirius. Well, See–ree-oos as Malta called him. No won­der the guy went batty for her when she had such a sexy accent, although wear­ing no clothes and hav­ing high heels nat­ur­ally built into her physique prob­ably helped.

Oh yes, I should prob­ably add that you should watch this dubbed. Watch­ing it in Japan­ese des­troys the Dis­ney feel of it and detracts from the beau­ti­ful art­work you should be ogling at. This is the type of movie corny line deliv­ery adds to the exper­i­ence. And since you’re watch­ing it dubbed, you might as well watch it as it was inten­ded. That is, stick it on one day when you’ve got to keep kids quiet for 2 hours but don’t want to stick on the bullcrap that passes for children’s tele­vi­sion nowadays. They may try to hide behind the couch when the big vil­lain makes his tentacley appear­ance (I cer­tainly wanted to) and dry a few tears when the inev­it­able end­ing occurs, but it’s well worth the watch for the excel­lent storytelling and ima­gin­at­ive world building. read more