Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama

Rama, the eldest prince of the Kingdom of Ayodhya, is beloved by all and the natural successor to his father's throne. However, when one of his father's wives conspires to get her son on the throne instead, Rama ends up being banished into the woods for 14 years. Accompanied by his wife, Sita, and his brother, Lakshman—Rama tries to make the most of life in exile despite his challenges.

The trio's life in the forest is interrupted, however, when Demon King Ravan sets his sights on Sita. Using a crafty plan, he manages to distract Rama and steal Sita away to his castle. Heartbroken and distraught, Rama searches every corner of the world for his wife, unaware of the lengths he will have to go to rescue her.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Rama Main

Sita Main

Hanuman Main

Ravan Main

Lakshman Supporting

Sakou, Yuugou Director, Script

Sasaki, Kouichi Director

Valmiki Original Creator

Taniguchi, Moriyasu Character Design

Reviews

Apr 14, 2018

Anshu_Prince

Recommended

It's an epic story based on the Indian epic poem written by Valmiki(Ratnakkardah).Lord Ram is beleived to be 7th incarnation of Indian God Vishnu.The joureny starts when Lord Ram was just 15 and the devil King Ravan was at peak of his powers.The character shown By Lord Ram is definitely one to be thrive towards.The story is well written and every character is important.Story just doesn't revolve around Ram,Sita,Lakshman and Ravan.There is subtle importance of all the characters.Sound effects considering the technology present are very good.It is overall very good story with happy but incomplete ending.Overall it is worth watching once in a ... life.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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May 29, 2019

ktulu007

Recommended

In 1992, Japan and India were celebrating 40 years of strong diplomatic ties. A part of the celebration was this project. Which was worked on by Japanese & Indian animation studios alike and based off of the Hindu epic, Ramayana. 

I'll be honest, I'm not super familiar with the epic. As such, I probably won't notice if the film gets some details wrong. You'll have to wait for the anime versions of The Iliad, Beowulf & Journey to the West to see me get into heavy scholarly detail about adaptation differences.

Story: 

We open with a countryside being terrorised by demons. Or maybe they're just British imperials in ... funny outfits. In any case, a Hindu holy man beseeches Vishnu for guidance. A golden light tells him to go to Ayodhya and bring Prince Rama who can defeat the imperial demons. He does as he asks and Prince Rama handily saves the countryside and finds himself a pretty young bride, Sita, during the journey. Everything is looking up for him until his father sends him into exile to keep a promise and his wife is kidnapped by the demon Ravan. 

The biggest issue with the film's narrative is that scenes don't always flow smoothly. Take Sita's abduction for example. We see Rama chasing a demon disguised as a golden deer. He seems to barely move out of sight when he shoots it. We then watch his brother, Lakshman, get fooled by the demon faking his voice. So, he pours holy... salt around Sita to protect her. He leaves. Ravan disguises as a priest tricks her into crossing over the salt and has time to escape before they return. The point I'm making here is that, as presented, this sequence doesn't work. It looks like Rama should have enough time to return about five times, maybe six, before Sita is taken. There are other scenes like that too. Hanuman's trip to the Himalayas is really abrupt.

It's also a bit weird that there's a musical interlude in the middle of the film where all we do is stare at a vacant screen. I don't mind them having musical numbers but at least give us something to look at while they play. But on the subject of musical numbers, Hanuman gets a kind of weak song where he repeats that he's Rama's emissary for around three minutes and it's just kind of a boring, overly repetitive number. 

That being said, the film is presented in a very old fashioned epic style that works pretty well. It comes complete with great, heroic deeds, imposing trials, fallen heroes and divine intervention. I'm not sure how accurate it is to the source material, but it does have that aesthetic and it is pretty interesting. 

Characters:

I can't say the characters are very complex. Rama and his people are those kind of generic, heroic characters you get in these old epics. His villains are demons who are there more to be strong imposing threats than fleshed out characters but some still get sympathetic moments. Kumbakharna when greeting Hanuman being the big example. 

Art:

The monster designs are pretty interesting and the action sequences flow pretty well. It is a little weird when they show Ravan flying a plane with a dragon motif or they show monkeys in mechanical siege towers. Somehow, I don't think that's fully accurate to the source material. And the ordinary human characters themselves don't have the most interesting designs. But I will credit the people who made this for picking an art style that does capture the feeling of an old epic. 

Sound:

The voice work is fine. They got some pretty well known Bollywood actors like Arun Govil, Amrish Puri & Namrata Sawhney. Their performances are good but there's an unfortunate issue that crops up from time to time with the sound levels being mixed awkwardly. Which can result in a character's speaking volume changing quite drastically from one scene to another or the sound effects overpowering the voices. 

Areas of Improvement:

Let the scenes breathe. Maybe this would result in a musical sequence or two having to be cut or just in a longer film, but it would help the pacing to have more build up in some key scenes. 
Give some visuals to go with your musical numbers. Maybe something as simple as Rama's army preparing. You could even get away with a slide show if you had strong enough stills but when you have a five minute musical number give us something. 
The sound mixing. I think the performances would come across as much better if not for the mixing problems and that would make for a more enjoyable viewing experience. 

Final Thoughts:

Ramayana is not one of the best children's films out there but it still manages to be pretty solid. If I was watching this as a kid instead of as a cynical adult, I'd probably be absolutely riveted. Still, I'll give it a solid 7/10. 

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 17, 2021

Luciferhellfire

Recommended

This is the first anime that I've ever watched. I didn't event know that it was anime until recently. I've re-watched it many a times, for me at least, the story never gets boring.

The animation is beautiful, the war choreography is still one of the best that I have watched. Bringing the mythical epic to animation was a great task which was beautifully done by the animation studios and the artists involved. The soundtrack is just amazing. I think this is the only anime which has a Sanskrit dub including the songs.

During lockdown, due to re-telecast of the live action drama of the ... Epic in India, I re-watched it again. It took down the memory lane of all the times that I've watched this epic on TV.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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