Anju to Zushioumaru

Anju and Zushioumaru live a peaceful life in rural Japan with their kind and gentle father—the steward of the emperor's hunting grounds who teaches his children to respect nature and protect animals. The local lord frames him for burning the hunting grounds; Anju and Zushioumaru, along with their mother and a few animals, escape to Kyoto to ask the emperor to pardon their father.

However, Anju and Zushioumaru are separated from their mother and sold into slavery after being tricked into boarding the wrong boat. Their cruel master forces them to perform extreme acts of hard labor under the threat of torture. Fortunately, Saburou—their master's son—is sympathetic to their plight. The siblings wield no weapons and constantly fear the punishment for unobedient slaves. Under these unfortunate circumstances, they must desperately work to regain the happiness they once had.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Zushioumaru Main

Kazama, Morio Japanese

Anju Main

Sakuma, Yoshiko Japanese

Saburou Supporting

Mizuki, Jou Japanese

Onikura Supporting

Mishima, Masao Japanese

Masauji, Iwaki Supporting

Usami, Junya Japanese

Jijo Supporting

Arai, Shigeko Japanese

Gatekeeper Supporting

Oda, Masao Japanese

Moku Supporting

Tatsukou Supporting

Ushio, Kenji Japanese

Emissary Supporting

Masuda, Junji Japanese

Yabushita, Taiji Director

Takahata, Isao Assistant Director

Ootsuka, Yasuo Key Animation

Mori, Yasuji Key Animation

Reviews

Mar 26, 2019

Assthete

Mixed Feelings

Anju is so much better than its predecessors. You'd expect some slight progression, but thanks to Saiyuuki's blatant incompetence only a year before, it didn't happen. I can feel Takahata's touch in this, always granting his stuff a sense of gravitas, however subtle. It's also vastly superior in terms of presentation, with fluid and consistent animation, clever use of color and texture, and accurate drawing. For the first time Japanese animators fully committed to visual timelessness. Screenwriters also finally realized idealism shouldn't be the norm, presenting a rather tragic story about coping with loss, and such a fitting ending. Even the cuteness didn't feel nearly ... as misplaced as in other titles, but rather properly integrated. I genuinely don't understand how this is both less watched and scored lower than garbage like Saiyuuki. This is probably the first good anime and the first case of quality losing to popularity. Most people will keep sucking Hakujaden despite being inferior merely cause it's the first.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 16, 2024

Xristophoros

Mixed Feelings

While The Littlest Warrior is not a remarkable film, it is certainly a competent work, especially considering the era it was created. This is a family-friendly retelling of the original live action classic "Sansho the Bailiff" (1954). Compared to the former, The Littlest Warrior comes across as diseny-esque in more ways than one. There is an emphasis on animals providing comic relief in several instances as well as a focal point for children in order to hold their attention throughout. While not a bad thing, it did feel a little bit forced and gave the impression that the film had an identity crisis. At the ... time of its production, the anime industry was still finding its footing and took great inspiration from Disney productions and this film is clear indication of that. Distrations aside, the film was well paced, had fairly good animation and art direction (even used parallaxing effects with forground elements to provide depth which I imagine was one of the earliest examples to do so in anime).

All things considered, this film did an adequate job at adapting a classic tale and is recommended particularily to those who are curious about the origins of the anime industry. Or, if you are huge Ghibli fan like me and are on a mission to watch every film and tv series that Isao Takahata and/or Hayao Miyazaki worked on prior to forming the seminal studio, look no further.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Nov 6, 2024

Gsarthotegga

Not Recommended

I know hardly anything about the production of Anju to Zushioumaru, except that it's based on the same folk tale as Mori Ogai's short story, Sansho the Steward, as it's known in English, or Sansho the Bailiff, as the more famous Kenji Mizoguchi film is titled. Compared to Mizoguchi's adult film, this animated adaptation has a Disney-esque feel, as was typical for these older, more lavishly animated films. You know what that means: constant cute animals taking attention away from the story (just like those blasted April Fools' Day cat paws treading all over my screen are distracting me from writing this review) and vastly ... simplified storytelling and characters. At least we're treated to plaintive singing rather than godawful song and dance numbers.

The storytelling is naive and childlike, and the characters lack depth and have nothing to separate them other than exaggerated traits, such as "being mean" for the villains and "being virtuous" for everyone else. What's up with one character turning into a mermaid instead of drowning after she sinks like a rock? Being the first supernatural element, it was an abrupt scene, unless you want to count all of the animals having a radar for "good people," so they can help them against the "bad people," as a supernatural element, but that was par for the course when it came to old animation, and Toei was no stranger to the formula. There seems to be no reason for the mermaid other than a karmic/moral lesson, as she causes the death of a few baddies that are effectively out of the story by this point—oh, and to please budding fish girl fetishists, I guess. That's always a plus.

Another character also turns into a white swan after a sorrowful segment of seeing memories of her loved ones appear in the water's reflection, amounting to a not-subtle symbol of freedom and beauty or some such pap. I'm not sold on these flights of fancy, but at least they emotionally fit in a poetic way. However, there was never mention of monsters, demons, yokai, etc., so why does a horse-sized spider suddenly appear within a storm cloud and crawl down on a web to fight Zushioumaru? We just needed a giant spider battle quota met, but wasn't a battle between Zushioumaru and his pets against a group of bandits enough to shake up the monotony?

The main appeal is the lovely background art and plenty of expressive character acting for the humans and animals. The water effects, in particular, are often beautiful expressions of wrath and despair. Contrary to select opinions, AtZ is an improvement over Toei's earlier productions like Saiyuuki and Hakujaden in most respects. Unfortunately, there's not much here other than visual craftsmanship. The only compliment I can give to the story is that it seemed a bold move to conclude a children's film tragically for the time. AtZ is a true bore of a film but simultaneously an intoxicating one for those who have a love for animation and can tolerate subpar storytelling.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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