Reviews

To me, this felt like a step backwards even for TOEI movies in the sixties. The animation quality has gone through clear reductions in quality, especially when contrasted against something like Sayuuki. The story is premised to be an interesting tragic tale, but is constantly undermined by ill placed Disney stylized replica animals that have no place in the story and only serve to bog down the narrative. The character designs suffer from a lack of inspiration and there is a return to designs more reminiscent of nascent Japanese animation around thirty years its predecessor than the standards TOEI set for itself in the previous decade.

Unfortunately, the story isn't well fleshed out either and the continuing problems of poorly drafted storyboarding and a bloated runtime continue to persist in these movies. This time around, however, unlike previous works like Hakujaden or Sayuuki, there isn't any gorgeous animation and excellent sound design to elevate the rather tepid material.

The more I watch the TOEI movies of the late 50s and early 60s the more I feel that Japanese animation had already taken a turn for the soulless mechanical trope style factory like production cycle that's comes to resemble the modern animation scene. TOEI studios seemed to have hit on a formula of making quasi-historical Disney style feature length animated works at a production level to great success - and in the process the spark of imagination and creativity that propelled the Japanese animation seemed to be stagnating.

It wouldn't be until Mushi studios came out with Astro Boy, did we see the first quantum leap in Japanese animation and a true discovery of its own identity, scaping from the clutches of imitation that TOEI is engaging in here. The Littlest Warrior is another movie in the increasingly long line of disappointing "could have been better" Japanese animated films of the era.