Audience reviews
10 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Manjirin
Horus: Prince of the Sun is an interesting proto-Ghibli picture that really tests the art of the possible for late 1960s anime. Watching it for the first time I was quite impressed with the animation given the fact that this film released in 1968. If you take even a cursory glance at the anime landscape at the time and works that were contemporary to this film the animation prowess on display here easily blows the rest out of the water. It is important to keep in mind that in the late 1960s it was not uncommon for anime films and television series to be produced entirely in black-and-white and with fairly cheap or stilted animation. A rather extreme example would be 1967's experimental Ninja Bugei-chou, a film spanning over two hours that contained no animation whatsoever, only voiceovers…
Read at the sourceTheWiseChampion
It has great animation and characters, but doesn't fully beat the "Japanese Disney" feel that anime had trouble escaping in its beginning years. There's quite a few terrible singing scenes that seemed tolerable at first but got old really fast and broke the pacing. There are times where this became an absolute chore to watch. There are other times where this became an absolute joy to watch. Where this movie really shines is the action sequences. They might not be anything you haven't seen today, but they are ahead of its time. The opening sequence and the final 25 minutes are stunning in this regard. I also enjoyed watching the characters and all their schemes. In particular I enjoyed Hilda's plot line. Horus is a bit one-note and standard as a protagonist. I feel like to the average perso…
Read at the sourceLightScaryRobo
An average story, but not a bad one. You follow a young over-powered boy as he goes on a journey to defeat a big enemy terrorising the world - you know the deal.
Even for the time, this art style was not great. Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi - they all came out about 20 years earlier but felt incomparable for how enjoyable they were in animation. Even previous Toei movies are much better than this. Possibly Hayao Miyazaki's worst animated feature.
No matter where the characters were on screen, they all sounded the exact same distance away as each other, and a lot of the voice acting felt very... lazy? It felt like it was strung together quickly and it didn't sound like any effort was put into the voice acting/editing the voice acting.
Hilda - A young girl who you dislike the first time you…
Read at the sourceJTurner
HORUS, PRINCE OF THE SUN was the first and only film Isao Takahata directed for what was Japan's top animation studio in the 1960's, Toei, with a little bit of contribution from Hayao Miyazaki, of course. At the time most Japanese animated features were made cheaply and quickly. But Takahata wanted to go one step further and create something elaborate and beautiful. It drove up the budget, to the point where it annoyed the Toei executives. At one point during production, the budget froze and so the animators were reduced to using still shots for certain scenes, such as a wolves attacking on a village at about 29 minutes in, and later, when rats stampede through the same village. For similar reasons, the film was only given a limited release in Japan and it received poor box office numbers,…
Read at the sourcecomiclove
This was a rather pleasant surprise, honestly. 'Horus/Hols' may not be the most elegant film, but it is certainly a testament to the sheer amount of talent found within the development team. With surprisingly fleshed-out characters and plotlines, accompanied by pretty competent artwork + sound, this relic will be sure to last in your mind for a bit.
[Story - 7]
The first 10-or-so minutes are pretty basic, admittedly: boy finds sword, is told of a demon, then is sent off to kill it after his father dies. After that, however, it takes a turn: he's almost immediately defeated by the demon, and is informally saved + adopted by a village by the river. Here, he makes a little home for himself after slaying some beasts and whatnot.
Still sounds tame? I don't blame you, it definitely feels like…
Read at the sourceeyerok
"Be brave and fight with all your strength son. You have nothing to be afraid of"
(NOTE: Source for history and background: http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/otherfilms/)
When modern anime connoisseurs make their own lists of the most influential anime classics, they miss the name of Horus: Prince of the Sun. This one movie was groundbreaking in many ways. At the time it was released in 1968, animation projects were led more by the parochial philosophy of production companies wanting to market safe animations for as wide an audience as possible. Although Hols could not completely break free from the reins of the production company, it was one of the first instances where the artists attempted to wrest control and create something that was a step above what the industry was doing at that…
Read at the sourceangelsreview
Well, this is a really really old video and let’s say that for its time, it might have been very high class but now, it feels like it lacks a lot. The animation is low quality and the voices feel forced and scripted.
Horus seems to not think about what he is about to do, his heart being in the right place but his head just doesn’t seem to be happening there. He was made to be the purest of the pure but they made him come out as a rather young child, younger then he should be. Other characters randomly sing and makes it feel like we are in a old Disney movie.
The animation is really old and they cut corners constantly. They reuse clips a lot and also jump around without any explanation on why they are except that they are travelling. Both people and animals look rather blotchy and not a…
Read at the sourceXai16
I Love Studio Ghibli and this was CLEARLY one of their more earlier films. I give them credit for a movie of that time period because it REALLY look like anime was just starting to make aname for itself and the few elements that hold it back are a product of that era in animation and story telling.
As far as classic anime goes, it wasn't that bad. The chorus of people every few minutes got terribly annoying and some of the character were bland but the story had a very classic theme to it; slay the demon, save the maiden, win the hearts of the people. None of that was easy considering the only weapon that could slay the demon was unusable until about the third act. Also, the maiden not only had to be saved from the demon but also herself as she's feeling the evil in her own heart growing a…
Read at the sourcecobrascope
Technically this film is leagues away from the quality of films later produced by Takahata and Miyazaki at Studio Ghibli. Still it's a great little film with more depth than is first apparent. It's a shame Takahata encountered such resistance and lack of backing from the studio when making this film. It could have been so much more. At one point still frames replace the animation becuase they ran over budget in production! A landmark in anime nontheless.
Read at the sourceScallion
I saw this movie on a whim while I was looking for episodes of the live-action TV show "Firefly", which I've been meaning to watch for years, and was pleasantly surprised. Horus/Hols:Prince of the Sun (localized under several other titles in other countries) has an amazing pedigree-directed by Isao Takahata , animation credits by the famous Hayao Miyazaki, among other famous names in Japanese animation, and is considered to be the first modern anime film, as it broke away from the typical Disney movie fare that they saw in anime.
That being said, the movie still looks, feels, and sounds like Disney animated classic, which is not a bad thing at all. While it's obviously a children's movie, it doesn't pull too many punches. While both Hols and Arthur from the Disney movie "The Sword in the…
Read at the source