Introduction
The non-aggression pact between the flourishing maritime city of Itha and the barren military state of Paro comes to an end when the latter's greedy monarch attempts to sabotage Itha and target its riches. Following this dreadful incident, the escalating animosity on each side disturbs the happiness of Itha's princess Ahnas and Paro's prince Jill, both of whom are deeply in love.
The peaceful farmers from the village of Saki are worried as well. With their land separating Itha and Paro, they risk getting caught in the crossfire of an upcoming battle. Yet there is one among them that does not share such fear. Izu—an ambitious, energetic young man—sees this war as an opportunity to gain fame and wealth. Enticed by Paro's promise of a generous reward, he readily answers the kingdom's call for help, vowing to his beloved wife Marin that they will soon reunite.
Feeling heartbroken, Marin becomes engrossed in prayer for her husband's safe return. Meanwhile, Ahnas and Jill are determined to not let their positions or their families' hostilities come between them. But will these young people's genuine love prevail over human foolishness and vices, or will it be sacrificed to petty ambitions?
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Audience reviews
9 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
teddyRex
This anime is ok. The story line is pretty good, but is often convoluted. The drawing itself is somewhat sketchy. The backgrounds are good, but the characters look much more rudimentary, maybe it was the style of the 80's type of anime. The music was not that hot either. But the story is not too bad, and there is some pretty cool elements of good and bad, and greed in the characters emotions. There are elements of Romeo and Juliet, and perhaps even King Lear in this story. That it does not really have a happy ending may be a turn off for American audiences, who seem to always want everything to magically turn out ok.
Read at the sourceMilakochan
Animation 7/10
Character Design 8/10
Script 3/10
Enjoyment 6/10
This story has the most toxic traditional values character I've seen in an anime. It didn't age well accordingly to today's value. The characters decisions are hardcore old school even for the 80s where you had plenty examples of Sukeban genre. It takes after classic heroes stories where women are foolish enough to sacrifice their lives for romance and men do whatever for the sake of power and vanity. Regardless if they are a peasant or a queen itself the female characters will choose over and over again nothing but boys' love. The princess of Itha is just unnerving. She goes from frolicking Marie-Antoinette-like in the castle to a weak lover. Reinforcing a silly stereotype. The rest of the cast as well. Men specially. It…
Read at the sourceryu2k2
Meaningless wars leave no good memories for anyone.
Windaria is an archetypical fantasy flick. War between nations, politics, princes and princesses and your every day young man from a peaceful village. Love and betrayal etc. etc.
If anything in this movie sticks out it's the animations and music. The art is surprisingly detailed for an obscure movie and the soundtrack always beautifully orchestrates what is shown on screen.
The movie's first half is well paced and takes its time to introduce the main cast, their believes and motivations and the world they act in. However a city becoming partially flooded is what most stood out in this half - the story plays itself very safe. There are no surprising or unexpected developments early on. While in the second half things movie too fast with s…
Read at the sourceFmod91
"Windaria" is a gorgeous original fantasy film from 1986, featuring breathtaking art and kinematic animation sequences as its primary strengths. This movie seems to have been riding the wave of industry optimism about high budget and highly artistic anime films, following the success of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind" and "Macross: Do You Remember Love?" in 1984. Likewise, many of scenes involving hover vehicles reminds one of the masterful scene flow that one can find in the action sequences in the 1984 OVA "Birth": as we are shown rapidly morphing background shots around detailed vehicle motion from different perspectives – making even a simple ride through a forest seem exciting. That’s right, I said hover vehicles. This is not so much a sword and sorcery styled fantasy as it is so…
Read at the sourcektulu007
Windaria is a Studio Gallop film from 1986. Yes, the same studio that did the early episodes of Rurouni Kenshin. Like many of the other films I've reviewed during this year's film festival, it's not based on anything. It's also one I'd never heard of prior to browsing random anime films. So, was it worth dredging up? Let's take a peek and see.
Story:
We open with a young couple, Izu & Marin, taking their cart to sell their wares in the kingdom of Isa. Their idyllic time is ruined when someone tries to flood the city. An attempt which gets thwarted by Izu's intervention. Turns out, the nearby kingdom of Paro has its sights set on the lands occupied by Isa. Izu and Marin find themselves in an awkward situation, with their village between the two countries. To make things more complicated,…
Read at the sourceFel_Temp
The most frustrating movies to watch are the ones where a good director is trying to work with a garbage script, and I don't think there's a better example of this in anime than Windaria. The characters are two dimensional at best, and their motivations rarely make much sense. Why does the one kingdom want to invade the other? Because they're evil, I guess. Why do they think the best way to do this is to flood the city, thereby destroying anything of value within? Who knows? Why does the prince, who had previously been begging his father to stop the war just keep it going once he has the power to stop it? The movie tells you it's because he feels the pressure of tradition or something, but that was never concern to him until right then.
The main arc is supposed to be about the protagonist…
Read at the sourceFirechick12012
The eighties were an awesome time to make anime in Japan. The economy was flourishing, money was in abundance, consumers wanted and paid good for it, and it was the time when animators got really ambitious about what they wanted to create. Lots of great anime came from the eighties, like the original Macross anime (and it's Macekred version, Robotech), Magical Angel Creamy Mami, Little Princess Sara, Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind, Zeta Gundam, and, most notably, Akira. The eighties were also a time when anime began it's first journey to America, but not in one piece. Back then, it was the standard to change names and storylines, re-arrange scenes or cut some out altogether, and market it only to kids, not teenagers and adults. Windaria was one of those titles. It was released by Harm…
Read at the sourcevigorousjammer
So, I just finished watching Windaria. To be specific, it was the original Japanese version, subtitled by the "Live-eviL" fan-sub group.
Well, let's start with the art. For a film from 1986, it looks VERY nice. The animation is smooth, varied, and has a lot of nice, subtle touches. It still looks dated by today's standards, but is still pretty easy to appreciate. The world is also pretty beautifully realized, with some gorgeous looking background art. The character art is all pretty standard for the era, but the quality of the animation makes them stand out more than they otherwise would.
As for the story, this is where it really falls apart for me. The movie starts off fine, and the characters start to develop. You start to get a feel for the world, and the story arc, and despite it bei…
Read at the sourcejmoriarty84
If you want pure literature in anime, something along the lines of Shakespeare and a true anime classic, then this it. It was previously released by Streamline and Harmony Gold in 1987, a year after its release in Japan originally under the title Once Upon a Time, but later re-named back to its original title. This anime tells a great tale of not just love and war, but about duty and loyalty to your family and yourself. The characters are captivating and unique, but I don’t like what the Streamline version did with Izu. In the original Japanese version, Izu is more care free and doesn’t really fear for the worst, while in the dub, he’s presented more as serious and is more idealistic and an older version of him narrates the story in the dub while there was no narration in…
Read at the source