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The Heroic Legend of Arislan
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| Japanese Name: Aruslan senki |
| Japanese Name (Translation):
Legend of Aruslan |
| North American Name: The Heroic Legend of Arislan |
| Episodes (Total): 6? (OAV) |
| Episodes (Seen): 1-4 (English
Dubbed) |
| Category / Genre: Fantasy,
Adventure, Conspiracy, Historic Fiction |
| Year: 1992 (Japan) / 1993 (US) |
| Based on the Manga By: Tanaka Yoshiki |
| Age Suitability: 12+ (Violence) |
| Date Reviewed: Friday, September 19, 2003 |
Overview: (VHS
Back)
As an
unnaturally heavy mist descends on the battlefield, King Andragoras and
his most valued officers confer among the bodies of dead and dying soldiers.
When Daryoon, a young but highly skilled officer, voices his reluctance
to send men into battle under these conditions, the king, unstable and
enraged at the huge losses they've suffered in these battles, almost takes
his sword to Daryoon's throat!
Banished
by the king for his 'cowardice,' Daryoon's new mission is to insure the
safety of the King's only son, Prince Arislan. Returning to the princes
palace, Daryoon and Prince Arislan stop at the cottage of the reclusive
artist, Lord Narsus. When they arrive, the half-drunk Lord sits languidly
drinking wine and working on an oil painting - not quite the type you'd
expect to join a young prince and an ambitious soldier!
However,
Prince Arislan knows that the Lord is, despite his love for wine, extremely
wise, and therefore a valuable ally. The Prince uses diplomacy and charm
to convince both the Lord Narsus and his companion, the archer Elam, to
join them in their quest to somehow help the soldiers win the war. |
Review:
Wow, add
some magic, replace the horses with chocobos and you could call this Final
Fantasy. One confusing thing is that parts one and two were an hour
long each, parts three and four are a half hour hour each.
Maybe they had to speed up the story or something, who knows.
This anime
is a more than worthy successor to the stage set by Record of the Lodoss
War, what I really like about it is that we focus on other parties
(mainly after part three), we see the Silver Mask who first comes
of as a villain then really shows his true colors, and then there is the
overtones of religious fanaticism and slavery which our young and idealistic
hero Arislan faces in this travels.
Major kudos to the dubbing
the cast, who mostly sounds British, add a bit of class to the movie making
this very human story sound even more Shakespearean, but all are not British,
a neighboring country that used elephants and looked liked India used Indian
accents which I think add a dimension to the story making sound more natural. |
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