THE GREAT ADVENTURE OF HORUS, PRINCE OF THE SUN

Celebrating an Unsung Animator

Venue(s): Yujiku Asagaya
August 4, 6, 8: 2019 13:50-
Language: Japanese with English subtitles
Official website: www.yujikuasagaya.com/otsuka-yasuo
Theater website: www.yujikuasagaya.com
Theater website: www.yujikuasagaya.com/ac
Tariff: General: ¥1,500, Students: ¥1,300, Senior: ¥1,100, Members: ¥1,000, Thursday special: ¥1,000

Title: 太陽の王子　ホルスの大冒険 (Taiyo no Oji Horus no Daiboken)
Director: Isao Takahata (高畑勲)
Duration: 82 min

Specialty theater Yujiku Asagaya is presenting a package of three screenings related to animator Yasuo Otsuka, who is still with us at the age of 88 (you gotta love the poster for the event) in a tribute marking Toms Entertainment Animation’s 55th anniversary.

One of the three films is English subtitled, Isao Takahata’s 1968 feature debut The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun; but even without subs, the documentary Hello Mr. Mysterious: Yasuo Otsuka (2015) is highly recommended, as is the legendary Tale of the White Serpent (1958, digitally remastered in 2018). Hello Mr. Mysterious traces Otsuka’s career from The Great Adventure of Horus to Lupin III (1971) and Little Nemo (1989). It has been screened only once before, at the Tokyo Anime Award Festival 2015.

Otsuka joined Toei Animation Studio in the late 1950s, working with Yasuji Mori and Akira Daikubara on Japan’s first full-color, feature-length animated film, Tale of the White Serpent, as well as Magic Boy (1959, released in the US via MGM) and The Wonderful World of Puss 'n Boots in 1969. He then left Toei to join A Production, where he met both Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, and joined them when they founded Studio Ghibli.

Isao Takahata’s feature-length debut The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun (released to US television as The Little Norse Prince) was a landmark film for Japanese animation. Made at Toei Animation and often considered the unofficial first Ghibli film, it marked the beginning of a partnership that would last for the next 50 years across numerous animation studios. Takahata’s core production team included Yasuo Otsuka (animation director), Hayao Miyazaki (scene design, key animation), and Yasuji Mori, Reiko Okuyama and Yoichi Kotabe all contributing key animation. The team collaborated on designs, story ideas and storyboards; all but Takahata (who is not an animator) contributed to character designs.

Horus is the story of a young Norwegian prince who pulls a splinter from the shoulder of an ancient stone giant named Mogue and discovers that it’s actually a rusty sword with special powers. He soon seeks revenge for the devastation wrought on his birthplace by the terrifying ice devil Grunwald and his silver wolves, and meets a young maiden who may or may not be who she says she is…

As for its place in history, Wikipedia puts it best: “Vivid, visceral and violent, yet charged with kinetic energy, Horusintroduced a number of technical and stylistic innovations, and established a new paradigm of Japanese animation: adult storytelling, psychological realism, visual complexity, overt political and social themes, and stylistic violence. This is the first Japanese animated feature to successfully disrupt the Walt Disney paradigm, and it greatly expanded the possibilities of the medium beyond ‘children's cartoons.’ Unsuccessful in its original 1968 theatrical run, Horus, Prince of the Sunis today recognized as a milestone in the history of anime.

Yujiku Asagaya

 

 

 

Japanese Title: 太陽の王子　ホルスの大冒険
(Taiyo no Oji Horus no Daiboken)
Director: Isao Takahata (高畑勲)
Japanese with English subtitles | 82 min
Venue: Yujiku Asagaya
Dates: August 4, 6, 8, 2019 13:50-