Legend of Crystania: The Motion Picture

The name Ryo Mizuno is magic to fantasy anime fans, as creator of the terrific mini-series Record of Lodoss War. Here we have similar heroic fantasy plot elements here: evil rising across the land, a quest to find a magical item and a lost king, and a small band of adventurers who are mankind's last hope against the coming darkness etc. etc. But none of it gels or generates much real interest, and none of the characters stick out as being worth a viewer's time to get to know. Record of Lodoss War assembles many of the same familiar elements, but puts them together into a much more compelling piece of storytelling. Indeed, Crystania suffers by comparison to just about any other fantasy series of note. The animation lacks a unique look and the world building just doesn't seem special enough to grab your interest. When it was over, I found myself unable to recall many of the specific story details - not a good sign. Good fantasy storytelling makes you want to wallow in its minutiae. It makes you want to hear more of the story. Here I actually wanted less. Avoid.

I recently rented this on DVD and first I want to say how happy I am that ADV, the company that released this, is providing the option of watching these movies in japanese with english subtitles. I personally do not enjoy watching dubbed movies, but often I find there is no other option. About the movie: the DVD contains an advertisement for the series, which I have not seen, but this "motion picture" seems complete in itself. The animation was not spectacular, but it wasn't too bad, either. I loved the story and characters. The movie felt like an epic, even though it runs only 80 or so minutes. A boy sees his father, a pacifist king, murdered by his own elite guard, and is run out of the kingdom. He heads off to gather power for revenge but soon finds himself in the land of the gods in an entirely different adventure filled with a mythos all its own. If you enjoy these movies at all, check this one out. There is little blood and no sex, so go elsewhere if that's what you're seeking.

For fans of Lodoss you may be a little disappointed as this film, although telling the story of Ashrams journey following the end of Lodoss, heroic knight, the story centres around a new set of characters and there is no real reference at all to the events of Lodoss. The animation is different to anything I have seen before and made a nice change to watch something a little different to most other anime, although a little lacking in detail its very distinctive with always a lot of colour in most scenes. Great story with great character designs and interesting plot twists to keep things moving.

The only fault for me was that the running time at 85 minutes is a little short and I think more time to develop a few of the characters and the land they were in would be good as with all fantasy there is usually a lot of history and legends before the story making the world feel a little more real. Whether your a fan of Lodoss or not you don't need to have seen it to enjoy this, if you enjoy fantasy with swords fighting and magic you'll like this.