This spring we are having a lot of joy in movie theaters as far as anime is concerned. During May we have seen the return to the big screen of ‘Dragon Ball Super: Broly’ and other animated films of great franchises, and we have also finally been able to enjoy the phenomenon that is ‘Jujutsu Kaisen 0’. Well, in the midst of great sagas and well-known animes, ‘The Deer King’, directed by the two industry veterans who are Masayuki Miyaji and Masashi Ando.
Forced parenthood and redemption
The two directors have a long career in the world of anime, being able to boast of having worked for Studio Ghibli. This is the first foray as a director for Ando, who is known for his work as animation director on ‘Your Name’, while Miyaji served as Miyazaki’s assistant director on ‘Spirited Away’ and has since sat in the director’s chair several times.
With this curriculum, the animation of ‘The Stag King’ had the bar very high and they gave us a fantastic tale of fatherhood and sacrifice in beautiful packaging… although sometimes it suffers from being a bit chaotic.
‘The Stag King’ focuses on Go, a former soldier who lost everything defending his land from the invasion of the mighty empire of Zol. One night, a pack of wolves attacks the mine where he now works as a slave and a strange disease that only affects the citizens of the empire spreads again. Van manages to escape with And one, a little girl and the other survivor of the attack, whom he adopts as his somewhat reluctant daughter but with whom he becomes very fond. Meanwhile, a renowned doctor named Hossaru tries to find a cure for this plague and finds himself involved in a political conspiracy bigger than himself.
‘The Stag King’ emerges from Nahoko Uehashi’s light novels which were later adapted into manga with the art of Taro Sekiguchi. Although the material is relatively limited and we are not talking about a series with many volumes, the task of adapting all this in a single film could be very complicated and a fairly good result is achieved in less than two hours.
The good news is that we are not facing another ‘Tales from Earthsea’and although the setting and the worldbuilding they can be very dense on some occasions, it does not completely overshadow the story. Because despite the fact that from the beginning we are bombarded with a lot of information about the kingdom of Zol and Aquafa, their war conflicts and their culture, they unravel it for us in a quite natural way and it is easy to assimilate.
Yes indeed, sometimes the plot does become a bit cumbersome as it has a very large cast and several fronts at the same time between conspiracies and investigations. In the end, the story of Van and Yuna is the most important and where your heart shrinks, but next to it the rest of the plots remain a bit half-hearted without fully explaining who is who, with the complicated history of the world and all its ramifications gobbling up the rest of the movie a bit.
The wide world of Zol and Aquafa
The pace of ‘The Deer King’ is slow and it is not an anime film where we are going to see big explosions or combats, but it focuses more on the development of its characters and the impact that their relationships have on them. On many fronts the plot does not offer us anything new and the seams are visible everywherebut the visual aspect is wonderful and the setting is what ends up giving it all the character and identity that Miyaji and Ando’s film needs.
Because in the end with these two veterans, the animation is the perfect finishing touch and the quality is spectacular at all times. Even in the most intimate and leisurely moments, the finish is gorgeous and much of the animation has that aftertaste of classic Ghibli from the beginning of the studio.
The animation of Production I.G.. (‘Star Wars: Visions’, ‘Haikyu !!’) and her visual finish is the great protagonist of the film and manages to elevate a not-so-new story and give the world all the cohesion it needs.
In its original version, ‘The Stag King’ features the voices of Shin’ichi Tsutsumi, Ryoma Takeuchi, Anne, and Hisui Kimura. In Spain it is released by Selecta Visión, and although it arrives in Japanese with subtitles we can also enjoy it both with dubbing in both Spanish and Catalan.