ANI-MOVIES, *The Sea Prince And The Fire Child

Before they started making busloads full of cash from making Hello Kitty merchandise, Sanrio created several animated productions concieved international projects with other animation studios to do projects lile Unico and The Mouse And His Child, similar to a Disney-type company that leases the services of other countries to handle the actual production. Originally titled The Legend Of Syrius, this was intended to be a family picture despite involving nudity, incest, and tragic deaths. As it was inspired by Romeo And Juliet, this is a fairy tale of divine proportions, but gushing with whimsy.

Possible happening far before the dawn of man, the lord of the sea who shared a romance with his sister, the goddess of fire. The two were cunningly seperated by a jealous wind god, and the realms of Fire and Sea were blocked off from an area called the Forbidden Zone. Each godlike sibling had their own child, the Sea Prince Syrius who is immedieately promoted to king at the beginning of the movie, and the soon to be queen Malta of the Fire Kingdom. The two end up meeting each other as Malta is tasked with guarding an eternal flame at the edge of the Forbidden Zone, and they of course fall in love as two fiesty teenagers would, and even learning that their parents were siblings doesn't deter their romance. The young lovers are divided by their parents, but Syrius and Malta escape on their own, and search for a special kind of flower which blooms every few decades that allows them to travel to a star where fire and water live in harmony. Their quest leaves the best friends of each title character loosing their lives by sacrificing their love, making for possibly one of the first lesbian characters in an anime movie. After the flowers bloom in front of Malta leaving her heartbroken, the fire princess then acends into the Fire Queen, just as Syrius finally escapes his father's prison, but goes blind looking at the sun just after Malta's transformation, and eventually the young king dies from sunshine exposure. Malta snaps out of her evolution lag and tries to return Syrius to the sea, which would mean her own death. Syrius's father intercedes, and helps the two rise up to their own heavenly star where its mostly hinted that the young lovers are in fact alive in their own idealic paradise.

Sea Prince And The Fire Child can be viewed as being highly influenced by the early Walt Disney movies, with a large portion of its runtime being dedicated to the comical secondary characters, plus some stunning background animations. The main couple leaves you wondering if Peter Pan tried to woo Sleeping Beauty, which makes for another Disney comparison. However the feature is a fine fantasy romance, although not really for all ages despite its target audience.