ANI-MOVIES, *Arion

Arion is an anime movie from 1986 based on the manga Neo Heroic Fantasia: Arion by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko who is the legendary animation director behind the original Gundam anime. Aside from Venus Wars, very few of his manga work have been adapted into an anime. Arion was one of the earliest anime based on Greek mythology, although it took several liberties with the original source material, the biggest being that the title character was supposed to be a horse instead of a teenage boy. The film has been hidden from most western otaku as it only recently got an English release through Discotek, so up until then American anime fans would've normally only seen this movie in fansubs. This was not just another fantasy take on the Greek pantheon but a full-fledged epic with huge battles that probably borrowed helped inspire directors like Peter Jackson and Wolfgang Petersen. A true Joeph Cambell hero's journey animated by Sunrise who traditionally specializes in the mecha anime.

Way off in the past in the land of Thrace, the boy Arion is a demigod living with his blind mother Demeter who the titan Hades kidnaps and tricks him into believing his brother Zeus is the one responsible for Demeter's blindness. After years of training in the underworld, Arion heads out to find Zeus who is constantly warring with his other brother Poseidon for control over the land and sea. Arion comes across Poseidon, who he understands to be his father after attacking his mother long ago and witnesses a battle between his forces and Zeus' led by his daughter Athena. After the battle, Arion slays Hades who curses him with madness which causes him to kill Poseidon as well, all while being helped by the lovely mute who turns out to be his twin sister. Our hero's past is truly revealed to him as being the son of the outcasted titan Prometheus and his human wife Pandora. Arion assembles an army to conquer the powers of Olympus as Zeus cowers behind the powers of the Furies and the Earth goddess Gaea. There is a gigantic climax with ogres, kaiju, and divine laser cannons as Arion tries to rescue his sister from the true dark power behind the throne.

Arion is a grand sprawling anime with stellar battle scenes. There are spectacular throwbacks to Homer's Odyssey with some different takes on historical figures like Hercules reimagined as a reformed thug, so this movie will defy your expectations for a Japanese take on the sword-and-sandal genre. The plot does condense a great deal of the world building into a single film 118-minute-long movie, despite how certain aspects of incest among the Greek gods doesn't seem to affect the storytelling. The Hellenic culture blends with high fantasy to make for a lost anime classic. By the way, there is a post-credits scene where Arion finally lives up to his true Greek heritage.