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Buried Treasure - Windaria

No kidding. Actually I don't like Izu at all, terrible person IMO. spoiler[I didn't feel any pity when he was crying under the tree at the end. He was asking for it.]

In terms of depression, is Mononoke or Windaria worse?

In all due honesty I didn't like him either. spoiler[His immaturity cost a nation its freedom and the lives of its citizens, just so he could have the thrill of adventure. On top of that, he lost his love as well. He didn't think about what the consequences of his actions would be until he saw what had happened, and by then it was obviously too late.]

ADV is planning to re-release Battle Angel

'Inomata-san' did the girls from 'Brain Powered? I'm surprised that I never picked up on that sooner. But she's most notable for the 'Tales of' series after 'Fujishima'. She has a really nice style. Also, let's not forget 'LEDA - The Adventures of Yoko' as well. That's another oldie. You'll have to cover that one next time.

Now that the dub/sub war has taken a backseat to the "fansubbing vs the US anime industry" war, perhaps now some people will make the effort to actually watch Windaria.

Can I just say 'thank you' for reviewing this, it sounded interesting so I downloaded it (A lot of other people seem to have had the same idea, I've never seen so many seeds on a torrent for an obscure 80s film), and it's one of the best anime films I've seen. I'd never have seen it otherwise

On the subject of things that actually matter: Windaria is one of those titles that people in America watched decades ago that really helped illustrate in their minds that anime was something different than what they were used to. Sure, there was violence and nudity, but the reason everyone remembers Windaria is precisely because of what Justin said: it's such a downer! It's worth reiterating that even though this officially came out in America in the early 90s, many fans discovered this in the late 1980s. As tangentially illustrated by this old fanzine article from 1987 that Dave Merrill managed to preserve, animation of this sort was a far cry from the Smurfs.

Which is why the hatchet job committed upon Windaria is legendary. People would often invoke its example back in the days when "dubs vs subs" was the number one argument in the fandom, even if they'd never even seen the thing. All anyone needed to know about Windaria was that Carl Macek and Streamline Pictures cut it to ribbons for the sake of making a buck. While true, its status among anime fans has for many years been that of an argumentative tool for making a point. Now that the dub/sub war has taken a backseat to the "fansubbing vs the US anime industry" war, perhaps now some people will make the effort to actually watch Windaria. That is, if they're so inclined to watch cartoons from over twenty years ago.

I remember watching Once Upon a time in Spanish (Included in the ADV dvd) when Telemundo (The Original Station in PR) used to have animated movies during the weekends during the Christmas Season (with both Lensman movies and some magical girl movies among others) and I did feel that it was too dark and violent even with the edits... spoiler[The lovers' deaths on the bridge was brutal], even without any overt images...I wonder how that scene played out in the original japanese version.