Arion | KYOTO VIDEO
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- The European sword-and-sandal genre seems quite unlikely to be found in anime, right? Wrong! Yoshikazu Yasuhiko directed and animated a big budget epic in the 80s steeped in Greek mythology and we're here to unearth it from antiquity!
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00:00 Intro
00:31 Greek Mythology and Pop Culture
02:53 Arion
06:20: Of Myth, Manga and Mecha
10:25 Togas and Topography
14:48 Delivery, delivery, delivery (and music)
16:40 Marxism on Mt. Olympus
26:32 Credits
KB is their name and talking about old animation is his game! If you want deep analysis and history on the realm of retro anime and old animation, then you've come to the right place. Be warned though. Being a possum means he loves consuming trash, media-based or otherwise.
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As a fan of Greek mythology, Arion was a nice find. Yes, it's not strictly accurate to the letter of the original Greek myths, but it was somehow spiritually and thematically closer than, say, the likes of Saint Seiya. Which was a very sanitized representation comparatively speaking. Arion keeps the rough and dirty parts, so to speak. That includes just how messed up the family relationships are among the Greek gods as well as between them and mortals.
16:26 As great as Hisaishi's later orchestral scores would be, I have such a soft spot for his early synth-rock soundtracks. They're so energetic, and his talent is clear even in a more youthful and openly expressive form.
Somebody from Discotek (Can't remember who, it might have been Brady but I could be wrong) mentioned that they really wanted to dub this movie into English, but are unable to because nobody thought to preserve the movie's music & effects track, which is required to make a dub in any capacity.
That's some seriously legitimate dedication for a late 1980's animation director. Even today, it's no small feat to haul your crew and yourself to fly thousands of miles to the actual location being depicted in your screenwork for proper refencing.
If we're being straightforward, Grecian landscape and geography is so wildly different from most -if not all- of Japan, so a trip like that is very much necessary... or you're going to wind up with a rather flat, featureless, and distinctly more suburban looking Greece. Sure, the story is unlikely to suffer from any significant issues if he had skipped that trip altogether, but the distinctive direction the film took as a result is, as you also pointed out, almost jaw-dropping.
My parents tried to get me to learn Cantonese growing up with random dubbed anime films. This included all the early studio Ghibli films and eventually Arion. This will always hold a special place in my nostalgia
I remember Helen McCarthy ranking this among her personal list of greatest anime ever. I caught Arion on Crunchyroll way back in the day and was blown away. Personally the labyrinthine narrative consistently held my attention and seemed fitting for a vast mythological epic. Additionally Arion struck me as more a existentially conflicted hero in the Shinji Ikari more than a passive protagonist. Well done for spotlighting the amazing women animators and designers that contributed so much to this gem. So glad their talent gains some recognition and not overshadowed by the legend that is Yas.
There are actually a handful of interesting ways in which greek mythology and culture (as disseminated thru india/buddhism) did influence traditonal japanese culture, but like they are so indirect that any trace of their origin is heavily obscured
I think I said this before but what I love about your videos is how deep you go into the history, productions, and context behind these anime. No matter how obscure and unloved.
10:24 "It's animation."
Insert obligatory Bebe's Kids reference.
Bebe's Kids is grander than any Greek epic.
Btw, I just learned this but Venus Wars was not Yas' final film - he came back after 30+ years to do a remake of the badly animated first Gundam episodes into a feature film - Mobile Suit Gundam: Cucuruz Doan's Island (2022). I still need to watch it myself, but its pretty cool to see the guy I consider to be the king of bombastic popcorn anime blockbusters come back after such a long hiatus.
I love how people move in everything Yas animates. So much energy and life that you rarely see, even in his TV animation.
Worth watching Cucuruz Doan's Island btw.
Its more relevant than ever for me to beg you to do an episode on saint seiya
The anime that got my brazilian self into greek mythology
FINALLY, I hope you mention the Lesphoena whipping scene!
Interesting. I'll have to look into this one. Almost seems like the anime equivalent of the original "Clash of the Titans".
I don't know about clash of the Titans. So how's it the anime version of it?
@@erdood3235 Both are films that play a bit loose with the particulars of Greek mythology in order to be something of epic cinema--where this film does so in its animated environments, Clash of the Titans (which preceded it by about six years) did so partly through the great stop-motion effects by the legendary Ray Harryhausen.
@@aaronorenstein5963 thanks
Well that looks like a real good epic tale anime. How come I've never even heard of it until now???
Thank you for this! I watched this at a local college's anime club back in 1997. I remembers a few key things about this movie (like how Zeus is a coward), but had forgotten the name...and I thought I would never find it again without some sleuthing. So cool!
I like Sword and Sorcery, so this sounds really interesting. Also, Arion looks like Marth in his classic design. I wonder if this anime partly inspired Fire Emblem.
14:57 This is where you really cook as a anime reviewer. You've done reviews of the English dubs before sure, but respecting the Japanese voice actors even when most wouldn't see the nuance or even speak the language enough to care, matters. That, and the miraculous combing you do to find the behind the scenes information no matter how obscure and package it within under a half hour (milestone episodes excluded) is kind of an art. Just my 2 cents.
The Kid Icarus music was a nice touch
Great review!! I just subbed love how you reivew old anime!
Thank you for the video! Great to know more about this forbidden classic and all the curiosities.
This movie looks amazing. I really wanna see it now. Thanks for the heads up KaiserBeamz!
this artist is classic i love his manga and one time movie Venus Wars
Man, thanks for this vid. I watch this anime periodically. Always brings me back to the good old days of anime. Man I miss this kind of animation.
These are always amazing videos. I hope we get this translated over here. I do feel like this should have been an OVA series. Crazy to think he did this well while coasting. Thanks again!
Another one I need to check out!
Ha, I love the Kid Icarus theme remix at the end.
I really appreciate you doing older anime and talking about historical impacts about them. Lots of anime videos on UA-cam are made by 15 year old weebs who's catalog goes back 5 years and only consists of moe and dragonball clones. I've been watching anime since the 80's as ky dad would go to Japan and bring stuff back, along with the anime didn't know was anime at the time like Robotech and Voltron. I now import laserdisc of rare stuff and collect animation cels along with other oddities that were released in Japan in the 80's and 90s. I still buy newer anime, but much prefer the more mature intelligent stuff to the kids junk I see most channels talk about.
Got this when discotek released it not knowing much about it but yea i always l8ke when anime would portray this kind of thing
The main character of this reminds me of Marth from the Fire Emblem series.
This one gives me great nostalgia : D
2:04 philippine creation myth where the first man and woman came out of a bamboo.
oh my god I think Rick Riordan might have seen this and lifted some of the ideas for Percy Jackson. it's very loose but the son of Poseidon with a giant companion really makes me think he at least saw this back in the day
Arion looks like Marth Fire Emblem I wonder if Kaga took inspiration from his design for Marth
I'm so, SO glad I took a chance on Arion when I bought the Discotek BD release (since trying to scope out info on it beforehand was a bit difficult), because yeah, while it's flawed, it really is a fantastic epic with phenomenal art, voice acting, music and themes.
I wanted to write to you and say thanks for your awesome anime breakdowns and inside information. I am an amateur artist and I fully engage with the masterful art on display in the majority of the anime industry/manga however I wondered if you might make a video with all (or at least most) of your anime suggestions!? It is a small, small criticism that I sometimes find it difficult to get invested in an anime when it comes to your videos that are about anime you didn't particularly enjoy. I do my best to watch whatever you make a video about and decide for myself if it is available. Yet sometimes I have no idea where to find , or indeed, where you found copies of some of your anime, but I am getting off topic. If you could make your videos pro or con, I would really dig it! For example, Arion was FANTASTIC, and I was so excited to watch it due to your recommendation and I have pretty much learned to trust your "thumbs up," and this is a perfect example. The art and fluid animation is sometimes enough for me to still enjoy a bad anime, but if the art AND the plot line suck I'm really having a bad day. Perhaps you might separate the library of video essays you've created into good and bad, recommend and don't watch, or thumbs up and thumbs down, because I attempted to find an anime to watch yesterday based on a recommendation you've made and actually had a hard time finding one that you liked or that I could watch streaming right now. At any rate, I still want you to know that you're my favorite anime channel on UA-cam and I love your content! Keep making em and I'll keep watching em! Thanks for everything!
Nice
I was hooked in second
Well, time to pop in my Blu ray and give Arion another rewatch
I was thinking about adding this to my list until you mentioned Joe Hisaishi and now I have to watch it
I really love Yasuhiko sensei's historical manga works
Arion look a lot like Seabook from Gundam F91
Funny how Arion looks like Marth from Fire Emblem, specially with the early games
Makes me think the 1997 Fire Emblem OVA would be a prime candidate for Kyoto Video.
Well, now I have to go play Kid Icarus...fucking earworms.
Airon is so eerily similar to Marth from Fire Emblem.
Blue Hair? check
tunic? check
gold sword? check
almost no personality? check
leads an army? check
I actually bought the Aryan anime, knowing very little about it, but loving it just the same. It was a nice little gym of a movie.
Waiting for the anual Slayers video
I actually watched Giant Gorg a while back, good stuff! Plays like a true adventure anime, and you can easily miss the deeper points that are made at the conclusion if you want just a mecha adventure. Also Arion looks a lot lie Tagami Yuu in my opinion.
Anyone else getting a few Dark Souls 1 vibes from this anime?
not really.
great video, where can I watch or get this?
Before Kratos there was Arion.
5:09 original film? ive read the manga for this which originally came out 1979. tbh I've never heard of the anime film til now
"man-GAH-kuh"
I can do you one better, Hades and to put it simply, "Spot" I'm familiar with beyond the usual treatment we've seen in most depictions. To the point that God of War is not the only time that Hades has encountered other mythologies, especially Odin and British faerie courts.
I know the movie is pretty weird but I enjoyed it!. Im actually making my own manga based on greek mythology! :)
So what happened to Yasuhiko after Venus Wars?
Ancient middle eastern mythology had a greater impact on the modern world obviously and it's not even close. People just don't like to admit it's mythology because it's their personally held religious beliefs.
Rome didn't copy the Greek deities for the most part. The vast majority of Roman deities were already counterparts of the Greek deities and simply had aspects and myths grafted onto them from their Greek counterparts. That's because both religions are derived from the same core Indo-European tradition. Many of the traditional aspects we associate with the Greek gods were also innovated by the Romans themselves and aren't representative of earlier traditions.
Greek mythology is also heavily intertwined with general Eastern Mediterranean polytheistic religious culture to the point that it's honestly hard to consider it uniquely "western" since "Western cultural tradition" is more of a post-hoc concept derived from the study of the classics in Europe much later that downplays that the Mediterranean was a cultural sphere in and of itself and the "western tradition" part is arbitrary. The Greeks had significantly more to do with the cultures of the ancient near east than the various tribes of Europe they had basically fuck all to do with. Deities like Apollo and Aphrodite are evidently borrowed from the east for one.
Can you count the episodes of Star Trek (TOS) that reference Greek myth?
I wonder if this anime was an inspiration for God of War somewhat, while I feel it should have been a TV series adaptation of like, 40-50 episodes instead of a film, it's still an uncovered gem and an interesting takes on Greek mythology. Also never knew of Yasuhiko's beliefs, but he demonstrates a good example of how one can put political viewpoints into film without it being pandering or irritating, because he understands storytelling. Although, in the original Greek myths, Prometheus was a Titan, not a god.
Apollo wasn't the only character voiced by a Gundam voice actor though (RIP Suzuoki, you left this world too young 😢); Arion and Athena were voiced by Kamille and Reccoa from Zeta Gundam respectfully.
Can I ask where did you find that video of Ryoko Yamagishi?
Special feature on the Arion blu-ray
20:20 looks like ya forgot to edit in the time, kaiser
it lookslike a awesome anime, tho
Holy crap! Marth’s NES/FAMICOM design is stolen from Arion!!
Where did you get that translation for arion?
If you're referring to the subtitles specifically, that's how they look on Discotek's blu-ray release, and Kaiser probably just ripped them from the BR.
@@Firechick12012 yes, I meant the subtitles
Thanks for doing this I've been wavering about Arion since I first saw it IDK a year and a half ago.
I loved the animation and felt it gave it its own unique identity but was just not a huge fan of the story overall, felt it was all over the place with too many twists, too many characters and none with enough depth.
I also don't think you can really call it a Marxist story because an oppressed underclass rebels against authority because that describes tons of stories it's not uniquely Marxist and it only gets more muddled when we have Arion being the son of Prometheus, you can interpret that in a positive way carrying on his legacy but at the end of the day we still have a kid from the upper class leading the peasants to overthrow other elites. Even in the "avatar of humanity leads humanity" interpretation that's still a result of his lineage, his special blood, it reaffirms the divine right to rule. It's the classic story of the true prince returns and overthrows the man who usurped his father, that's even less Marxist. The outcast royal returned to claim his birth right and change things for the better is a classic story but it's the antithesis of Marxism really.
I just don't see these themes anywhere in the movie. Even in Arion's speech the perfect place to summaries the point of the movie he never says how he intends to make life better for the common people or even address the tyranny of the gods, he literally says he's just going to fight in order to free another god he loves. I will fight for Lesphoena's sake. That is my only intention".
In his debate with Apollo Arion does say some stuff about people wanting/needing the basic necessities and that's cool but again even some liberals get behind that stuff, it's not especially radical.
Also this is 100% a nit-pick but I feel all the gods dye too easily.
I liked it in places and loved your analysis but felt it was a bit too generous, I can't overlook these flaws.
I would argue you can interpret it from a Marxist perspective, but certainly rebellions against the powerful have existed in stories and legends since forever.
Exactly that's why I have a hard time calling it Marxist, it's a story of one royal overthrowing other royals not really about seizing the means of production. Which is part of the problem of basing a "Marxist" story in preindustrial society.@@knightmarepilot4832
@knightmarepilot4832 I think its possible only because Yasuhiko was a Marxist when he was younger. But a lot of these broader themes are definitely not uniquely Marxist and I know KaiserBeamz being an outspoken leftist might make him biased as to take a Marxist stance on anything he reviews.
I remember reading a lot of old articles that talked about this film, and it's production history was very fascinating. It was also one of those films that was featured in several books in the era (A Viewer's Guide to Japanese Animation being an example), so it's a shame this film had fallen to the wayside over the years.
At the very least, it's worth a watch for those who might be interested with an anime film that focuses on Greek Mythology as it's narrative backbone.
Great film but your interpretation of there being a marxist under-text is way off the mark. The film is actually a fairly standard nietzchean tale, with the ubermensch (Arion) rising above the antiquated gods of Olympus. It's very similar to the works of Robert E. Howard, so much so that I'm convinced Yas took inspiration from him.
Actually no, Greek mythology did impact China and India via impacting Buddhism and by extension impacted Japan *very indirectly* for centuries. Seriously, look it up.
Greco-Buddhism is a real thing.
You mistake Heracles for Hercules three times in this video. It's an easy mistake to make considering Disney and Marvel have interpreted Heracles by the name of his Roman counterpart, but still
I disagree with Arion being a not good character. His lack of agency for a lot of the film *is* what makes him relatable to me.
Sorry... but... your pronunciation of one character's giving me flashbacks to how some people pronounce "Nevada".
I honestly feel like Greek mythology has been used so much that it's become really boring. The fact that Kingdom Hearts insists on using Olympus Coliseum in almost every single game doesn't help any.
I am inclined to agree that it's more fun when modern works pulling from mythologies other than Greco-Roman. But, credit where it's due, I can't think of any other mythology in history that was so influential that another culture pulled up, said "we'll take your entire stock...over your dead bodies" and reworked their own original mythology to mesh with it [/dramatization].