In the s, future Studio Ghibli co-founder Isao Takahata was given a chance to direct a feature-length production for Toei, a studio which considered itself the Disney of the East with its lush animated features.
They had made the first color animated feature in , The White Serpent , a picture most famous for inspiring a teenaged Hayao Miyazaki to pursue a career in animation.
The plot involves a teenaged boy who, after his father dies, saves a fishing community from a monster fish and helps them to overcome an evil sorcerer named Grunwald. One of the major figures of the story is the more than a little troubled Hilda, a lonely young songstress with connections to Grunwald himself and her own inner demons to battle.
The executives expected another safe family film with cute comic relief and musical numbers, but after a troubled three year production, the film which emerged was not what they wanted, something truly revolutionary. It pushed animation into the realm of serious, adult, complex themes — addressing socialism, the student union movements, and the war in Vietnam, wrapped up in the guise of a thrilling adventure.
The film is loaded with visual and technical innovations, aggressive camera movements that would only be copied in the age of CGI, and in the tragic heroine Hilda, the most psychologically complex character ever created for an animated film. But a film does not need to be perfect to be great or influential. Being that this piece is for the Anti-Damsel blogathon, I will restrict my discussion of the film to the character of Hilda. Oh, Hilda. We expect she and Horus will fall in love and be going steady by the time the credits run up.
