Tentacle-Free Anime: "Arion" (1986) Review

- by Kazekun, 9 June 2014

I love mythology, it’s an area of classic literature and fiction that I find to be one of the most fascinating – and ripe for retelling – mediums out there. The Gods, the Titans, the Man vs. Monster epics, and so much more; it has shaped our way of telling stories forever, and definitely mine as well. I love seeing other interpretations of myth and seeing how writers take on the task of bringing Zeus, Hercules, Hades, and the rest onto the screen or page. Unfortunately, there have been just as many failed attempts as there have been successes. And today’s review is not about one of those successes.

Arion (1986); 
Episodes: 1; 
Director: Yoshikazu Yasuhiko;
Studio: Sunrise;
Rating: PG-13

Summary: The young Arion is tricked by Hades and is taken to the underworld where he is trained to become a warrior strong enough to defeat even a god. Thrusted into a war among the Titan brothers, Arion embarks into a colossal saga towards the Olympus, home of Zeus. This is the story of Arion, a little boy raised by only his blind mother in a barren land. One day a man comes to visit his mother. This man calls himself Arion’s uncle and Arion’s mother calls the man Hades. The uncle convinces Arion that he knows where Arion can get a hold of a special herb that can cure Arion’s mother’s eyes, and so the boy willingly comes with his uncle Hades on a journey. The moment Arion agrees to go, his mother feels it in her heart and rushes out of her little house and screams at the sky; Zeus, your brother is taking Arion to the land of the dead. Follow Arion on his adventures among old Greek gods and goddesses. [AnimeNetworks.com]

Saint Seiya, this is not. Proto-Percy Jackson, 20 years before Percy Jackson was a thing, now that I can see. But that’s only based off the minimal knowledge I am aware of from the young adult book series. Mostly this movie is like taking Hercules’ 12 labors, cramming them into a movie, only Disney did it better, Hercules is barely in this, and the labors are more like: “Instead of killing monsters, we need you to kill gods.”

Arion promo image.

So almost like Clash of the Titans, but slightly better.

If that sounded confusing, then just you wait for this beauty of a movie.

The story of Arion starts out pretty well enough, a young boy is living on a farm with his blind mother when Hades of all Titans comes and steals him away to be his champion against Olympus. The half-Titan, Arion, doesn’t wish to until Hades tells him that Zeus was the one that made his mother blind. This gives Arion a cause to fight for, and revenge to seek. Followed by this possibly-trickster revelation is a cut scene of Arion going from childhood to teenagedom; we don’t even get to see Arion grow up training in the depths of Hell, we are only left to assume that he spent at least 10 years training. I can forgive this if it means it’ll allow us to get into the meat of the movie and not have to suffer 30 whole minutes of origin story. We have a lot of ground to cover after all.

And a lot of ground to cover it is, as the story moves at a snails pace. Introducing us to a kid sidekick who holds no barring over the story, we see Arion get captured more often than he should and come up against many different Titans (their not really called Gods in this film, everyone is a Titan): Athena, Ares, Apollo, Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus to name pretty much everyone. His allegiances change at the drop of a hat, he meets the love of his life and the less said about that storyline the better, and on top of all this the big bad is constantly changing.

Our hero, Arion.

Now, there are interesting parts in the movie that I probably would’ve preferred to see expanded upon like the history and culture of the Titans, or the backstory involving Prometheus. But sadly, those stories get pushed to the wayside. Most of the characters in this movie that we meet are not heavily involved, and probably get about 5 minutes of total screen time each if you put their scenes together.

The action is fun, and very fluid. I enjoyed watching those scenes because they’re the most interesting. Everything else comes to you in the form of very clumsy exposition. Now, I do think this film would’ve worked better as a trilogy with Arion taking on Hades or Poseidon in the first movie, perhaps Zeus in the second and leaving the two other mystery big bads (I won’t spoil) for the finale.

Poseidon is ready for battle.

This movie showed a lot of promise, but due to its over-eager nature, its mishandled use of Arion’s character as well as Lesfeena, and particularly the Titans themselves, I don’t know if I could recommend it for serious story buffs or even Mytheads. Action junkies, and popcorn flickers will probably find this quite enjoyable. I will say though, for the Mytheads, this movie does do one thing that many myth-based stories tend to stray away from: the Titans like to keep it all in the family which makes for some oddly amusing scenes, but also for some less interesting and fully contrived plot points.

Arion holds on for dear life.

Overall, the animation is enormously solid, the action is great, the story should’ve been stretched out more, and the character’s falter under the weight of cramming. I don’t know how good it is, as I haven’t read it, but if you’re even slightly interested in this story I suggest probably checking out the 5-volume manga. Perhaps it does that whole expanding the story thing I want so badly. Or if you want to check out something else this studio has done might I point you to the many Gundam series that have come from Sunrise over the last several decades.

Final Score: 1.5 Incestuous Titans out of 5

In two weeks I’ll have something extra special for you all. Until then, take care!


Have you seen "Arion"? How did you enjoy the movie and the review? 

Tagged: Tentacle-Free Anime.

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