tohya.net
Meaningless wars leave no good memories for anyone.
Windaria is an archetypical fantasy flick. War between nations, politics, princes and princesses and your every day young man from a peaceful village make up its setting. Love and betrayal etc. are themes used for characterization.
If anything in this movie sticks out it's the animations and music. The art is surprisingly detailed for an obscure movie and the soundtrack always beautifully orchestrates what is shown on screen.
The movie's first half is well paced and takes its time to introduce the main cast, their believes and motivations and the world they act in. However a city becoming partially flooded is what most stood out in this half - the story plays itself very safe. There are no surprising or unexpected developments early on. While in the second half things movie too fast with some strange directions. I suppose with just one movie the run time just isn't enough to develop the sort of depth the director was aiming for. As the movie went on I found it increasingly more difficult to suspend my disbelief in regards to the way characters suddenly acted. The writer had a clear idea how things should pan out, but failed in fleshing out the developments leading to those points. War breaks out fully, there is no happy end for any of the characters the audience is expected to care for.
This is Windaria's strong point. War is shown to be caused by a handful of flawed characters leading everyone around. Unexperienced soldiers are depicted as uncertain and fearful. In the end nobody is rewarded and the audience is reminded of the meaninglessness of war between modern nations.
Beyond that message there are a couple strong scenes in this movie. Not a terrible watch for a friday or saturday night.
(Originally posted on mal on October 29th 2021: https://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=422594)