Taiyou no Ouji: Horus no Daibouken

HORUS, PRINCE OF THE SUN was the first and only film Isao Takahata directed for what was Japan's top animation studio in the 1960's, Toei, with a little bit of contribution from Hayao Miyazaki, of course. At the time most Japanese animated features were made cheaply and quickly. But Takahata wanted to go one step further and create something elaborate and beautiful. It drove up the budget, to the point where it annoyed the Toei executives. At one point during production, the budget froze and so the animators were reduced to using still shots for certain scenes, such as a wolves attacking on a village ... at about 29 minutes in, and later, when rats stampede through the same village. For similar reasons, the film was only given a limited release in Japan and it received poor box office numbers, even though the critics greeted it with raves. To add insult to injury, Takahata was demoted and never directed another feature for Toei again. Sometime later, Takahata and Miyazaki left Toei to find work elsewhere.

Watching this animated film today you probably wouldn't even realize that any of this happened, but it did. The animation style is obviously 60's, but it has a lovely, rich palette. It's not quite as gorgeous as the Studio Ghibli classics we've come to know, but nonetheless it is lovely.

HORUS starts out with an intense action scene in an unknown Scandanevian region in which we see our hero, a boy warrior named Horus (Hols in the dubbed version) battling a pack of silver wolves with only a hatchet as a weapon. In a quick twist not all that different from King Arthur, the tide turns in his favor when he draws a sword from a massive rock giant who appears out of nowhere. After this victorious fight, Horus returns home to his father, who dies after telling him about his village being razed by the evil Ice Lord Grunwald. Vowing to avenge his village, Horus sets off and eventually comes across a village of innocents. En route, he also encounters Hilda, a golden-voiced girl who sings songs on her harp. Unfortunately, she turns out not to be as nice and innocent as she seems, setting the stage for a potential showdown.

The story contains many plot elements that Miyazaki would later use in his subsequent films, but in terms of character development, I'm afraid HORUS comes up a bit short. Horus himself isn't all that interesting, and neither are his companions. Even the villainous Lord Grunwald is pretty much what you'd expect from a manipulative, scheming, power-hungry baddie. Perhaps the most interesting character is Hilda, who is presented as a conflicted character torn between her friendship with the hero and the temptations of the villain. But her redemption at the end feels a bit rushed. Perhaps part of that can be attributed to the running time of 82 minutes; although it results for a faster pace, it does cause for some character bits that seem a bit hasty.

Despite being a financial failure in Japan, HORUS: PRINCE OF THE SUN has attracted considerable attention from viewers both in Japan and even in the U.S.. Bizarrely, the film was shown on American television in the late 60's, renamed LITTLE NORSE PRINCE, although uncut. The dub was done by Fred Ladd's New York-based Titan Productions , so a lot of the voice talent will be reminiscent of shows around this period such as KIMBA THE WHITE LION and ASTRO BOY. They also dubbed THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF PUSS 'N BOOTS and ANIMAL TREASURE ISLAND. As such, the dub is occasionally campy and theatrically stylized, using only four actors(!). Because this was done in the age of reel-to-reel, there are obvious places where the actors struggle to match the mouth movements, and some stiff delivery. Truth be told, the dub is not so awful that it ruins the film, but it is mediocre by today's standards. (It should also be noted that Hilda's songs come across differently in the Japanese version, the English versions are noticeably dissimilar.)

Despite its flaws, though, HORUS is still fascinating look at historical Japanese anime. Try not to get too high expectations of this film and you'll enjoy it more.

Horus: Prince of the Sun is an interesting proto-Ghibli picture that really tests the art of the possible for late 1960s anime. Watching it for the first time I was quite impressed with the animation given the fact that this film released in 1968. If you take even a cursory glance at the anime landscape at the time and works that were contemporary to this film the animation prowess on display here easily blows the rest out of the water. It is important to keep in mind that in the late 1960s it was not uncommon for anime films and television series to be produced ... entirely in black-and-white and with fairly cheap or stilted animation. A rather extreme example would be 1967's experimental Ninja Bugei-chou, a film spanning over two hours that contained no animation whatsoever, only voiceovers and camera panning over black-and-white still images. Horus, releasing little more than a year later, occupies the total polar opposite of this spectrum; lush colors, detailed shading and lighting techniques, picturesque backgrounds and smooth, high frame animation.

This film's Ghibli DNA is immediately recognizable and it's fascinating to observe how relatively modern it looks for how old it is. It certainly isn't flawless however and limitations in both the production and budget become very apparent around halfway through the film where rather long and complicated scenes play out using still images (not unlike Ninja Bugei-chou in these moments) which is particularly jarring given the stark contrast to the sheer fluidity of movement and the high number of moving objects in frame in other scenes.

The story I found to be pretty basic and to be honest rather boring. As an adventure narrative this would have stood out as something more gripping perhaps in 1968 but I found that it plays out like a bog standard mythological hero vanquishing the dark lord with very few truly unique or standout elements. That said it is competently told, even by today's standards. The score provides some charming melodies and hymn-like songs and the English voice acting is decent despite being very much a product of its time.

From a technical perspective this film is impressive to behold and was definitely a milestone for Japanese animation. Outside of the art direction and animation quality however I don't think time has been kind to this film. It's okay for what it is but I think if there is a reason to watch it in 2025 or beyond it would be from a perspective of anime archeology where it offers context and a study into the seed-planting and root-laying for what would later become the legendary Studio Ghibli.

An average story, but not a bad one. You follow a young over-powered boy as he goes on a journey to defeat a big enemy terrorising the world - you know the deal.


Even for the time, this art style was not great. Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi - they all came out about 20 years earlier but felt incomparable for how enjoyable they were in animation. Even previous Toei movies are much better than this. Possibly Hayao Miyazaki's worst animated feature.


No matter where the characters were on screen, they all sounded the exact same distance away as each other, and a lot of the voice acting felt ... very... lazy? It felt like it was strung together quickly and it didn't sound like any effort was put into the voice acting/editing the voice acting.


Hilda - A young girl who you dislike the first time you see her... as well as to the last time you see her.

Horus - A young boy who strangely has the strength and skill of a grown man, and has killed a lot of wolves with barely any difficulty, even in large groups.