Nahoko Uehashi is no stranger to having her work adapted into anime. For anyone not in the know Nahoko Uehashi is a writer whos published a lot of fantasy novels in Japan all of which have received fairly critical acclaim. In fact two of her novel series Seirei no Moribito and Beast Player Elin or Kemono no Souja Erin have both been adapted into anime the former in 2007 and the latter in 2009. Ive seen the anime for Moribito and I absolutely adore it but I havent seen Elin yet even though I own the first novel in that series and havent read it yet. But its safe to say that Uehashi has a pretty strong pedigree both in the literature and anime world. So when I found out another one of her works was due for an anime film called The Deer King I couldnt wait to see it even after reviews for it started coming out that pointed out that the movie has some pretty significant flaws. Because lets face it these days pure fantasy stories that actually give a damn about their worlds characters and stories are becoming fewer and fewer in number. Thanks a lot isekai trend. After having seen it now...Im admittedly rather conflicted though I do agree with a lot of the reviews for this movie on one thing: The Deer King really should have been a TV series like Moribito and Elin were. Van was once head of a group of soldiers defending his homeland from the Zol Empire which was looking to assimilate it into their territory. But after he loses his family to an epidemic Van falls into despair and is taken as a slave to work in a salt mine. One night a pack of strange dogs attack the mine and a mysterious illness the same one that killed his family breaks out killing everyone except him and a young toddler Yuna. Van manages to take the opportunity to escape and takes Yuna with him. Elsewhere the Kingdom of Aquafa is working tirelessly to study the Black Wolf Fever and figure out some way to cure it and the thing is it only seems to afflict people from the Zol Empire. A priestdoctor Hossal decides to risk his life to search for a cure encountering Van as Yuna gets kidnapped by the mysterious wolves. Van Hossal and a woman named Saewho was sent to kill Van by her countrys ordershave to work together to both save Yuna and prevent their world from falling into a war. If theres one thing I can absolutely say about The Deer King is that it is DENSE. By that I mean it contains a LOT of content thats stuffed into two hours. If you thought Maquia: When The Promised Flower Blooms was dense and full of content then The Deer King has it beat. You have a guy and a little girl becoming a family tensions between empires a mysterious illness something about an emperor visiting and so on. The movie really goes all in on trying to have as much content as possible moving from one plot point and set of characters to the next leaving barely any time for the audience to catch their breath. On the one hand this means theres always something going on so you wont find yourself bored. On the other hand The Deer King really tries to tell a huge story in the span of two hours making its pacing fairly fast as it does so but two hours is not enough to cover all that the movie tries to. Its incredibly hard to keep up with the various characters and plot points and every 5 minutes I kept asking Wait whos this? Whats happening? Huh? Whats this about the emperors eyes? Slow down movie It basically has the same problem as The Heike Story in that it tries to juggle a huge amount of events and characters in a time frame thats just too small to handle the weight of its source material. This is why I say The Deer King should have been a TV series that way it would have had more time to flesh everything out and let the audience at least process whats going on. Beast Player Elin had 50 episodes and Moribito had 26 episodes and only covered a couple volumes of the novels at that. Because of this most if not all the characters feel more like props moving the story forward rather than actual characters. Now dont get me wrong the main three adult characters that we follow have some pretty solid characterization. Out of all of them I found Hossal to be the most interesting with his desire to cure the Black Wolf Fever but being so disconnected from the outside world that he cant even gather firewood properly and having to reconcile his beliefs in science with faith and religion integrating them into his worldview in order to find answers. Plus the movie is also pretty good at letting the characters actions speak for themselves rather than simply explaining who these characters are outright. One scene involving an evil Zolian prince has him deliberately squishing blood out of his infected leg and demanding an Aquafan sage lick it an action that not only establishes his sadistic and evil personality but the power dynamic between the imperialist Zolians and the conquered Aquafans more than any monologues could ever hope to do. Even more subtle things like Van reaching through his cage to comfort Yuna show so much more than just relying solely on dialogue and these little touches are present throughout the entire movie something director Masashi Ando is apparently well known for. So what the movie lacks in more overt characterization it makes up for in its clever usage of show dont tell. That being said I didnt find Yuna to be that compelling of a character. She was mainly there to be a cutesy toddler and a damsel in distress and since shes toddleraged it makes sense that she cant really have a proactive role in the story but I wish the movie could have had her be more than just a damsel. While I can definitely respect Ando for wanting to make do with the allotted time that he had and what hes able to accomplish is definitely laudable but it doesnt change the fact that two hours is not enough time to carry the weight of so much material especially when taking the fast pacing into account. Plus the final villain at the end just came out of nowhere and felt tacked on. The actual animation itself is pretty stellar for a movie. Production IG is no stranger to both making movies and Uehashis work. They did make the anime adaptations of both Moribito and Elin after all. Their animation is always very consistent depending on the content theyre making and honestly The Deer Kings character designs are very reminiscent of Moribito. Every character has their own distinct look without looking generic or overdesigned the backgrounds are rich and detailed and the character motion is pretty smooth. Not KyoAni smooth but it does its job decently well. Considering that Ando previously worked with Ghibli there are certainly a lot of parallels in terms of the backgrounds and character designs. I do have to admit I barely paid much attention to the soundtrack as I was expending more energy on trying to keep up with the movie than with admiring the soundtrack. The OST is nice enough but I couldnt tell you the first thing about it. Maybe Ill have more to say about it if I rewatch the movie once it comes out on home video or something Which as of this writing just got confirmed for a BR release set for October 18th Thanks GKids. So yeah Masashi Andos film debut while noble and timely couldnt quite carry the weight of its massive source material. That being said this is a pretty solid movie on its own merits and Id gladly watch this over all the bland isekai anime that rehash the same premises over and over again. So for all its flaws The Deer King proves that high fantasy anime arent dead yet. Feel free to check it out if youre looking for a fantasy with a bit more bite to it.