AKA: 鹿の王 ; Shika no O

Genre: Fantasy

Length: Movie, 114 minutes

Distributor: Currently licensed by GKids, available streaming on Netflix.

Content Rating: R (Violence, mature situations.)

Related Series: N/A

Also Recommended: Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind; Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

Notes: Based on novel series by Nahoko Uehashi, published by Kadokawa

Rating:

The Deer King

Synopsis

The land of Aquafa was conquered by the Empire of Zol a decade before, but the Zolians failed to conquer one enclave of Aquafa because of infestation by the Mittsual, or Black Wolf Fever, which supposedly kills Zolians but not Aquafans. Meanwhile, a former Aquafan warrior named Van, who escapes from a Zolian prison after it's struck by this plague, attracts the notice of a (very bishounen) doctor named Hohsalle Vuguraul, who thinks Van's blood may have the key to giving EVERYBODY immunity , which threatens the plans of certain clandestine Aquafan groups to use the Mittsual to achieve their final vengeance on, and liberation from, the Zolians.

Review

The disease that ravages the Zolians but not the Aquafans is called Black Wolf Fever, but the vectors of the disease are called the Ossam Dogs. So which are they, dogs or wolves? The art is indeterminant (meaning that, by intention or lack of skill, it's difficult to tell), so we'll just avoid species-specificity and call them Canids.

The Canids travel around in a billowing cloud of purple smoke, which I assume is an "artsy" way of representing the contagion they carry. The show's short on explanations, making us piece the backstory together from isolated scenes (some from the memory of our hero, Van); this, together with the movie's forays into mysticism, and that aforementioned pretentious visual symbolism, do NOT help us understand what we're seeing in real time. I've watched this twice, but there are still plenty of loose ends. I'll come back to those, and why they might exist, later.

And yet, for the weight the art is made to carry here, it's really only adequate at best. In particular, the landscapes often seem somehow washed out and out of focus, even in this realm's "sunny" days.

The longest single segment of the movie is pastoral, in which Van, having escaped the Zolian prison, returns to his Aquafan people- with the infant girl he found in the prison (and named Yuna) in tow. (She's his substitute for his own, long gone, family. By the way, the show kind of implies his wife was Zolian.) The Aquafans have domesticated the Pyuika (giant deer), for both transportation and sustenance. (They drink the does' milk, which everyone else is repulsed by.) In addition, while he was in prison, Van's right arm was bitten by a Canid, which somehow made it superpowered, with the ability to shatter things with just one blow, though the art's not terribly helpful in understanding exactly how that works, either. (Are the Canids radioactive? In the comics, it was always when something radioactive bit you...)

Meanwhile, our chief physician Hohsalle, certainly the prettiest person here, is sure that there must be some reason why the Zolians, and not the Aquafans, are affected by the disease (besides the simple fact of being Zolians versus Aquafans), even while the rebel Aquafan factions (whose relationshps to each other I was also unclear about) plot to take advantage of this very difference, and so are no fans of the Doctor's efforts. I was unclear about yet ANOTHER thing: why an assassin decided to go after Van- a fellow countryman, AND a formidable one at that- when the more logical target was the DOCTOR, who's the only person able to figure out how to change the status quo. Maybe they were reluctant to go after the better-looking dude.

The Doctor is sure there's some factor in Aquafan blood that confers immunity to the disease, and urges a terminally infected (but bigoted) Zolian royal to accept a transfusion of Aquafan blood, but they'd rather die than have their Precious Bodily Fluids contaminated with the blood of the Aquafan rabble, so he has trouble verifying this with a test case. (As an aside, I thought some of the Doc's scientific equipment- especially his centrifuge!- delightfully anachronistic.) Unfortunately (but extremely conveniently for the plot) the Doc can be a bit slow at times; the critical clue to curing the plague is obvious in a conversation one of the Doc's aides has with him about 28 minutes before the end of the film, but the significance of what he's heard doesn't dawn on HIM until later.

And like I said, after two viewings there were still some loose ends. Here are a few:

-Who's Kenoi (who summons Van)? Why does he have the powers he has? AND WHY IS HE STUCK IN A TREE??? (Like Merlin? Perhaps he'll wind up like Merlin did in Satellite Girl and Milk Cow. Anime prompts the STRANGEST musings...)

-We're presented with some assailants on stilts. We are presented with NOTHING beyond that simple fact- including their motivations.

-There's the whole business with "The Emperor's Eyes." I assume these are the balloons with eye symbols painted on them. Are there human observers in these balloons? (But how could there be? We see one apparently emerge from UNDER a lake. They also seem to be associated with the demolition of rock formations- so how does THAT work????)

I did wonder if fuller explanations of these things were provided in the novels this is based on, and when this was adapted, the screenwriters thought they would make nifty visuals, but given the amount of time they had, they just stuck them in without context. In any case, I like my worlds built with more details than this.

Can a plot be both thin AND confusing? Even the closing theme was weak tea, while otherwise mediocre shows often have great closing songs. But everyone can feel better knowing that, in the end, they're sharper than the Doctor. It's passable, I suppose, for the undiscriminating. The Recs are better exercises in world-builiding. — Allen Moody

Recommended Audience: Netflix rates R. Violence, including dismemberment, as well as the ravages of disease (and an unpleasant command from the Zolian's dying lord.)