The Deer King (Shika no Ō) immediately wants you to see just how committed it is to its own world-building. Through several loaded intertitles, the story of Masashi Ando and Masayuki Miyaji’s folk-fantasy anime is bluntly presented: the nations of Zol and Aquafa are in a long-standing war, but when a mysterious Black Wolf Fever originates in one of Aquafa’s territories, their war ends with Zol as the victor. Quite a lot to digest for the first minute of your movie, only further escalated by a literally explosive sequence of shots depicting the Fever’s reemergence. The story immediately kicks into high gear with decades of history spun into morsels of context.
Thankfully, what follows is our introduction to the heart of the movie. After surviving a Wolf attack in a Zol-based mine, Aquafa expat Van (Shinichi Tsutsumi) escapes with Yuna (Hisui Kimura), a young girl left behind during the attack. Both of them have survived being bitten by the wolves, once thought impossible, but Van alone has been imbued with strange magical abilities. Father-daughter relationships of this nature are particularly popular in today’s media landscape, from The Last of Us to The Mandalorian, and it works here just as well. Yuna is obviously adorable, but she’s also more tenacious and forthright than most characters written at her age. As she melts Van’s stoic heart, she melts ours too.
However, their story is all-too-quickly interrupted by the film’s larger plotline, and the film’s setbacks begin to show themselves. The attack at the mine is promptly investigated by the leaders of both Zol and Aquafa, accompanied by medical expert Hohsalle (Ryoma Takeuchi) and skilled tracker Sae (Anna Watanabe). When they learn of Van’s escape despite being bitten, they believe his blood could be used to create a cure for Black Wolf Fever. Meanwhile, Van and Yuna have assimilated into a local village, but their quiet hiding is about to be thoroughly interrupted.
This is just a slice of the film’s plot, which juggles many additional characters as well as a deeper political narrative that paints the story in a very different light. You can tell that the directors valued the original novels, written by Nahoko Uehashi, and strove to adapt it in-depth. But, as it turns out, multiple novels of intrigue don’t adapt well into a singular experience. Vital information is expounded in underwritten exposition jumps, and a lack of texture in the film’s history only further disconnects the audience. Despite its gorgeous animation and excellent character designs, little of it used to paint the character’s experiences with any show-don’t-tell flair.
Speaking of characters, it smells of too many cooks in the kitchen. While characters like Van, Yuma, and Hohsalle play into the story’s heart and sincerity with compelling energy, the film’s exterior characters lack the same appeal. Sae, for all her badass combat skills, is too distant of a character to feel connected to the story, and all of the film’s political figures feel ancillary. It may fit into the film’s story world, but a faceless emperor cannot command your attention in the same way an adorable young girl can.
It all culminates in an extended third-act that leans so heavily into the film’s fantasy elements that the larger story begins to feel lost. Because the stakes have been so minimally set, very little about the film’s final moments feel conclusive or satisfying, which is a shame. The animation is certainly doing the work, courtesy of acclaimed animation studio Production I.G (Haikyu!!, Ghost in the Shell). Some of these animators, including the two directors, were even students of Hayao Miyazaki, and the inspirations are clear. The film’s grand scale is balanced with meticulous detail and magical sequences feel larger than life.
And yet…it doesn’t quite hit the same. Maybe because it lacks the same level of imagination. The Deer King is a fairly grounded story, about as grounded as a story can be with words like “Aquafa” and “Zol” in casual conversation. This was in an attempt to help the story’s adult themes feel more real, but it loses the sense of wonder and imagination that Miyazaki had in his film’s iconic images. The Deer King is too concerned with the text of its characters to find these images, leaving its visual storytelling limp.
Many people assume a great fantasy epic is in the world it creates. It’s actually in the memorable characters that everyone comes back for, paired with satisfying moments to propel them forward. Without enough of either trait, The Deer King fails to compete with the best of its genre and will likely remain a forgettable entry within it.
“The Deer King” is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of GKIDS.
"The Deer King" is gorgeously animated but intricately designed to its own detriment, not allowing enough visual storytelling to supplement a heavy plot.
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GVN Rating 5
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Larry Fried is a filmmaker, writer, and podcaster based in New Jersey. He is the host and creator of the podcast “My Favorite Movie is…,” a podcast dedicated to helping filmmakers make somebody’s next favorite movie. He is also the Visual Content Manager for Special Olympics New Jersey, an organization dedicated to competition and training opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities across the Garden State.