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After the disappearance of his mother, young Taro has grown up at his
grandmother's in a poor little village in the mountains ... and he has
become a slob who hardly ever helps his granny, instead spends most of his
time out in the woods to play with his friends, the animals. One day, a
magician stops by and gives him the stength of 100 men ... but he can use
this strength only to help others, not for his own sake - and soon enough,
he needs all the strength he has got, when a demon kidnaps his girlfriend
Aya ... and when he frees her he does the first selfless thing in his life
- and soon learns of a flatland behind the mountains, where there would be
enough food for his village and lots of other mountain villages ... plus
this is where he suspects his mother to be, who one day before his
birth was turned into a dragon.
On the quest for his mother, Taro has to first encounter many setbacks
though, including an old woman who wants to sell him a seaserpent as his
mother, but he also finds enough rice to carry to the mountain villages
and feed them all for a while.
Eventually, he meets the mysterious mountain lady, who tries to seduce
him, but he can somehow trick her into telling him where her mother the
dragon might be ... on the bottom of a nearby lake, where she has spent
her days completely blind. And all because, when she was pregnant with
him, she broke the first commandment of the mountains: To share one's food
with others.
When he sees his mother's lake though, Taro also sees a possibility to
give a new home and plenty of (flat) space to all the mountain folks: If
only they could tear down the boulders that block the lake from flowing on
into the next valley ... and Taro's mother, impressed by her son's
selflessness, agrees to be a living piledriver - even if that might cost
her her life. And indeed, mum can tear down the boulders and this way turn
the lake into a fertile valley, but once that is done, the dragon breaks
down, and dissolves - but out comes: Mum, in human form. Her selfless deed
has turned her back to normal, and all's well that ends well.
As you might have guessed from my synopsis, the story of this anime is
rather cheesy, However the moody and somewhat ethereal designs of the
films are rather impressive and a far cry from the Disney kitsch we
Westerners have come to associate with this kind of story. Interesting, to
say teh least.
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amazon.de
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