Green Legend Ran Reviews

GREEN LEGEND RAN is a Japanese animated tale of future strife on a barren earth governed by an alien-sponsored religious movement. Its imaginative retro design eases viewers through an increasingly complicated storyline. In an ecologically damaged future, an alien entity called Rodo descends to earth and absorbs all water and plant life to create an area called Holy Mother. The Rodoist religious movement guards Holy Mother and designates people born with silver hair as intermediaries between Holy Mother and the mass of humanity surviving in dry, barren villages. A boy named Ran meets a silver-haired girl named Aira and both get caught up in the movements of the Hazzard, a rebel group opposing the Rodoists. Aira is interrogated by rebel leader Kiba as to her knowledge of Holy Mother while Ran links up with former Hazzard leader Jeke who wants Ran to rescue Aira. Aira is abducted by Rodoist troops and taken to see the Bishops who guard the entrance to Holy Mother. Aira enters Holy Mother and encounters a fertile, natural landscape with rich plant life and running water. Holy Mother, taking the form of an ethereal goddess, asks Aira to join in with eleven other "silver maidens" in a move to turn the entire world green, a plan which includes the transformation of the surviving humans into plants. Ran enters Holy Mother to rescue Aira, while Kiba and Jeke join forces to stop Holy Mother with a secret incendiary device called Fireball. The device stops Holy Mother cold and allows the stored-up water to seep out and irrigate the entire planet once again. Ran and Aira find themselves alone in a plant boat in the middle of a massive sea. Like much Japanese animated science fiction, GREEN LEGEND RAN floats a number of eco-fantasy concepts that may go right over the heads of its viewers. Nothing is ever explained enough to allow viewers a sufficient grasp of the material. However, the gentle tone and imaginative approach are quite refreshing for anime fans weary of the nonstop barrage of grotesque demons, loud explosions, and energy blasts so prevalent in recent anime releases. The most interesting visual strategy on display is the painterly art design, with water color-style backgrounds, and a more organic design of the future, as high-tech surfaces are replaced by biological and plant-like textures. The few mechanical, or mecha, designs, as seen in the sand ships operated by the principals, evoke old, decaying ship interiors rather than the gleaming, metalllic surfaces of most futuristic anime.(Violence, profanity.)