What would otherwise have been a beautiful animation series has been completely ruined by the miscasting of the lead voice in English. Ronja is supposed to be 11 years old - My daughter (8) has been constantly mocking the voice of Ronja as she says she sounds like a toddler. The voice is so gratingly irritating it has completely destroyed any enjoyment of the series there might otherwise have been. I sympathise with the other comments of the music and voice dubbing in English which seems disjointed but all of this might have been forgiven as the animation, characters and creatures would be engaging in themselves.I expect that the original in Japanese would not suffer from these drawbacks. So it is down to me and my children to study Japanese, or perhaps we could beg the production company to re-voice Ronja, then I might shell out the £25 for the DVD box set for a second time!
... View MoreThe computer generated 3D animation used in Ronja does take getting used to. My husband and I, both aged 70, and huge Ghibli fans over the years, felt that this would definitely have been a best seller had Goro Miyasaki made it as a film rather than a TV series involving Polygon Pictures. The scenery and the attention to detail are brilliant and the main characters very well depicted. However, it is the mythical creatures that steal the show, particularly the Harpies, worth looking out for every appearance they make. Goro Miyasaki's other films, 'Tales From Earthsea' and 'From Up on Poppy Hill' showed a very different style from his father, Haiao Miyasaki, and it took us a while to really appreciate how good they were. We are experiencing the same with Ronja. Having got to about episode four the pace picks up and we watched the whole series before reading Astrid Lindgren's book on which it is based. Unlike other reviewers, we actually felt that Miyasaki had stuck pretty close to the original; which prompted us to view the series again and we were not disappointed.
... View MoreI thought the animation was simply beautiful. It had its hiccups with some longer than needed scene transitions. If the original is better I want to see it. I am not a huge anime watcher but I do enjoy watching sometimes with my three kids, considering the other things I have watched with them this was breath of fresh air in a really joyous and innocent way. I think there are some pretty entertaining cartoons out there so I am out to disrespect anything. I just want to highly recommend this. Watch this, the subjective experience is worth the time. Ronja, the Robbers Daughter is truly something that captivates my family. We are ages 2, 6, 10 and 51
... View MoreWhile this may be fine for kids, artistically it is so far short of the original Swedish film treatment as to be essentially unwatchable. The crude animation and awkward pacing of the story do no credit to the studio, animators and director. The music is so generic as to be superfluous, competing and clashing with the dialogue. This lamentable effort sells short the intellect of anyone over age 5.If you can, I strongly recommend enjoying the original Swedish film treatment of this wonderful tale. A wonderful cast, fabulous scenery, seamless integration of live acting and animation provide an engaging and entertaining experience for all ages. The "robbers chorus" is epic enough to compete with the finest opera and not to be missed.I recommend the story for families with children, but please consider the far better original if you have access.
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