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A Wizard of Earthsea
Jan. 2nd, 2026 05:56 amI rewatched A Wizard of Earthsea and reconsidered it. It had its troubles, mostly in design, and so did the story, but the adaptation changed for me.
I think that the adaptation would have worked better if the designs had been entirely Japanese. Then, I would have thought of this film as a Japanese film with Japanese sensibility, because that's the key. Whoever adapted the novel adapted it for the Japanese sensibility. That's why there's a disconnect going on.
Once I stopped looking at this like an adaptation of an Earthsea novel, and began looking at it like a Japanese fantasy, most of what I saw fell into place. For those things that rang Japanese, they didn't need to explain it because the audience inherently understood the subject matter. For us in the west, that was a disconnect, because we didn't.
As for overall aesthetics, it had that beauty that that the other 2000's Ghibli films possessed. They were the same people painting the backgrounds, handing the colors, and doing the animation. Their experience showed.
With a few tweaks, this film could have been a far more memorable part of the Ghibli canon.
I think that the adaptation would have worked better if the designs had been entirely Japanese. Then, I would have thought of this film as a Japanese film with Japanese sensibility, because that's the key. Whoever adapted the novel adapted it for the Japanese sensibility. That's why there's a disconnect going on.
Once I stopped looking at this like an adaptation of an Earthsea novel, and began looking at it like a Japanese fantasy, most of what I saw fell into place. For those things that rang Japanese, they didn't need to explain it because the audience inherently understood the subject matter. For us in the west, that was a disconnect, because we didn't.
As for overall aesthetics, it had that beauty that that the other 2000's Ghibli films possessed. They were the same people painting the backgrounds, handing the colors, and doing the animation. Their experience showed.
With a few tweaks, this film could have been a far more memorable part of the Ghibli canon.
