Hello everyone! Its been a while, hasn't it? I've been sadly without a computer up until now, and I still do not have my original computer back. I'm loaning a laptop from a friend of the family at the moment. Hopefully I'll be back on my feet soon enough. In the meantime, I've written a review of Tales From Earthsea. ~Scheris

"Tales From Earthsea" is a 2006 anime film by Studio Ghibli. Originally, Tales From Earthsea was going to be directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service), however he was busy directing "Howl's Moving Castle" at the time, so passed the task of directing to his son, Goro Miyazaki.

After seeing the advertising for Earthsea, I'm sure pretty much everyone was intrigued at the least. The scene with Arren running from wolves is a masterpiece in of itself, and is definitely the hook for this film, hence why it was used in most of the previews and advertising campaigns. The animation in this scene is smooth and beautiful, promising an interesting film that seems to be worth a watch. Sadly, this is one of the only strong scenes in Earthsea. The other 70 minutes of the film are extremely slow paced, serious and glum. Goro managed to take the magic out of the magical world in which Earthsea is set, hopefully unintentionally.

The synopsis promises a tale of dragons, wizards and a broody teenage boy with some kind of a split personality defect, all living together in a deteriorating world. We do get dragons, wizards and all that jazz, but not as we would expect. However, saying this, the dragons are greatly animated, even if they are not at all magical. The animation itself is rather beautiful in most parts, and is done no justice by its poor English voice actors, or story board.