Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama

[ItsMeMario]

This is an Indian Japanese co production. The plot is from the Hindu book Ramayana. The animation was done jointly by Japanese and Indian animators (the fact Indian animators were involved is probably why even though it was in part animated by a Japanese animation studio, it doesn't have the stereotypical "anime look" in all the characters, in fact not even one character appears to have been drawn in an "anime style", except possibly one or two of the monkey soldiers).

It is based on the Hindu religious text known as the Ramayana. The hero is Rama (pronounced "Rom"), the 7th incarnation of the god Vishnu. In his human form, he is the son of the king of Ayodia (not sure how it's spelled). He has a variety of magical weapons, including a spear (it can return to its thrower like a boomerang), sword (it can shoot laser beams, and also glow for increased cutting power), bow and arrows (which can glow for increased power), and a spinning disk weapon called a chakra (capable of defending against the most powerful dark magic and killing the ultimate enemy, and glows when it is used at full power). In this story, he marries Princess Sita, who later gets kidnapped by the demon king named Ravan. On his quest to save her, he finds a city full of talking monkeys. He befriends their king, and leads their army into battle against the army of Ravan. Rama, his brother, and their allies from the monkey kingdom wage a war against Raven to defeat him and his army, and free the Princess Sita. Ravan, the king of Lanka, has an army that consist of mainly these troll like creatures, an elite guard of what look like the winged monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, and also these 2 guys who are the sons of this giant (though while the giant is taller than the castle, his sons look like ordinary men). These 2 guys drive chariots, one of which has an arrow launcher built into the wheels so that as it spins it shoots out arrows. Driving this into the goodguys' army causes massive casualties among the goodguys. Ultimately these 2 guys are killed off by elite soldiers in the good monkey army, as well as the monkey king who has great fighting skills. Then the giant himself is awakened, and takes on this elite monkey soldier who has the magical power to change his size at will, and also can fly. After a brief battle with him, the monkey soldier is thrown down in hand to hand combat (though not killed). Then Prince Rama (though only the size of a normal human) chants a magical spell to materialize his magic sword in his hand, and charges at the giant (seems foolish, but it works). His sword begins to glow like the Master Sword in Zelda64 when you charge it, and then he jumps and strikes a blow to the giants knee, incapacitating him with pain. He then again charges at the giant, and does a mighty leap into the air above the fallen giant, and with his sword glowing once more, plunges it into the giant's chest, killing him. Meanwhile Rama's brother is fighting Ravan's son, an evil sorcerer and warrior. This battle takes place in the sky on a flying chariot. Rama's brother managed to capture one of the evil winged demon monkey guys and at the point of a sword force this creature to fly him up up to Ravan's son's chariot, where the battle in the sky takes place. In the end he is just about to defeat Ravan's son, but this stubborn opponent chooses suicide over allowing himself to be captured or killed by Rama's brother.

It all come's down to the final battle between Rama and Ravan. A sword fight ensues and Rama quickly gets the upper hand, and beheads the evil Ravan. However this demon king just grows a new head. Rama quickly chops it off too, but then Ravan grows into a giant and grows 5 or 6 heads, all sidebyside, and 6 arms. In one arm, he holds a flaming spear, in another an arrow with what seems to be some kind of plasma grenade on the end, and in another a bow to shoot that arrow. Rama quickly dodges the exploding arrow when it is fired at him, and then dodges the fire spear that is thrown at him. However this magical spear sets up a ring of fire around Rama, trapping him. Rama then chants a magic spell and the mystical disk, the chakra, appears. He throws that and it cuts through the fire, and makes the fire disappear. Rama then begins to chant another spell to increase the chakra's power, but he's grabbed by the now giant Ravan, before he can do so, and is thrown against the wall of Ravan's castle. Rama manages to pick up the chakra he dropped when he was thrown, and it then increases in size to about twice its original diameter, and it begins to glow. Rama then throws it at Ravan. It quickly cuts through one of his many arms, and then turns around and comes back at him and cuts his body in two at the waist. It then flies up into the sky and returns to heaven (apparently this ultimate weapon was a weapon of the gods, and so it had to return to them). The dark clouds that appeared during this final battle, now disappear. Plants and vines grow withing seconds, to cover up the corpse of the now dead king of evil. Rama now gets his wife Sita back, and they live happily for the rest of their lives.

You can watch it on Youtube here:

[ItsMeMario]

I'm surprised that nobody's interested in this.