Miyazaki’s Rewarding, Rebellious Ronja

Miyazaki is a name, and a legend, not to be taken lightly.

This historical truth alone is worth a viewing of Goro Miyazaki’s Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter, a rewarding animated adaptation of Astrid Lindgren’s fantastic coming-of-age cli-fi.

Much like Lindgren’s other well-known heroine, Pippi Longstocking, Ronja is a feminist paragon resonating with the natural wonder of her world, to the chagrin of the often warlike, masculine order.

Goro Miyazaki’s luminous vision of Lindgren’s forested world is suitably lush and vivid, in honor and deference to his father. That would be the legendary animator, Hayao Miyazaki, whose hand-drawn ecological utopias and dystopias have redefined animation for decades.

From young Ronja’s blustering, doting father —- an intrepid chief of blundering, lovable thieves —- to the terrifying harpies with human faces —- who shriek in the skies in fearsome ways the elder Miyazaki may have found too nightmarish —- Goro Miyazaki’s adaptation of Ronja is a must-have for anime scholars and environmentalists in search of time-tested fables of fantasy and animism.

Miyazaki’s engaging series is thankfully available online now from Amazon Prime, and on disc starting in August from Shout Factory and Studio Ghibli. Details on that, as well as my continuing work on the timeless production from the Miyazaki family, are below. Don’t miss it.

From the legendary Studio Ghibli and director Goro Miyazaki (From Up on Poppy Hill) comes Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter, an International Emmy Award®-winning epic adventure based on the beloved novel by acclaimed author Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking.

The first television series produced by the renowned Studio Ghibli, Ronja, The Robber’s Daughter will be making its North American Blu-ray debut August 20th, 2019 from GKIDS and Shout! Factory. The first international release to include the original Japanese language version of the series in addition to the English dub, this complete series four-disc set includes all 26 episodes, as well as a making of featurette and an interview with director Goro Miyazaki as bonus features.

One stormy night, a girl is born inside a mountain fort, surrounded by her parents and a loving band of robbers. Now ten years old, Ronja has grown into a strong and active girl, who discovers the forest as both a beautiful and frightening place inhabited by unique creatures. She befriends the son of her father’s rival, which begins the drama of her friendship and family loyalties. As she struggles to balance this friendship with her family relationship, she comes to understand that differences can be overcome with the help of love and understanding.