Ah, Discotek. The Criterion Collection of anime, rescuing "classic" Japanese films and shows that I've never heard of. The world is better for your services. One such anime they released was "Arion," a 1986 feature film that seemingly never got an American release until this Bluray in 2021. Based on a manga of the same name, it told a liberally fictional tale of Arion of Greek fables, in the time of Zeus and Hades. It's a period-fantasy action film, with a setting rarely used in anime (for as iconic as Greece mythology is, the only animated film that comes to mind is Disney's "Hercules"). I don't have any nostalgia for pre-2000's anime and all the technical shortcuts they relied on, but I do like an original, standalone adventure. "Arion" delivered as expected on both fronts.While historians of Greek legends might get more out of the name-drops and character appearances in the story, their personalities and purpose in this original story are vastly different enough, that one shouldn't take it too seriously as a replacement for classical literature classes. Set a couple millennia ago, the world is at war, at a time when titans, humans, and monsters co-exist across the globe. The titan brothers Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades each rule the land, sea and underworld, respectively, as granted by their father. But each one being greedy and thinking highly of themselves, they command armies to conquer the lands of the other brother. Zeus and Poseidon in particular are a fair match, while Hades watches from the sidelines, scheming for his opportunity to win without getting involved. Elsewhere, Arion is a young boy and son of Demeter, and apparently Poseidon, who abandoned their quiet life in favor of conquest. When Hades visits Demeter and is unsuccessful in convincing her to join him to defeat his brothers, he instead tricks Arion away with a promise to cure Demeter's long-standing blindness. Forced to survive in the hellish underworld with all manner of dangers, Arion's strength and speed is revealed, and Hades tricks him further: if he kills Zeus and brings his head to his mother, surely this would cure her blindess. A timeline is never specified, but with Arion a bit older as he seeks out Zeus in his holdout of Olympus, we assume Arion is gone from his mother for at least a few years. Accompanied by monster friends from the underworld, and a few new friends along the way, he comes across multiple dangers as he gets closer to the central war zone, with both allies and foes in the armies from Poseidon and Zeus. Key figures like Apollo and Athena lead Zeus' armies in his place. These character reveals come slowly and with meaning: Zeus isn't shown until the midway-point of the film, and likely isn't like any depiction you've seen of him. In this story, the titan race are powerful, but are not Gods, however they might think of themselves as such. Arion falls in love with a mute girl named Resphoina, whom he later learns might be his sister. In fact, all of the titans technically derive from the same mother, and are not strangers to infatuation with each other, so sexual incest among siblings, and certainly cousins, is everywhere in the movie. In a rousing speech from Arion before the climax, he ultimately has no desire to might Zeus, but simply wishes to save his sister from Olympus: "even if she is my sister," he says, "I am in love with her," and his desire to make love to her is still pure. The frequent incest might raise a few eyebrows, and might be one reason why the movie wasn't licensed to release outside of Japan for so long. It's easy to assume this is just Japanese perversion, but is likely meant to be more pure to the source material (Greece gods are no stranger to love in their fables, no matter who it's with). Again as a nod to Greece, the act of killing one's parent (especially among titans), known as "patricide," is considered to be one of the greatest sins. There is some brief nudity in a few spots, but no explicit sex. The movie is an action film first, and has some pretty violent moments, such as men and their horses being sliced clean in half with a single sword swing. At the time, this was probably meant to be an adult (or at least older-teenager) movie, but also keep in mind that graphic content was a bit of a taboo when this was released (the disturbing "Akira" wasn't released until a couple years later). So despite the content, it's never explicit or graphic enough to truly concern any but the most attentive of parents, and with wacky sidekicks and light adventure humor, it's easy to mistake this as a family film! 
And like other 80's anime, yes, we get the grubby-thief-that-looks-like-a-kid sidekick, the big monster that's dumb but friendly, and a few shriveled-up old characters to provide exposition and wisdom. The final moments talk about how humans don't need destructive weapons like canons, and questions the need for Gods to be happy... like most other anime do, except it's kind-of tacked on here. I actually found the subplots of intrigue between the smaller-grade titans in the tactical tents of the battlefield quite interesting, and wanted to learn more about the mysterious Apollo, and what his schemes were all about. Despite a 2-hour runtime (long for an animated film), we don't get quite enough of any of that to fully appreciate it. Instead, we follow Arion all the way, from a naive boy to a only-slightly-less-naive teenager. Gratefully, at least there's a solid ending, even though it relies on a character suddenly becoming magical and resolving everything in an instant, with little explanation. Visually, "Arion" looks good... well, as much as you'd imagine from a standard anime from 1986. By comparison, "Akira" and "Ghost in the Shell" still put it to shame. There are still a handful of iconic and memorable sequences, and the animation during some of the action scenes could be considered a great technical achievement for the time. But it's also clear that the production was too ambitious for its own good, striving to create an epic to rival live-action movies like "Lawrance of Arabia" in scope, but noticably falling short. Character designs are also old-school, which I don't care for, and natural to the Ancient Greece setting, almost everyone is barefoot... I kept thinking how the wars would end if someone just took a hammer to people's toes. One of the biggest positive highlights was the monster designs, which are varied, imaginative, and nightmarish.And did you know Joe Hisaishi did the musical score here? The guy that scores all the Ghibli movies? It was early in his career though, just before Ghibli was taking off, so you'd have to listen closely to recognize his style, which is most recognizable at the beginning. For the rest of it, I couldn't tell the difference between any other composer, so I don't think of this as Hisaishi's best work. There's no dub for "Arion," and while I accepted the Japanese acting, it wasn't particularly good either. It's also worth mentioning the Bluray transfer from Discotek isn't anything to write home about (the smaller cuts during the English end-credits actually look MUCH better, maybe just because it was downsampling to a smaller part of the window?). So yes, my struggle to go backwards to anime movies that don't hold up as well today fails me again. "Arion" is actually a decent movie, a unique take on Greek gods with some exiting action. All of it standalone too, with no requirement to see a extended television show or manga! If you're keener on older Japanese animation, "Arion" is more than worthy. But despite its originality, my more modern tastes can point to a few dozen other films with better-paced action and writing.