# Hols: Prince of the Sun
**Hols: Prince of the Sun** (太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, *Taiyō no Ōji: Horusu no Daibōken*) is a 1968 Japanese animated feature film produced by [Toei Animation](https://www.edgepedia.org/toei-animation), directed by [Isao Takahata](https://www.edgepedia.org/isao-takahata) in his feature debut, in which a boy named Hols wields the Sword of the Sun against the ice demon Grunwald.[1](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/) • [2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) It is also known in English as *The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun* and, from its American television release, *Little Norse Prince Valiant*.[3](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22457) • [4](https://www.alternateending.com/2015/08/the-frozen-north.html/amp)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 21 July 1968, as one film of the summer 1968 Toei Manga Festival (東映まんがまつり)[1](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/) • [2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) |
| Director / script | Isao Takahata, his first feature; script by Kazuo Fukazawa[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) |
| Source | Fukazawa's puppet play *Harunire no Ue ni Taiyō* ("The Sun Above the Elm"), based on Ainu tradition[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) • [5](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/) |
| Key staff | Hayao Miyazaki (scene design, art design, key animation); Yasuo Otsuka (animation director); music by Mitsuo Mamiya[6](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) |
| Format | 82 minutes, 35 mm color widescreen (Toei scope, 1:2.35)[1](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/) • [3](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22457) |
| Honors | Tashkent International Film Festival director prize; Ministry of Education selection; Central Child Welfare Council recommendation[1](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/) |
| Reception | Poor attendance and mixed reviews at release; later reevaluated and regarded as a representative Toei film[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/) |
## Spoilers
### Story
Hols lives with his father on a remote shore. After he helps the rock giant Mogue and receives the sword stuck in the giant's shoulder, he learns it is the Sword of the Sun: whoever forges it and masters its use will be called the Prince of the Sun.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/) • [8](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/en/movie/movie_horus/) When his father dies, Hols burns their home and, following his father's last wish, sets out by boat with his companion Coro, a small bear cub, for a northern village where people live.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/)
On the way the demon Grunwald invites Hols to become his brother; Hols refuses and is thrown from a cliff, drifting on drifting ice until he reaches the village.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/) There he kills the giant pike that has troubled the villagers and becomes a hero.[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) He then meets Hilda, a lonely girl he finds in a deserted village, and brings her back with him.[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/)
**Hilda and the village.** Through Grunwald's scheming, Hilda is sent into the village and Hols earns the villagers' distrust, until he is driven out.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/) Yet deep in Hilda's heart a longing for human warmth begins to stir. When the demon's attack begins, Hols rallies the people, the Sword of the Sun is forged with their combined effort, and the demon is defeated; Hilda too is accepted by her companions.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/) The National Film Archive of Japan's program notes single out the psychological portrayal of Hilda, with Yasuo Otsuka's delicate animation credited for the depth of the drama.[5](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/)
## Production
The film took about three years to make, with the production staff exhausting their technique and labor.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/) It was completed in April 1968 and shot on 35 mm Fuji color film.[6](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836)
**A staff-driven production.** Takahata encouraged the animators' independence in the production process, and Miyazaki, then an in-betweener (animator who draws the frames between key poses), took part from the story-building stage.[5](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/) • [9](https://historica-kyoto.com/2019/films/focus-1/1-4/) The NAE-DB catalog of Japanese animation film history records that the film used no live-action reference footage of actors, unlike earlier Toei features; everything came from the staff's own creation, giving the animation its own lively movement.[6](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) The film's theme was described as "the unity among people," with ideas from staff members incorporated into the final film.[10](https://www.nausicaa.net/wiki/Prince_of_the_Sun%3A_The_Great_Adventure_of_Hols)
The production credit reads Hiroshi Ōkawa as producer, with planning by Seijirō Seki, Satoru Arita, Toru Hara, and Yū Saitō, animation direction by Yasuo Otsuka, art by Mataji Urata, and key animation by Yasuo Ōtsuka's peers Mori Yasuji, Reiko Okuyama, Yōichi Kotabe, Miyazaki, and others.[6](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) The music was composed by Mitsuo Mamiya, with the theme song performed by the Chofu Boys' and Girls' Choir and the Japan Choral Association, and Hilda's song sung by Mutsumi Masuda.[6](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836)
## Voice cast
Hols was voiced by Hisako Ōkata, Hilda by Etsuko Ichihara, and the demon Grunwald by Kishirō Kunihiro; other roles included Higashi Tōjūrō as the blacksmith Ganko, Masao Mishima as the village chief, and Yasushi Nagata as the villager Drago.[6](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) • [2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/)
## Reception and later standing
At release the film fared badly. Contemporary criticism called it a "manga film" with not a single laughable moment and complained it was overstuffed with no breathing room, and audiences did not come.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/) A later analysis records that a film meant as a children's cartoon was not accepted by the children it targeted and "ended in a box-office defeat."[11](https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16816700428573588737/episodes/16816700428581288544) As the years passed its true value came to be recognized, and it became a representative work of Toei's catalog.[7](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/)
**Critical standing.** The NAE-DB catalog calls it Toei Animation's masterpiece and a monument in the history of Japanese animation.[6](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) A translator's afterword in the journal *Misuzu* describes it as a revolutionary work in the history of world animation, while noting that external and internal constraints meant the ambitions of Takahata and his staff were only incompletely realized.[12](https://magazine.msz.co.jp/new/09094/) Reviewers have highlighted the battle between Hols and the giant pike as a setpiece of extraordinary speed and muscularity, and the character animation of the round-faced villagers as expressive to a degree comparable with Disney at its height.[4](https://www.alternateending.com/2015/08/the-frozen-north.html/amp)
## Place in animation history
The film is remembered as the meeting point of Isao Takahata and [Hayao Miyazaki](https://www.edgepedia.org/hayao-miyazaki). Takahata, who joined Toei Animation in 1959 after graduating from the [University of Tokyo](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-tokyo)'s French literature program, made his feature directorial debut here in 1968; he later directed *Heidi, Girl of the Alps* and *Grave of the Fireflies*, and co-founded [Studio Ghibli](https://www.edgepedia.org/studio-ghibli) with Miyazaki.[9](https://historica-kyoto.com/2019/films/focus-1/1-4/) A scholarly account describes *Hols* as the beginning of the close tutelage relationship between Takahata and Miyazaki, giving the younger animator access to a senior directorial mind with rich literary and socio-cultural aspirations for the medium.[13](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjas/21/1/21_101/_pdf) Allcinema's catalog records the film as the work with which Miyazaki and Takahata met and authorial individuality was first brought into Japanese animated film.[14](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/142490)
The film also marked a technical direction: by pursuing animation's own movement without relying on Disney-style live-action reference, it is said to have pointed the compass for the direction of domestic animation into the 21st century.[11](https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16816700428573588737/episodes/16816700428581288544) In later distribution, the film appeared on Blu-ray in Walt Disney Studios Japan's *The Complete Works of Isao Takahata* boxset on January 21, 2015, a ten-film collection,[15](https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Hols%3A_Prince_of_the_Sun) and a 4K restored version has been broadcast on the Toei Channel.[16](https://www.toeich.jp/pdf/program/201909)
## References
1. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険 – 作品情報, 東映アニメーション](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/)
2. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険 – 解説・あらすじ, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/)
3. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険 – 作品情報, KINENOTE](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22457)
4. [Hols, Prince of the Sun (1968) – Antagony & Ecstasy (Tim Brayton)](https://www.alternateending.com/2015/08/the-frozen-north.html/amp)
5. [フィルムでみよう！東映アニメーション-14, 国立映画アーカイブ](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/)
6. [太陽の王子・ホルスの大冒険, ウェブ版『日本アニメーション映画史』NAE-DB](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836)
7. [ストーリー – 太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, 東映アニメーション](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/story/)
8. [THE LITTLE NORSE PRINCE VALIANT – Toei Animation list of works](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/en/movie/movie_horus/)
9. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, 京都ヒストリカ国際映画祭](https://historica-kyoto.com/2019/films/focus-1/1-4/)
10. [Prince of the Sun: The Great Adventure of Hols, GhibliWiki](https://www.nausicaa.net/wiki/Prince_of_the_Sun%3A_The_Great_Adventure_of_Hols)
11. [なぜ、ヒットしなかったのか？ – 『太陽の王子ホルスの大冒険』の謎を解く（秋山完）, カクヨム](https://kakuyomu.jp/works/16816700428573588737/episodes/16816700428581288544)
12. [「訳者あとがき」抄, WEBみすず](https://magazine.msz.co.jp/new/09094/)
13. [Prince of the Sun: Hols Great Adventure, Japanese Journal of Animation Studies (J-Stage)](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjas/21/1/21_101/_pdf)
14. [映画アニメ 太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険 (1968), allcinema](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/142490)
15. [Hols: Prince of the Sun, Ghibli Wiki (Fandom)](https://ghibli.fandom.com/wiki/Hols%3A_Prince_of_the_Sun)
16. [TOEI CHANNEL PROGRAM GUIDE 2019](https://www.toeich.jp/pdf/program/201909)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Films by genre, form, and subject › Animated and short films › Japanese anime features › Released 1932 to 1998*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license