# Horus, Prince of the Sun
**Horus, Prince of the Sun** (太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, *Taiyō no Ōji: Horus no Daibōken*, also known in English as *Little Norse Prince Valiant*) is a 1968 Japanese animated feature film produced by [Toei Animation](https://www.edgepedia.org/toei-animation) and directed by [Isao Takahata](https://www.edgepedia.org/isao-takahata), telling of the boy Horus, who receives the Sword of the Sun from the rock giant Mogue and fights the devil Grunwald.[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) • [2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) It was Takahata's first feature as a director, and it brought together the young staff, including [Hayao Miyazaki](https://www.edgepedia.org/hayao-miyazaki) in his first major creative role, whose later careers reshaped Japanese animation.[3](https://webronza.asahi.com/culture/articles/2018111200005.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 21 July 1968, on the Toei chain, as one film in the summer 1968 Toei Manga Parade (Toei Manga Festival) program[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) • [2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) |
| Director | Isao Takahata, his feature directorial debut[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) |
| Source | A puppet play by Fukazawa Kazuo based on Ainu tradition, "The Sun Above Chikisan" (春楡の上に太陽, also written チキサニの太陽)[4](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/) • [5](https://img-lib.musabi.ac.jp/search/document/detail-work/2679) |
| Key staff | Animation director Yasuo Otsuka; scene design, art design and key animation by Hayao Miyazaki; music by Yoshio Mamiya[6](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/staff/) |
| Scale | About 150,000 drawings; production took about three years and was interrupted several times[5](https://img-lib.musabi.ac.jp/search/document/detail-work/2679) • [4](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/) |
| Format | 82 minutes, 35 mm Fuji color, Toei Scope, 2,239 m of film[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) • [7](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22457) |
| Recognition | Director's prize at the Tashkent International Film Festival; later reevaluated as Toei Animation's finest work[8](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/) • [1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) |
## Spoilers
### Story
Horus lives with his father by the sea. One day, after wolves attack him, he is saved by the rock man Mogue and pulls out the sword that had been stuck in Mogue's shoulder, relieving the thorn that had long tormented him; Mogue gives him the blade, called the Sword of the Sun, and tells him that if he can master it he will be respected as the "Prince of the Sun".[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) • [9](https://www.allcinema.net/cinema/142490) • [7](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22457) After his father's death, Horus follows his dying wish and sets out for the land where people live. On the way the devil Grunwald captures him and throws him from a cliff; Horus drifts to a village, kills the giant pike that has been tormenting the villagers, and becomes a hero there.[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) He later meets Hilda, a lonely girl in an abandoned village, and brings her back with him.[2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/)
The film places its weight on the psychological conflict between Horus, who fights to defend the village from Grunwald's invasion, and Hilda, the devil's sister, and it confronts directly how difficult it is for people to unite and fight together.[3](https://webronza.asahi.com/culture/articles/2018111200005.html) The National Film Archive of Japan describes the result as a layered drama that went beyond simple moralizing, with Hilda's psychological portrayal as a highlight supported by Yasuji Mori's delicate animation.[4](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/)
## Production
**A first-time director.** The animator Yasuo Otsuka, appointed animation director, named the then-inexperienced Takahata as director and achieved this through persistent negotiation with a reluctant studio.[3](https://webronza.asahi.com/culture/articles/2018111200005.html) Takahata had joined Toei Animation in 1959 aiming to become an animation director.[10](https://mudac.ch/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/DP_Takahata_EN.pdf) Hayao Miyazaki, then a new in-betweener who had deepened his friendship with Takahata through union activity, supplied a large volume of ideas and rose at a stroke to the main staff, establishing the Takahata–Miyazaki partnership.[3](https://webronza.asahi.com/culture/articles/2018111200005.html) On Horus, Miyazaki drew large numbers of pencil and watercolor sketches called image boards that supported the film's creativity.[11](https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/docs/2019-2020nenpou.pdf)
**Collective methods.** Production brought an unprecedented change for the entire staff: people exchanged ideas across section boundaries, drew boards, and were given chances when their proposals were good, leading to major review and replacement of duties across departments.[11](https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/docs/2019-2020nenpou.pdf) Takahata actively solicited ideas from the staff and led the young members including Miyazaki through repeated production stoppages and conflicts with management, reaching a drama beyond simple good-versus-evil storytelling.[4](https://www.nfaj.go.jp/program/toeianimation202607-14/) The staff shared a commitment to quality at a time when Japanese, and Toei's, animation was shifting to "three frames" (shooting each drawing for three frames), which lowered costs and quality; they saw themselves as the ones who had to defend standards.[12](https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/docs/nennpoubessatu2004-2005.pdf)
**Scale and technique.** The film used no live-action reference footage of actors for the animators to copy; everything came from the staff's own invention, which the Japanese animation film history database credits with the medium's native liveliness.[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) It was also the film from which xerography was adopted for the entire tracing process at Toei.[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) The production took about three years and cost 130 million yen at then-current prices, with a drawing count that ranks among the highest in Japanese animation.[5](https://img-lib.musabi.ac.jp/search/document/detail-work/2679) • [13](https://realsound.jp/movie/2019/08/post-401807.html)
## Reception and legacy
The film was released on 21 July 1968 as part of the Toei Manga Parade program and did poorly at the box office; the history database notes that a masterpiece does not necessarily make money, and that a film so earnestly made, with almost no gag scenes and a theme of solidarity, was hard for the company to sell.[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) • [2](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/) Its psychological sequences were also judged difficult for younger children to follow.[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) In later years it was reevaluated as Toei Animation's finest work, became a fixture of independent screenings in animation circles, and won the director's prize at the Tashkent International Film Festival.[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836)
**A starting point.** Takahata himself long believed that production circumstances had not allowed him to fully realize his intentions on the film, a view he recorded in his book on Horus's visual expression; as the later careers of the staff became well known, the film's estimation rose.[14](https://www.jsas.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/21th_Conference_Proceedings.pdf) The line from this collaboration ran through *Heidi, Girl of the Alps* (1974) to the founding of [Studio Ghibli](https://www.edgepedia.org/studio-ghibli), and the animation scholar Fumiyasu Kojou of the Japan Society for Animation Studies treats the film as carrying Takahata's and his Toei colleagues' reflections on Japan's wartime past and postwar developments beneath a story set in a faraway western land.[3](https://webronza.asahi.com/culture/articles/2018111200005.html) • [15](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjas/21/1/21_101/_pdf) The puppet play on which the film is based, *The Sun Above Chikisan*, was first performed in 1959 and is itself based on an earlier epic.[16](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9798765127087_A50960627/preview-9798765127087_A50960627.pdf)
## Voice cast and music
Horus was voiced by Hisako Ōgata (大方斐紗子), Grunwald by Mikijirō Hira (平幹二朗), Hilda by Etsuko Ichihara (市原悦子), and Mogue by Tadashi Yokouchi (横内正), with the village blacksmith Ganko voiced by Eijirō Tōno (東野英治郎) and Horus's father and the white owl Toto by Hisashi Yokomori (横森久).[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836) • [7](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22457) The music was composed by Yoshio Mamiya (間宮芳生), who also wrote the theme song's music to lyrics by Fukazawa Kazuo, performed with the Chofu Boys' and Girls' Choir and the Japan Choral Association; Hilda's song was sung by Mutsumi Masuda (増田睦美).[1](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836)
## References
1. [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』作品リスト (NAE-DB, NAE0836)](https://www.nihon-animation-eigashi.com/work-db/item/NAE0836)
2. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, 映画.com](https://eiga.com/movie/37668/)
3. [叶精二「高畑勲監督の原点『太陽の王子』の現場を熱く語る」, 論座 (朝日新聞)](https://webronza.asahi.com/culture/articles/2018111200005.html)
4. [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/)
5. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, 武蔵野美術大学 美術館・図書館 イメージライブラリー](https://img-lib.musabi.ac.jp/search/document/detail-work/2679)
6. [スタッフ - 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/staff/)
7. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, KINENOTE](https://www.kinenote.com/main/public/cinema/detail.aspx?cinema_id=22457)
8. [太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険, 東映アニメーション 作品ラインナップ](https://lineup.toei-anim.co.jp/ja/movie/movie_horus/)
9. [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)
10. [Isao Takahata exhibition text, mudac](https://mudac.ch/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/DP_Takahata_EN.pdf)
11. [徳間記念アニメーション文化財団年報 2019–2020](https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/docs/2019-2020nenpou.pdf)
12. [2章：高畑勲／東映動画的な演出, 徳間記念アニメーション文化財団年報 2004–2005 別冊](https://www.ghibli-museum.jp/docs/nennpoubessatu2004-2005.pdf)
13. [高畑勲×宮崎駿『太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険』の"失敗"が、日本のアニメーションに遺したもの, Real Sound](https://realsound.jp/movie/2019/08/post-401807.html)
14. [古城文嘉「『太陽の王子 ホルスの大冒険』の意図を読み解く」, 日本アニメーション学会第21回大会研究発表概要集](https://www.jsas.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/21th_Conference_Proceedings.pdf)
15. [日本アニメーション学会論文 (J-STAGE, jjas 21_101)](https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jjas/21/1/21_101/_pdf)
16. [Book preview, pageplace.de](https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9798765127087_A50960627/preview-9798765127087_A50960627.pdf)
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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 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license