Isao Takahata is, more than six years after his death, best remembered for co-founding the legendary anime house Studio Ghibli and directing some of its most interesting films. If his stablemate and co-founder Hayao Miyazaki was best known for his sheer consistent quality and aesthetic, Takahata’s work was typified by his inventiveness. Eschewing the exact consistency that brought Miyazaki such unparalleled acclaimed, Takahata would innovate. He would capably mix genres as well as styles, creating works that were perhaps less remarkable but certainly more challenging.

Another aspect of Takahata’s career that separated it from Miyazaki’s was its longevity. Miyazaki only made his film directing debut in 1979 with The Castle of Cagliostro. Takahata pre-dated him by 11 years with the animated fantasy The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun (1968).

A young boy pulls an enchanted sword from a stone giant, setting off a mythical journey to an icy village, and the magical demon lord Grunwald who threatens its safety. It is a relatively simply storyline, albeit one given a few wrinkles by supporting characters and subplots. Its origins lie in a puppet play by screenwriter Kazuo Fukazawa, and that in turn was inspired by Ainu folklore from northern Japan. The film’s odd cultural setting (Norse scenery, but an Egyptian protagonist name) is a result of separating the production from its indigenous origins and thus avoiding any accusations of cultural appropriation. Of course, in retrospect it is obvious that stripping an Ainu legend of its cultural background and recycling it as mass entertainment is exactly the kind of appropriation its makers sought to avoid.

It is on a technical level that Takahata’s film impresses. Hand-drawn animation was largely developed in a limited fashion, either reducing the number of individual frames drawn of each character or – more commonly – limiting what elements of a character would move at all. Limited animation dominates anime to this day, reflecting not only savvy cost-cutting measures but also the relatively static nature of classical Japanese cinema.

Here Takahata is more often than not fully animating the films action, so that each key character moves every part of their body on a frame-by-frame basis. It is an expensive and time-consuming option, but one that give Horus an enormous sense of motion. It is reminiscent of any number of American productions from the 1930s, which shared a similar sense of constant motion. In this case it brings the film to life wonderfully, balancing stark and simplistic backgrounds in the process. Watch other anime from the 1960s and it can be a slightly challenging process. Watch Horus in action, and it is surprising how little it has comparatively aged.

The film has aged better, but it has still aged. Audiences today will likely warm to Takahata’s later films, including Pom Poko, Grave of the Fireflies, and Only Yesterday, well before they are likely to give it a chance. For Studio Ghibli enthusiasts it is as close to essential viewing as one can get: a chance to see that beloved institutions earliest origins on the silver screen.