While The Littlest Warrior is not a remarkable film, it is certainly a competent work, especially considering the era it was created. This is a family-friendly retelling of the original live action classic "Sansho the Bailiff" (1954). Compared to the former, The Littlest Warrior comes across as diseny-esque in more ways than one. There is an emphasis on animals providing comic relief in several instances as well as a focal point for children in order to hold their attention throughout. While not a bad thing, it did feel a little bit forced and gave the impression that the film had an identity crisis. At thetime of its production, the anime industry was still finding its footing and took great inspiration from Disney productions and this film is clear indication of that. Distrations aside, the film was well paced, had fairly good animation and art direction (even used parallaxing effects with forground elements to provide depth which I imagine was one of the earliest examples to do so in anime).

All things considered, this film did an adequate job at adapting a classic tale and is recommended particularily to those who are curious about the origins of the anime industry. Or, if you are huge Ghibli fan like me and are on a mission to watch every film and tv series that Isao Takahata and/or Hayao Miyazaki worked on prior to forming the seminal studio, look no further.