チリンの鈴

CHIRIN NO SUZU

MOVIE

MOVIE
Dubbed
SOURCE
OTHER
RELEASE
March 11, 1978
LENGTH
47 min

DESCRIPTION

A little lamb's life is turned upside down by the wolf that killed his mother. He seeks to avenge his mother, but in order to defeat the wolf, he must become one.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Chirin
Akira Kamiya
Wor
Seizou Katou
Narrator
Hitoshi Takagi
Hahaoya
Taeko Nakanishi

REVIEWS

JTurner82
67/100
Beautifully animated but depressingly downbeat and gloomy tale. Not your usual children's story!
Children losing their parents in tragedy has long become a staple of animated movies since Disney's melancholy 1942 tearjerker, Bambi, but it's rather rare to find an animated feature where a similar incident occurs, and the story doesn't end "happily ever after." Imagine, if you will, that Bambi and Littlefoot (the hero brontosaurus from Don Bluth's The Land Before Time) never got over their mother's deaths, especially with no one to comfort them, but instead they defect from their own kind to join forces with the killer and become corrupt monsters themselves. Do so, and you get the basic idea behind Ringing Bell, a rather obscure 1978 Japanese animated feature which, despite its initially cuddly setup, is as downbeat and mean-spirited as you'll probably never see from cartoons today.

The film, which barely clocks in at 45 minutes (making it more of a featurette than anything else), tells the story of Chirin, an adorable little lamb who, like most innocent little protagonists in a children's animated tale, grows up on a farm with his mother. One night, however, a ferocious wolf attacks the sheep on the barn, and in protecting her child, the lamb's mother is bumped off. Of course Chirin is a storm of tears, but none of the other sheep show him any sympathy. In despair, Chirin runs away to take vengeance on his mother's killer, at least initially, then later decides to join forces with the wolf. In doing so, Chirin grows into a ram, every bit as cold and ruthless as his "foster father." But when the two return to attack the same barn one night, Chirin finds himself having a serious identity crisis. Needless to say, there's no happy ending in store for this "little lost lamb."

It's beyond shocking to discover that Ringing Bell was produced by Sanrio, the folks behind the much more lighthearted "Hello Kitty". How a studio who created a sugarcoated franchise could churn out a movie as dark and depressing as this is hard to believe! To its credit, though, Ringing Bell does not look like your usual Japanese animated fare, but instead possesses a style that is almost but not quite Disneyesque, somewhere between that and Hanna-Barbera's adaptation of the popular children's book Charlotte's Web. Furthermore, the animation itself is quite fluid, running at a full 24-frames per second.

Aesthetically, though, Ringing Bell isn't just a gloomy tale, it looks like one, too. A good majority of the scenes are very smoky and shadowy. The final confrontation between Chirin and his nemesis/foster father in particular is painted with dark, dreary colors. Adding to the somewhat disconcerting presentation of the movie are the character designs. Young Chirin and the other sheep are very much reminiscent of the typical sheep-like characters you would see from a classic Disney cartoon, while having a somewhat stylized look similar to that of "Hello Kitty", while the wolf and later on, the adult Chirin are designed to look intimidatingly threatening and scary.

Surprisingly, too, Ringing Bell is a musical, but the characters never break into song. Rather, the occasional musical numbers are performed by an offscreen male chorus, setting an appropriately melancholy tone to the production. These are mostly done during transitional scenes, such as a tender moment when Chirin is walking through the meadow with his mother, and later on, as we watch the little lamb grow into a ram. The one drawback is that the songs aren't particularly memorable, but they are at least fittingly moody.

There's a bit of a dated, old-school feel to the animation and the songs, but considering the glut of computer animation today, watching a movie as vintage as this is refreshing, at least from my standpoint.

There's even a dubbed voice track for the audience who would have little patience for listening to the Japanese version with subtitles. Like the movie, the dub, too, is an old school production dating from the 1980's, a period when dubs were, at most, not very good. Barbara Goodson voices the young Chirin, and unfortunately, her performance sticks out in all the wrong ways. There are moments that come across as well delivered, but more often than not, her performance is too strained and unconvincing, and I found her voice rather grating. (In all fairness, the Japanese VA for this character isn't much easier on the ears.) Gregg Burger fares a bit better as the older Chirin, although his performance is limited to the last fifteen minutes. Ironically, his performance, as well as that of Ron Gans as the narrator, are the best of an otherwise serviceable but mostly average dub.

Fluidly animated though Ringing Bell is, it's difficult to know who this story is targeted at: children? Adults? Good question. For animation buffs looking for a change of pace from the usual fare today's animation market churns out, though, this movie could very well be worth a look.
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VioletMia
100/100
Why you should watch Chirin no Suzu (Ringing Bell) anime? / Zašto pogledati Chirin no Suzu (Ringing Bell) anime?
_Why you should watch Boku no Chikyuu wo Mamotte (Please Save My Earth) anime?_
English language: For starters I will say that I will have to name a couple of spoilers because for some this anime could be disturbing. Chirin no Suzu (Ringing Bell) is the anime that shocked me the most. Mostly because I never expected to see everything that happened. Takashi Yanase wrote the book on which this anime is based. One of the reasons he became a children’s writer and illustrator is how he could deal with his PTSD because he survived World War II. Although it doesn't seem like anti-war anime to anyone at first, when you metaphorically look at anime, you realize it has to do with it. The plot revolves around a newborn lamb Chirin who lives a peaceful life on a meadow with his mother. This will soon come to an end when they are attacked by a wolf named Woe who kills Chirin's mother. Broken by his mother's death, Chirin swears that he himself will become a wolf to avenge his mother, unaware of how much this transformation will cost him. This story certainly reminds you a lot of Bambie, which reminded me at first. But the thing is, this isn't Bambie. This is "Bambie gone bad"! I thought that Chirin would become a wolf with the help of some magic, and take revenge on the wolf who killed his mother. This is what I expected the most because this anime movie was done by Sanrio. For those of you who don’t know what Sanrio is, it’s a company that has created famous characters like Hello Kitty, My Melody, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, Little Twin Stars, Pompompurin and many others. So I definitely didn’t expect such an anime from Sanrio. Let me get back to the story. Chirin will do anything to become like a wolf. Because in order to take revenge on him, he needs to become like him. I thought this was going to be an anime about his physical becoming like a wolf, but it’s actually about his mental becoming. His mind will change so much, that he will even be willing to kill someone of his kind if necessary. This anime is definitely scary because it has some disturbing scenes. In my opinion, the worst was one scene when Chirin saw one animal attack another animal which was then killed. And as Chirin came to defend the other animals from that other one, he accidentally kills them himself. It’s a very dark anime where Chirin’s psyche changes over time as he begins to wonder what the meaning of life is if you can easily be killed. He decided to change his destiny by becoming like a wolf.
I gave this anime 10/10 for several reasons. This is an overpowering anime that really managed to portray the story in a dark but real way. You feel it emotionally because rarely can an anime portray and evoke emotions as well as this one. It is completely dedicated to character development. The last thing that made the anime great for me was because it was instructive. This anime clearly shows that you are what you choose to be. Because your choices affect you and how you develop. Chirin will be so focused on revenge that not only will he lose everything and everyone, but he will lose himself the most.
This is a movie that lasts 46 minutes. He has managed to show so much in such a short time. It kept my attention from beginning to end and I couldn’t possibly predict the things that happened. I understand that this anime is not for everyone, but whoever dares to watch it, I hope they will like it.

_Zašto pogledati Chirin no Suzu (Ringing Bell) anime?_
Hrvatski jezik: Za početak ću reći da ću morati navesti par spojlera jer bi nekima ovaj anime mogao biti uznemirujuć. Chirin no Suzu (Ringing Bell) je anime koji me najviše šokirao. Najviše zato što nisam nikako očekivala da ću vidjeti sve ono što se dogodilo. Takashi Yanase je napisao knjigu po kojoj se temelji ovaj anime. Jedan od razloga zašto je postao dječji pisac i ilustrator je kako bi se mogao nositi sa svojim PTSP-om jer je preživio Drugi svjetski rat. Iako nikome na prvu ne izgleda kao antiratni anime, kada metaforički sagledaš anime, shvatiš da ima veze s tim. Radnja se vrti oko novorođenog janjeta Chirina koji živi mirnim životom na livadi sa svojom majkom. Tome će ubrzo doći kraj kad ih napadne vuk po imenu Woe koji ubija Chirinovu majku. Slomljen majčinom smrću, Chirin se zaklinje da će i sam postati vuk kako bi se osvetio majci, nesvjestan koliko će ga koštati ova preobrazba. Ova priča vas sigurno dosta podsjeća na Bambie, što je i mene na prvu podsjetilo. Ali stvar je u tome što ovo nije Bambie. Ovo je "Bambie gone bad"! Mislila sam da će Chirin s pomoću neke magije postati vuk, i osvetiti se vuku koji je ubio njegovu majku. To sam najviše očekivala jer je ovaj anime film radio Sanrio. Za vas koji ne znate što je Sanrio, to je kompanija koja je stvorila poznate likove kao što su Hello Kitty, My Melody, Kuromi, Cinnamoroll, Little Twin Stars, Pompompurin i mnogi drugi. Tako da definitivno nisam očekivala takav anime od Sanria. Da se vratim na priču. Chirin će uraditi sve kako bi postao kao vuk. Jer da bi mu se osvetio, on treba postati poput njega. Mislila sam da će to biti anime o njegovom fizičkom postajanju kao vuk, ali je zapravo o psihičkom. Njegov će se um toliko izmijeniti, da će biti spreman čak i da ubije nekog od svoje vrste ako je to potrebno. Ovaj anime je definitivno zastrašujuć jer ima neke uznemirujuće scene. Po meni je najgora bila jedna scena kada je Chirin vidio da jedna životinja napada drugu životinju koja tada bude ubijena. I kako je Chirin došao da obrani ostale životinje od te druge, slučajno ih on sam ubija. Jako je mračan anime gdje se Chirinu psiha s vremenom mijenja kada se počeo pitati koji je smisao života ako te lako mogu ubiti. On je odlučio promijeniti svoju sudbinu tako što će postati kao vuk.
Ovome animeu sam dala 10/10 zbog više razloga. Premoćan je anime koji je stvarno uspio prikazati priču na mračan ali stvaran način. Emocionalno ga osjetiš jer rijetko koji anime može tako dobro prikazati i izazvati emocije kao ovaj. U potpunosti je posvećen razvoju lika. Zadnje zbog čega mi je bio odličan je zato što je poučan. Ovaj anime jasno prikazuje da si ono što odabereš da budeš. Jer vaši izbori utječu na vas i kako se razvijate. Chirin će toliko biti fokusiran na osvetu da ne samo da će izgubiti sve i ostale, već će najviše izgubiti sebe.
Ovo je film koji traje 46 minuta. Toliko je toga uspio prikazati u tako malo vremena. Meni je držao pažnju od početka do kraja i nisam nikako mogla predvidjeti stvari koje su se dogodile. Razumijem da ovaj anime nije za svakoga, ali tko god se usudi da ga pogleda, nadam se da će mu se svidjeti.
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