Adventures on the Sand Planet
Green Legend Ran is one of those anime that rarely appears on cult classic lists published by random mainstream nerds on dusty internet forums. Sure, titles like Akira, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue are always mentioned, but Green Legend Ran has mostly remained a niche title - quite unjustly so. In fact, it’s one of the few films I ordered as a video home system cassette from a print catalog, alongside El Hazard: The Magnificent World and a music video tape of Bubblegum Crisis. For whatever reason. I actually wanted to get the infamous otaku documentary, but I was too young at the time, as it could only be ordered if you were eighteen or older.
The movie is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth that has become a vast desert following an alien invasion. The attack caused massive climate change, wiping out the oceans and rain. Humanity was already ruining the environment, making some sort of doom inevitable. It’s a theme echoed in other environmentally focused anime, such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water, and Future Boy Conan. Green Legend Ran features beautifully crafted characters striving for happiness in the wake of extinction. What begins in a dusty shanty town quickly turns into an epic journey through deserts, forests, and holy cities.
The film bursts with brutal action, cheeky nineties humor, and even a gently touch of romance. Of course, Green Legend Ran can be viewed as a metaphor for the environmental catastrophe we, as a species, are undoubtedly heading toward. Were the aliens summoned by Earth to prevent humanity from causing further destruction? Who knows. If you enjoy adventure-packed anime with colorful characters, gigantic sandships, religious fanatics, and a bit of blood and boobs, you’ll have as much fun with Green Legend Ran as I did. And who knows? Maybe the movie will end up being a not-so-far-fetched future scenario for our real world.