Ronja, The Robber's Daughter (spoilery thoughts)

[type_wild]

- I don't recall Mattis and Borka having backstory in the novels, but the way in which it was included makes it feel very much like it probably was there

- What definitely wasn't there in the novels was the foreshadowing of this reveal with a split-second shot of Mattis looking wistful when Pete says something about just kicking Borka out of the fort already, haha

- Or an entire flashback scene about them getting up to mischief as children. Or for that matter, a flashback of Pete rushing in to see the newborn Mattis, aaaaaaaah

- Ronja is one of the few cases of women-are-wiser that I don't mind at all, possibly because Lovis' authorative wisdom so clearly hasn't been passed onto Ronja, and possibly - as this anime finally made me take notice of - it's probably the other way around with Undis, who comes across as somewhat of a shrew and who definitely seems to be the one her son is opposing to, rather than his father

- I pegged the Mattis-and-Borka showdown as "the least anime fight in anime history" until I remembered that Studio Ghibli had previously gifted us with Marco and Curtis. So I guess this one is a good second place, since it does end up taking up a good twenty minutes at least.

- One weird aspect of this production was the costumes: Mattis' crew seems to be celtic? Lovis and Undis are wearing distinctively viking-era dresses, while Mattis and the children seems to be from generic RPG land. The civillians and the soldiers, on the other hand, are continental medieval in a way that I always thought never reached Scandinavia.

- I want to take that scene with the robbers being chased outside to bathe in the snow. And. And put it next to the hot spring scenes in the figure skating anime. And just. Show it to certain people, and very gently and very kindly explain to them that this, this is where you can see the line between nudity demanded by situation, and fanservice.

- The anime takes an oddly pastoral turn in the final episodes - or even before that, really. The robbers keep livestock and poultry, and one of them is even stated to be "the one that's growing all the greens". Be it coincidence or not: This is the guy who was captured and spent a few episodes in prison. In the final episode, Ronja and Birk are shown herding sheep, before leaving for the cave once more - at which point our vegetable farmer has taken over the sheep. This element definitely wasn't in the book, and the sheephearding definitely wasn't a point previously.

- One little detailed that I loved to bits was in one of the last episodes, where Birk was just casually eating breakfast along with Mattis' crew like it was absolutely nothing. It was so cute.