Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit

My latest viewing obsession is an anime that I've seen on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" segment called: Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit aka Seirei no moribito

Wikipedia article (contains spoilers)
IMDB listing

Based on a series of Japanese kid's novels, the anime is about a mythical pseudo-Japanese culture. A female bodyguard named Balsa is returning to an empire she has friends in. She plans to get her spear (her weapon of choice) fixed up. As she's traveling through she saves the life of a young prince from drowning and winds up embroiled in palace intrigue. It turns out the young prince, Chagum, is allegedly possessed by a water spirit that will bring a drought to the land. Chagum's father, the Mikado, is thus trying to have Chagum secretly assassinated.

Chagum's mother hires Balsa to protect him and that's when everything gets crazy.

It's an interesting tale, especially when the background unfolds as to why Balsa opts to essentially plan to spend the rest of her life guarding and raising Chagum. The water spirit inside Chagum ties to the legend of how the empire was founded and how history isn't always accurate.

And it's kind of neat because there's no real "bad guys" in this. There are threats (soooo many threats), but all the perspectives in the story are rationalized to make everyone sympathetic.

And the animation is spectacular. Seriously spectacular.

I'm currently watching a Malaysian DVD set purchased from England through eBay (I love the 21st century). As advertised, this is a subtitled DVD set. The subtitles are surprisingly-good.

Not perfect, of course, but understandable (thus my surprise).

Best twenty bucks I've spent in months, truth be told.