Ronja, the Robber's Daughter (2014 TV series)
A girl's journey through forest and rivalry.
Ronja, the Robber's Daughter is a Japanese anime television series based on the Swedish children's novel of the same name. Her life changes when she meets Birk, the son of a rival clan chief.
Quick Facts
- Genre
- Fantasy, drama
Facts from the source article.
Production
This cel-shaded anime series adapts Astrid Lindgren’s novel Ronia, the Robber’s Daughter. It was produced by Polygon Pictures, Studio Ghibli, NHK Enterprises, and Dwango, with Goro Miyazaki directing and storyboarding. Hiroyuki Kawasaki handled series composition and scripts, Katsuya Kondō designed the characters, Toshio Suzuki created the title logo, and Satoshi Takebe composed the music. Miyazaki called it a story of love, growth, and the bonds between parent and child and friends, meant for all ages. Kazuyoshi Saito wrote, produced, and performed all instruments on the ending theme “Player,” sung by Mari Natsuki. This marks Studio Ghibli’s first television series. UK distributor Serious Lunch secured worldwide rights outside Japan and Scandinavia, pitching it to English-language broadcasters at the 2015 Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Amazon began streaming it on Amazon Prime on January 27, 2017. GKIDS released it in the United States on August 20, 2019, distributed by Shout! Factory. Additional licenses went to UYoung Media in China and PTS in Taiwan. The English dub is narrated by Gillian Anderson. The BBC produced a Scottish Gaelic dub titled “Ronia, Nighean a’ Mhèirlich,” which aired on BBC Alba and was available on iPlayer in 2022/23.
Reception
Critical reception was mostly positive, with praise from The Guardian, Collider, The Daily Dot, Slate, iDigitalTimes, Starburst, and Mir Fantastiki, among others. Negative reviews came from Swedish journalist Yukiko Duke, The Onion's The A.V. Club, and Polygon. The series was commended for its visual beauty and faithfulness to the original novel, but criticized for slow pacing. It won the Asian Television Award for Best 2D Animated Programme in 2015 and the International Emmy Award for Kids: Animation in 2016.
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