My Thoughts on https://anilist.co/anime/4876/RunMelos/ 100https://externalcontent.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https3A2F2Fsubstackcdn.com2Fimage2Ffetch2Fw12002Ch6002Cclimit2Cfjpg2Cqauto3Agood2Cflprogressive3Asteep2Fhttps3A2F2Fbucketeere05bbc84baa3437e9518adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com2Fpublic2Fimages2F344949943e744bcf8f58f07b13f352db927x483.pngf=1nofb=1ipt=804b82e5219dc008a1c0887bfdb7b843fb2d70e4d1f11bb2bc2713a32a6d0c5aipo=images An Ancient Adventure and the Power of Innocent Trust. This movie was not what I expected and unfortunately not everything was positive. Lets delve into the details. Firstly the film offers the most authentic atmosphere and scenery of ancient history Ive seen in an animated movie. The ancient town of Syracuse is so lively and detailed that it feels like they screencaptured a real ancient city. From the markets small streets and various shops selling vegetables and livestock to blacksmiths cockfighting rings and stonemasonry every background scene is great. It all has this ancient feel that really makes you want to see what the past looked like. What I also liked was the main character Melos. Melos is basically a huge muscular naive country bumpkin with the innocence of an 11yearold visiting the city of Syracuse to buy a ceremonial sword for his sisters wedding. His arrival in Syracuse was such a joy to watch from being clotheslined by the entry guard to manhandling some cockfighting dealers to getting swarmed and robbed by the most evil creatures in human history... children. He then meets the alwaysdrunk stonemason Serinentius. These first twenty minutes felt like a city adventure in ancient Greece and I really loved the vibe of it. However after meeting Serinentius and becoming best buddies instantly Melos gets into big trouble with the King of the city. Roses are red violets are blue Melos needs to get his sister married as soon as possible and come back within three days before sunset to help his new friend Serinentius who is set to be executed because of him. Yeah it escalated quickly but theres obviously more to it in the movie. I just skipped the details to simply explain the plot. Even with this stated plot fantastic atmosphere and adventurelike feeling in the city the biggest question for me was: what was this movie really about? I kept asking myself this during the first half What is the point of this plot? and then the answer was presented on a silver platter. It is trust. Trust is the core message of this movie. Its a word with many meanings and interpretations but in this movie the meaning is relatively simple at its core yet deeply explored in terms of what it means for the characters. Melos for example had nobody who really trusted him. To his sister and his village he was just a big oaf who kept getting in trouble because of his naive nature. The first one to trust him wholeheartedly was Serinentius. The reason Serinentius trusted Melos is also very interestingly written. Its explained that Serinentius had a loving relationship with his father who was the royal stonemason. Because of that Serinentius wanted to make his father proud by becoming a stonemason himself. He became so talented that it was apparently set that he would be his fathers successor. But his father grew jealous and tried to kill him by causing some rocks to fall on Serinentius. Luckily Serinentius wasnt struck just his father. His father then confessed to him in his last breath and that broke Serinentius to the point of never trusting anyone until he met Melos. He decided he wanted to give someone the innocent trust his father and mother gave him when he was younger. Then we have the antagonist the King of Syracuse Dionysius II. Because he is a king he needs to be right all the time and he thinks trusting someone is foolish so he wanted to make an example of Melos by creating this charade. Overall I see the connection and the writing logic behind all this but I cant ignore that this was executed in such a convenient way that some scenarios are just not really believable in my opinion. For instance the old guy and Lyra always helping Melos very conveniently and even dramatically predictably making the tension nonexistent and boring. Still for me the most positive and impactful aspect of the film was the monologue of Serinentius. It was very touching in how it conveyed the innocence of the message about trust. Meloss determination was also very effectively portrayed. However overall the film is still flawed in execution and a lot of potential was wasted because of the convenient writing. My Final Thoughts This movie despite its incredible depiction of an ancient fictional city like Syracuse and its engaging early scenes ultimately falls short due to its convenient and unbelievable plot developments. The core theme of trust is touching and wellexplored but in my opinion the execution leaves much to be desired.