'Ged's War Chronicles') is a 2006 Japanese anime epic fantasy[2] film co-written and directed by Gorō Miyazaki in his directorial debut, animated by Studio Ghibli for the Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Hakuhodo DY Media Partners,[3] Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Mitsubishi and Toho, and distributed by the latter company.

They travel to the city of Hort Town, where Arren rescues a young girl named Therru from the slaver Hare, but is later captured himself.

Sparrowhawk's intervention against Hare's slave caravan angers Lord Cob, a powerful warlock and the ruler of Hort Town.

By this time, Hayao Miyazaki didn't feel he still had the fire in the belly (enthusiasm) for animating Earthsea, after already having creating many works inspired by it, and showed inclination to decline the offer.

[9] However Studio Ghibli producer Toshio Suzuki who wished to carry the offer through devised a plan to let Hayao's son Gorō Miyazaki make the film.

[9][10] When Miyazaki learned of the idea, he was initially strongly opposed, thinking that Gorō lacked the necessary experience, saying "He can't possibly handle directing.

[9] One drastic and gruesome deviation from the original novel, the killing of the father king by Arren at the opening of the movie, was producer Shimada's idea.

[9] The soundtrack for Tales from Earthsea was composed and managed by Tamiya Terashima and was released by Tokuma Japan Communications and Studio Ghibli Records as a multichannel hybrid SACD-CD on 12 July 2006.

Carlos Núñez was a key collaborator on the soundtrack, contributing his ocarina, whistle and Galician gaita (bagpipe) to 11 of the 21 tracks.

The film began a single print tour of major cities on 25 April 2007 and ended up playing at locations in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth over the following months.

The film was not released as widely as previous Ghibli movies, playing to 23 venues across the nation and making an unremarkable £23,300.

Radio Times suggested that it "lacks the technical sheen and warm sentimentality of some of Ghibli's earlier films",[19] while the Daily Mirror called it "ploddy, excruciatingly slow" and not in the same league as the work of Hayao Miyazaki.

[22] In Spain, Tales from Earthsea premiered only in Madrid and Barcelona in two small theaters on 28 December 2007 by Aurum, only in a Japanese version with subtitles (an odd theatrical release compared to previous Ghibli movies).

The DVD included the movie with both the original Japanese soundtrack and English dub, alongside a selection of bonus features.

[29] A 2-disc DVD was released on 12 September 2007 in Australia by Madman Entertainment, this time featuring both the English and Japanese versions.

[31] To mark the release, HMV ran frequent sponsor credits for the DVD, as well as a prize competition, on the AnimeCentral channel.

[33] In the United States, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment released the film on DVD on March 8, 2011.

[39] It was nominated in 2007 for the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year (losing to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time)[40] and was selected in the Out of Competition section at the 63rd Venice Film Festival.

[43] Stephen Holden of The New York Times gave the film a score of 2.5/5, writing, "If this starchy, nearly two-hour allegory about human hubris bluntly addresses a historical moment when global warming threatens the planet and pollution is fouling the seas, its chilly, formal tone keeps you at an emotional distance.

"[44] The San Francisco Chronicle's Peter Hartlaub wrote, "The themes and memorable imagery in Earthsea will be familiar to fans of Studio Ghibli, but the storytelling and animation are a step behind.

"[45] Kyle Smith of the New York Post was more positive, writing, "this utterly earnest, philosophy-drenched story recombines its borrowed elements in imaginative ways to create a frequently gripping effect that builds to a rich climax.

Thanks in part to a generous, Irish-tinged score, even scenes in which characters merely stand quietly in rustling fields seem fraught with somber majesty.

"[47] While Le Guin was positive about the aesthetic of the film, writing that "much of it was beautiful",[4] she took great issue with its reimagining of the books' moral sense and its greater focus on physical violence.

"[E]vil has been comfortably externalized in a villain", Le Guin writes, "the wizard Kumo/Cob, who can simply be killed, thus solving all problems.

In modern fantasy (literary or governmental), killing people is the usual solution to the so-called war between good and evil.

[4] However, she stated that the comment disclosed on the movie's public blog did not portray her true feelings about the film's vast departure from original stories; "taking bits and pieces out of context, and replacing the storylines with an entirely different plot..."[4]