Watership Down

I didn’t have the misfortune to get traumatized as a child by this film but I always heard about it online from top 10 lists. Finally getting to see it I can’t help but appreciate the animation from the watercolored backgrounds, the simplistic character design, with pretty good attention to detail just cause I looks simple it doesn’t account for all the mannerisms the rabbits do to make them feel very much like just rabbits. From the lazy leader at the beginning of the story being complacent with just living in his burrow and having his officers do all the work for him, to the second group they find being very culty they lure you in when you are in a clear vulnerable state they have no leader making it look like a free paradise but in reality they are just looking after themselves more rabbits mean more chances the others will hit a trap before them, and in the end they encounter a dictatorship just straight overruling leader that uses fear to instill power over his people. With all the spiritual aspects of the story having a whole religion these rabbits believe in and even having their own version of a grim reaper with the black rabbit, the hill being a safe haven for them a perfect paradise that hazel tries to bring all his peers too gives it a sense of idealism. Hazel being the perfect leader with his cunning ways to outsmart his predators, his sense of honor and strength to keep pushing forward, how noble he is making sure he puts others before himself even going as far to try and sacrifice himself in the last battle to save the others. I could see how this would traumatize kids growing up with it but think it’s not as bad as people made it seem and it gave me a sense of nostalgia even though it was my first time watching it