AllMovie

The anime fantasy opus Origin: Spirits of the Past commences with a backstory prologue set in an ancient era, when the moon awakened the forest and unleashed a terrible, destructive beast upon the Earth. As the story proper opens, the landscape of the world has changed immeasurably. Mankind is divided into two warring factions: one that seeks a peaceful, harmonious balance with the forest, and another that wishes to dominate and control it. Agito, the young hero of the story, unwittingly triggers the destruction of all that lies before him by awakening Toola from her slumber. Agitated at the degree to which civilization has changed, Toola summons an eons-old technology to rebuild the future based on the design of a past civilization. Agito then seeks the forest's blessing before attempting to rescue the girl from her own destructive desires.