Deltora Quest (anime)

Deltora Quest is a Japanese anime series based on the first series of the book Deltora Quest by Emily Rodda. Directed by Mitsuru Hongo, the series was produced by TV Aichi and Dentsu, aired on the TV Tokyo network in 2007. The main characters were designed based on the manga series of the same name, published since 2005.

An English dub aired 1 May 2010 on Cartoon Network in Australia and New Zealand, but was sometimes criticised for deleting some scenes, making voices less like the original and making it look like a TV show for 6 year olds. It was originally set to be released in English April 2010, but it was pushed forward.

On October 10, 2010, it premiered in the United States on The Hub, a TV channel formerly known as Discovery Kids owned by the toy manufacturer Hasbro, as part of the channel's original programming lineup. It was taken off the schedule in the Summer of 2011, but returned on September 6, 2011, and ran until October 14, 2011, after completing its run on the network a third time. ABC3 in Australia frequently airs Deltora Quest.

The English dub was first released on DVD June 30, 2010 starting with a collection titled Lief's Adventure Begin, spanning the first thirteen episodes of the show. A second collection titled The Stolen Gems, spanning episodes 13-25 was released on September 1, 2010. The third collection, titled Escape from the Monster Vraal, spanning episodes 26-37, was released on November 3, 2010. The fourth and final collection, titled The Valley of the Lost, spanning episodes 38-52, was released on April 6, 2011. A complete DVD boxset containing all episodes of the English dub was released by the distribution company Cinedigm on May 13, 2014.

Plot
The anime follows the first series of books, but adds a few fillers.

The seven gems of the Belt of Deltora are stolen by the evil Shadow Lord and scattered, hidden in the most feared places in Deltora and the Shadow Lord overtakes the land. King Endon, who was supposed to protect the Belt whose magic power protects Deltora, somehow vanish from the land to leave his people in the mercy of the tyrant for 16 years.

On Lief's sixteenth birthday after narrowly escaping the Grey Guards, he is presented with the Belt of Deltora, given a task to gather the 7 gems and to find the heir to the throne in order to rid Deltora of the evil Shadow Lord once and for all. He is also given a sword, an invisibility cloak, a rough map of where the gems were to be and a travelling companion named Barda who was long known as a beggar before revealing himself as one of the palace guards. He and Barda leave city of Del and enter the Forests of Silence where they are attacked by the Wenn and paralysed. They are woken up by a mysterious girl named Jasmine, who at first believed them as Grey Guards and only intended to rob them and leave them to be eaten by the Wennbar. However, after being persuaded by an old tree that told her that they were not Grey Guards, she comes and saves them with an antidote that freed them from the paralysis.

At first, she simply wanted to leave them to their journey, but saw their ignorance of the Forests and that they were not able to communicate with animals as she did and decides to take them to her house. She then tells them that her mother and father were captured by the Grey Guards and carried away, and that she has lived with Kree, the raven, and Filli, a small hairball-like creature. After Lief and Barda stops the Wennbar from blundering into Jasmine's house and told her where their destination was, she takes takes them to the mid forest where Gorl guards the first gem: The Topaz. Gorl believed that anyone who entered the place wanted his treasure, the Lilies of Life that could give eternal life to anyone who drinks a full vessel of its nectar. Gorl tells them that once he achieved his goal, he would rule the seven tribes. Unable to convince Gorl that they were not after the Lilies and that Deltora was already united by Adin, they fight but Barda gets stabbed and Lief gets disarmed. But then, Jasmine, who was watching nearby, convinces one of the tree to drop down a large branch on Gorl. After destroying the guardian Gorl, they recover the Topaz and due to the returning of the sunlight, the Lilies of Life open and they get some of the nectar, a handful to save Barda. The Topaz, that has the ability to open to the spirit world, allows Jasmine to see her long dead mother who ordered her to go with Lief and Barda, for they were trying to restore peace to Deltora. But as soon as she figures out the they were next headed for the Lake of Tears, which was ruled by the sorceress Thaegan, she suddenly gets reluctant.

When they enter the territory of Thaegan, they meet a giant, who was enslaved by Thaegan forever until truths and lies became one. He blocks their way and demands that they answer riddles in order to pass and anyone who fail would get killed. Jasmine and Barda solves their share of riddles but Lief makes a mistake and the giant announces that he is to die. But as Lief defied him, claiming that the giant cheated, he gets enraged and then decides to play another game. Lief was to say a statement and if it was true, he was to be strangles and if he lied, he was to be beheaded. Lief says, "You will cut off my head" for it was neither truth or lie. Because truth and lie became one in the statement, the giant gets freed. Because he was originally a bird, he returns to this form and promises that he would repay later on. Jasmine, fearing the safety of her pet raven, Kree, orders him to go back to the Forests. Along the way, they meet and free Manus, a man from the Ralads tribe which was a great race that was most skilled in buildings, who was enslaved by the Grey Guards. Later, they fall into a ring of quicksand and mud but rescued by a couple calling themselves Nij and Doj and spoke in a strange language not even Barda ever heard of. But with the power of the Topaz, they find that they are actually Jin and Jod, two of Thaegan's children and that they were speaking terrible insults to them with plots to eat the trio them backwards. With Manus' help, they escape and leave Jin and Jod to fall into their own quicksand trap. Kree returns to help drown them but he and Jasmine gets injured. Manus takes them to Raladin, which was very close to the Lake of Tears, where they rest and train themselves. They also come by the knowledge to destroy Thaegan, which was to draw blood. Manus offered to come with them to the Lake of Tears. When they arrive at the Lake of Tears, they are attacked by the monster Soldeen. After they try fruitless attempts to plot an attack Soldeen, then changes their minds to rest for a while. Manus plays the flute he came by which arouses Soldeen who then offers to give them the Ruby in exchange for Manus. When Lief refused, he attacked to get Manus by force. However, when he brushes against the topaz on Lief's belt, he remembered a time when he was a human and also lived to protect the ones he loved and decides to give it to them for free. When they get back however, the sorceress Thaegan appears and scatter them all. She toys with them and makes fun of them before following her original plans to turn them to monsters themselves. Then, Lief figures out that Thaegan always cast aside her shield when she cast her magic. Jasmine who is good at throwing her dagger, throws her second knife at Thaegan when she prepares to throw another attack. Thaegan stops the blade and is only angered. However, when Thaegan conjures a curse to destroy the trio, Kree swoops down and scratches her little finger. She then dies and the Ruby, which wards off evil, turnes the Lake of Tears turns into D'OR, the beautiful city it once used to be and every monster in the Lake turns back into the D'OR's people.

The trio set off again with the ruby, after a long celebration with the Ralads.Thaegan's leftover eleven children but manage to trick them into a trap that captures all three of them and argues about who is to have what amounts. Lief tricks them all into fighting each other by telling them that the less they are, the more meat they would get. After escaping the fighting group, they manage to leave Thaegan's territory believing that the children would not be able to follow. Then, they visit Tom's mysterious shop and buy fire beads, magic bread, light pipe, rope, and get a free gift of a strange product called water eaters. In there, they also meet a strange man with a great scar on his face who says that Thaegan's death did not stop the thorns on the roads and that it was the Deltoran kings and queens' neglect for the land which caused all this. They manage to buy some Muddlets. Tom tells them that they must take the left path when they meet a road that spilts to two. However they think that Tom's intentions were to stop them from from getting to the City of the Rats, which in any case had evil reputation, so they take the right one. But then the Muddlets bolts and shakes off the companions, where they are found and taken to the city of Noradz. They were treated well, until they saw Filli, which they reguarded as an evil creature. Reece tries to have them killed,but with Tira's help, they manage to escape. After escaping the city, they get into the carts where the "unclean" foods go. It turns out that they went to Tom's shop where the food was given to Grey Guards to be transported to Del. Barda realises why Shadow Lord's servants never went hungry even with the poor farming. It was because the foods from Noradz were given to the Shadow lord's servants. It also indicated that people of Noradz were brainwashed by the Shadow Lord to making so much food and being excessively obsessed with hygiene. Lief, Barda, and Jasmine accuse Tom that he pretends to help the Resistance, the Shadow Lord's rebellion group, while secretly helping the Shadow Lord. Tom replies that he is a business man and that he has no friend or enemy and that he is nice to everybody, even the Shadow Lord, as long as they paid him well enough. Lief is angered by this but Jasmine tells him that most animals of the Forests trust nobody but themselves. Later on, they arrive to the Broad river, where the City of the Rats rested on the other side. They test the water eaters, which was supposed to absorb water where dry land was required. It works enough to make a narrow passage along the Broad River, but they run out of the water eaters. When they fret about what to do, the water eaters that was holding back the waters of the river collapse and the water rushes back in, forcing the trio to swim to the plain that surrounded the river. They search through what they have bought from Tom's shop and make bread out of the packet of the Magic Bread and light a fire out of the Fire Beads and relax. However, a swarm of rats come in to eat their food, and the trio is forced to wear the red clothes they stole from Nordz as protection from the rats and escape to the river. However, the rats keep coming so they use a whole bunch of fire beads to stop the coming rats. Later on, Lief realises that the people who lived in the City of the Rats were the ancestors of the people of the Noradz. Jasmine gets sick of having to be chased by dangers all the time so she temporarily takes herself off the trio to return to the forest. But as Lief and Barda enters the City, she returns, although grumpily. As they entered the centre of the city Lief hears an alluring voice commanding him to cast aside the Belt. But as Lief attempts to remove the belt, Barda and Jasmine hold him back and the topaz cuts him out of the trance, and the owner of the voice, Reeah, the giant snake, gives up any more attempts to talk to Lief alone. The trio confront Reeah, which is weakened slightly by the ruby, because of its power to ward off evil spirits and its ability to neutralise snake venom. However, he is too large to be totally affected and attacks. Lief injures him with his sword and Jasmine attacks his head but the attacks only increase the amount of heads in Reeah. Reeah, who now has three heads strikes them ferociously and almost ends up eating Lief. Barda pierces Reeah's head, maddening him with rage. Lief takes advantage of this and cuts off the crown on Reeah's head which had the opal on it. They get the Opal, and Reeah smashes himself up in the marble hall in madness but in the process Lief is smashed on a pillar, nearly killed. He is saved by some of the nectar of the Lilies of Life. However, when they do get the opal, which has the ability to show a glimpse of the future, Lief gets a vision of himself, standing in a sandstorm, calling out for Jasmine and Barda who seemed nowhere in sight.

After getting the opal, the three continues on west but is forced to hide under Lief's cloak when an Ak-Baba flies near. During this time, Lief tells Jasmine how his father was a friend to King Endon and how the Chief Advisor, Prandine, contributed to the separation of the gems. Barda is grieved by the story and almost jumped out to fight the Ak-Baba in vengeance, for it also contained the fact that his mother, Min, was murdered by Prandine for hearing bad rumours about evil deeds in the palace. After narrowly avoiding being seen by the Ak-Baba, the three find the apple orchid that producerd the Queen Bee Cider, a drink that gave bigger strength to the drinker. They steals some apples to eat, but the Queen Bee, the crappy, old woman who owned the orchid caqtches them red-handed and they are forced to hand over all money but one silver coin as a compensation. With the need of more money and more food for the journey, they arrive and enter the Rithmere, where they plan to earn money for their keep after a trickster got away with their last silver coin. In the end, they see a sign saying that in the Rithmere Games, a semi-finalist would get 100 glod coins and a grand finalist would get 1000. Tempted by the offer, they go to the Champion Inn, where the Rithmere Games' participants were to be assembled. Mother Brightly, the owner of the Games, take their measurements and their speciality; Lief as speed, Barda as strength, and Jasmine as agility. However, as a precation, they go by fake identities, Lief-Cherry (in the dub, he is called Twig), Jasmine-Birdie, Barda-Berry. They get confused when they get locked in the inn, and two of the other participants, Joanna and Owren, inform them that the bars are to keep cowards from escaping. But they are also informed that the Games was of fighting other strong people.

However, when they get in their rooms, a stranger locks them in. Shaken, they go into the competition a little later than the others. The first round was gathering all the people up and fighting anyone they wished with one of the three tool; the pole, the wedge and the shield. Barda, with the strength he had as a palace guard wrestles other giant people like him with the shield. Jasmine fights with great jumps, balance and unrivialed agility which she got as she was raised in the forest, and chooses to fight with the pole. Lief fights with the wedge, as he is most specialised in sword fights and other things that required speed. And so, in the first round, the semi-finalists are: Lief, Barda, Jasmine, Glock, Neridah, Joanna, Owren, and a strange man called Joker (called Doom in the English dub). When they are on their way back to the Inn to rest for the night, Jasmine attempts to convince Lief and Barda to lose on purpose, as they already won 300 gold coins. She is even more angered when they say that in the spirit of fair play, they would fight as much as possible. In the Finalist round, the eight of them are to fight opponents on a raised platform until one of them surrenders or gets forced out of the platform. Barda is firstly matched with Joker (Doom) but gets kicked out of the platform after a moment of hesitation. Glock, a wild looking man with massive strength, is to fight Joanna. The winner of this fight is Glock, who crushed Joanna to unconsciousness. Lief was matched with Neridah, who strangely pledged herself to him. Hesitating to fight a seemingly frail looking girl, he is surprised and knocked out. Jasmine was to match Owren, but she is classified as a winner, because Owren was disqualified for attacking Glock. In the next day, The four were supposed to be matched with chosen opponents, but a boy called Dain gives out the Queen Bee Cider, which Joker (Doom), Glock and Neridah drinks but Jasmine refuses for she does not like Queen Bee Cider. Glock steals her drink in a vain attempt to get more strength, but strangely passes out with Neridah. Then, it is announced that Glock and Neridah was drugged and that Joker (Doom) was to fight Jasmine. Jasmine is suddenly nervous in the match for Joker (Doom) seemed to have something odd about him, even more stranger than his great scar on his face. Jasmine realises that he is the man who the trio met in Tom's Shop. Barda, in the audience seat comments that Joker's (Doom's) fighting technique is somewhat reckless and uneasy to deal with. Joker (Doom), gets annoyed at the lack of attacks from Jasmine and enrages her by telling her to cry in fear and to hide in her mother's lap. With the anger, Jasmine gives up all efforts to fight with agility and attacks with brute force. Surprised, Joker (Doom) gets hit more than he apparently intended to. However, Joker (Doom) actually was pretending to be weak and drove her to the edge without her noticing. When it seemed that Joker (Doom) was to win, Jasmine ducks down so that Joker (Doom) stepped over her and she pushes him off the edge.

With 1200 gold coins, they triumphantly begin to set out for their original journey again.However, they get captured by Grey Guards. When they think of how they were captured, they remember that Mother Brightly had them to exit using a strange door that would not open and suddenly fell into a hole that was there. They realised that Mother Brightly was a servant of the Shadow Lord, assigned to lure strong people of the Plains and Mere into a trap, to take them to the The Shadowlands to entertain the people in there by fighting an unbeatable monster, Vraal. Joker (Doom) helped them to escape and reveal himself as the leader of the Resistance, the Shadow Lord's rebels. After refusing his offer for them to join the Resistance, they set back to the west with some of the money they managed to recover from the Grey Guards. Lief recognise the sand from the vision he had from the opal. Also, he receives a strange, familiar buzzing, which neither Barda or Jasmine can hear. They see a rock warning, bearing a strange, faded warning. They walk a long way into the Shifting sands in the suddenly unbearable sunlight. They come across a strange bag with odd looking insects eating what was inside it, before suddenly hearing four Grey Guards approaching. Lief orders the other two to move backwards in their footprints and jump away to hide in Lief's Cloak. The Grey Guards get confused for a while, and in the hope that the trio is hiding somewhere, move out to search the sand. Filli, the fur-ball creature, gets unnerved and escapes the cloak and Jasmine dives out to grab him back, revealing their position to the Guards. When they were on the verge to fight, a large Sands Monster rises to eat the panicking Guards alive while leaving the frozen trio alone. Later, they find strange markings on the sand which looks like the coins. Shortly after Lief is attacked by a loud, tormenting buzzing noise which Barda and Jasmine cannot hear, a large sandstorm suddenly rises and Lief hears a voice saying, "Give me the Belt that has so much power".

After the sandstorm, Lief finds Jasmine and Barda again and tells them of what he heard. Then, Jasmine finds out that she lost her dagger. More strangely, a mark on the ground is discovered which looks exactly like her dagger. Lief realises that part of the warning on the stone meant that the Shifting Sands is a monster itself that craves for treasures, not food, and that Jasmine's dagger was accepted as a gift. At night, another sandstorm raids them, and despite Lief's efforts to have the three tied together with a rope, he got separated from the other two and the scene he saw with the opal followed after that. Then, the voice came to him again, this time welcoming him to the Shifting Sands's Centre or the Hive. Then, he is forced to fall asleep, dreaming about beings that looked like his parents who told him to take off the Belt. When he refused, he dreamed that the beings turned to swarms of bees. Then, he dreamt that he saw an apple trees bearing apples that all had the face of the Queen Bee, which were all shouting at him to use smoke...

When he woke, he found himself being attacked by a Sand Monster and saved by Barda and Jasmine, who got rid of the insect like monster with the Grey Guards' Blisters which they got out of the remains of the eaten Guards. Then, after a little discussion, they faced a strange cone which Lief felt they had to climb. So up they went. Then, they found a hole on the top of the cone, which Lief was sure to lead down to the Hive. Almost as if to prove the point, a swarm of bees in the shape of a man's face rose from the hole and demanded that they hand over the Belt. Lief, remembering his dream about the smoke, lit a fire to drive away the bees. Then, he ordered them to tie him to a rope and lower him down to find the Lapis Lazuli from The Hive. He replaced the Lapis Lazuli with the wooden bird Jasmine had received from the trickster and came out also with Jasmine's knife.

After the raid of the Hive, the three are travelling north to retrieve the emerald. However, The Shadow Lord has found out about Thaegan's defeat. Because of her reputation of being the strongest witch of the north, she is resurrected by the Shadow Lord, who believes that she is still useful. Thaegan flies in the shape of a large black bird and finds her remaining 11 children and the ghosts of Jin and Jod. Thaegan asks Hot, Tot, Fie and Fly to help her in capturing the trio as revenge for her defeat and her children's deaths. With their approval, she transforms Fie and Fly into one delicate looking girl and turns Hot and Tot into her bag and hat.

Lief, Barda and Jasmine travel into a group of trees and right ahead of them, and see the dead and barren land ahead of them. Jasmine nearly convinces the other two into avoiding the place, when the girl (Note: Fie and Fly never planned to make a name for the girl they were pretending to be. In the original, they call themselves Francoise but I do not know what she is called in the dub.) appears and Lief, as Jasmine mentions, thinks her pretty and decides to accompany her to where she is going. Barda is also convinced when she mentioned that her house was on the way to the Dread Mountain and that she knew the shortcut to there. Jasmine is totally unwilling, because the girl says that her house is in the middle of the dead patch of land, which she assures is scary looking but harmless. Against Jasmine's judgement, they set out again. Jasmine who was trailing behind, suddenly see the girl's bag float from her hand and reveal jaws, ready to bite Lief. She cries out in alarm but the bag quickly returns to the girl's hand, and with no other witness other than Filli and Kree who are animals, she is judged to be hallucinating. Again, when nobody other than Jasmine and her pets are looking, the girl's hat floats and open its mouth to eat Barda. And yet again, she is reguarded sick. Jasmine gets suspicious in how the girl seemed to lack any convincing story. She then witness a green tail flip in and out of the girl's skirts.

After many more hilarious slips Hot, Tot, Fie and Fly made, they excuse themselves away from the trio for a while to argue and fight each other in their true forms. After a considerable conflict, Lief enters the scene slowly enough for the four monsters to turn back to the girl. After many arguments with Jasmine, they finally arrive at the girl's house which seems a bit too colourless than the girl described. The girl goes upstairs to Thaegan and returns, asking them to come and meet her mother and receive her thanks. By now, even Lief and Barda are feeling suspicious that the girl is not giving the shortcut to Dread Mountain as promised. Then, Thaegan reveals herself and turns the girl, hat and her bags to their original states. Shocked, the trio attempt to escape but Thaegan already placed spells to ensure that if they went through the door, they would find themselves back in the house. When the trio tries to smash the window, they find it unable to break. But they are able to climb out of the chimney and try to escape. Thaegan stops them by conjuring up a gate. Lief cuts Thaegan to half but she already placed a spell to keep her into doubling whenever she was cut. So after many vain attempts to destroy Thaegan, they find themselves surrounded by 5 Thaegans. When they looked as they were going to destroy the trio, the Lapis Lazuli, which has the power to destroy evil, vanishes the 4 copies and weakens the true Thaegan to a very old woman. When she tries to fire a spell at them again, it flies everywhere but the place where the trio is standing, and it destroys Fie, Fly, Hot and Tot. Lief, realising that Thaegan is in the most vulnurable state, kills her again.

After going out of the dead land, they search for water, for they already ran out of some. Then, they find a spring called the Dreaming Spring, which are surrounded by silent trees that Jasmine believes are dead, and drink from it. At night, Lief dreams that he is at home and that the entire house was raided by Grey Guards. Shaken by the dream, he wakes up early and finds a Kin called Prin. She insists on playing a hide and seek game, for all the other Kin she knows are grown ups and she is totally lonely. Lief, who is surprised by the existence of the Kin agrees. But then, Grey Guards who were chasing Glock and Neridah like the ones that chased the trio, comes along and imprisons her in a bag, intending to eat her. Lief gives distraction by throwing a stone and frees her, but gets caught himself, but the Grey Guards are attacked by the spell in the dreaming spring, and turns to trees. When the other Kin arrive to retrieve Prin, it turned out that the Dreaming spring contained a magic that granted the kind ones the ability to go somewhere else in as a spirit form to see what they want to see, while it turned the evil to trees. Jasmine and Barda are pleased by this because they had dreams about their friends they met in their travels, but Lief is horrified because his dream was real. He tries to go back home in the instant to rescue his parents who are obviously now captured. The others convince him otherwise and Barda thinks a plan to get the Kin to help them along their journey because the Kin were originally from Dread Mountains and they had wings that could carry them. Many agree to help, because they needed to return to their homes and eat the wood of the Boolong trees, that only existed there for otherwise, they would not be able to produce children. But the leader of the Kin, Krenn, refuses for there are too few Kin and the Dread Gnomes in the mountains would shoot them down with poisoned arrows if they did go. Because of this, the trio decide to resume to their original plans of going to Dread Mountain, which unfortunately would take weeks, but at Lief's insistence, they stay at the Dreaming Spring for another day. When they are staying, Lief dreams about his father, through the water from the spring. He sees him in a jail in the palace, tormented by a person called Fallow, who has the appearance of the chief advisor, Prandine. Fallow tells Jarred that a trio of a man, a boy and a wild girl with a black bird has been stealing the gems of the Belt of Deltora. Jarred does not yield but laugh when Fallow said that he believed that Lief and King Endon were part of the group. When Lief awakes, Barda is greatly amused when he told him of Fallow's guess.

They were about to go back to their journey but three of the Kin, Ailsa, Merin and Bruna tell them that they would like to help them to Dread Mountain in secret. The trio gets surprised at these Kin for disobeying Krenn, but agree, as they wanted to get to the mountain as fast as possible. Krenn catches them red-handed when they are about to take off and gets very angry. Not only the trio had aroused mutiny in the tribe, but they also convinced their youngest Kin, Prin, to come in their journey to see the Boolong trees of the mountains. But after lots of arguments, Krenn is convinced and the trio ride the three Kin to the mountains. But in secret, Prin follows. When they arrive, Ailsa and the others leave, carrying the wood and leaves of the overcrowded Boolong trees back to their tribe. But then, a mysterious group called the Carn Squad attacks attacks them. They turned out to be the most dangerous group of the Grey Guards, stronger and much faster, known as the "hounds of hell". But in the heat of the battle, Prin got hit by a poisoned arrow and fell to the forest. Jasmine is forced to leave the trio to save Prin with the Lilies of Life. But Lief and Barda could no longer take on the Carn squad alone and were about to lose until a monster called Vraal appears. It turned out that the Vraal was feared by everyone as they knew no friend or ally and fought everyone with massive strength until either its enemies or it is dead. The Carn Squad retreats so that the Vraal would finish off Barda and Lief and track down Jasmine. But then, Kree warns Jasmine about the Vraal so she saves Lief and Barda by rolling a huge rock to push the Vraal off the cliff. When all seems saved, the trio inspect Prin who wakes up, rescued by the Lilies of Life. But then, the Vraal rises again to fight them. With no more large rocks, the trio are totally battered up, until Prin remembers that in the Dread Mountains, there are poisonous purple moss, and shoves it into the Vraal's mouth.

With Prin to eat and clear the way through the forest, they find a shelter of the Dread Gnomes called the Gnomes rest. although the shelter seems totally surrounded by the thorn trees and appearing deserted, Lief finds it suspicious that they left all their tools and materials behind. When going back up the mountain, they find a Blister on the road. At this, Barda assumes that the Dread Gnomes are serving the Shadow Lord, because the Blisters are the Grey Guards' primary weapons. They come across another shelter, which bears a strange instructions to use an arrow to unlock the door and to push the door and weird symbols. But Lief figured out, that the markings were words saying "if you want to die" when read from below or above, indicating that it was a trap. To avoid it, they figured out, you have to pull the door. This time it is safe. But when inside, they found it was more than a shelter like the Gnomes' Rest but it is the door to the underground ladyrinth of the gnomes. But once inside, the gnomes attacked from behind, cornered the trio and Prin into a room and locked them in. For a long time, the trio and Prin wait for the Gnomes to let them back out again but

They arrive and begin to fight, after realising that normal attacks will not harm it, Lief uses the water from the Dreaming Spring to turn Gellick into a tree and freed the Gnomes as well as receiving the Emerald.

After leaving Dread Mountain, they meet Dain, who rescues them from two Ols portraying as two twin girls. They go on the River Queen, but end up finding out that a few of the passengers were Ols, as well as being attacked by pirates. Dain is taken by the pirates while Barda falls over board battling one. Jasmine and Lief find Barda again. As they reach the Maze of the Beast, the real Barda comes and kills the fake Barda, who was an Ol. They go into the Maze of the Beast and are able to find the Amethyst, escaping the slug-like Glus while their two pirate captors are sucked into the maze, and are presumably eaten. Meanwhile, Thaegan returns and is defeated with twelve of her children; Ichabod injured. Fallow ordered Oacus to replace Thaegan's role for hunting the trio after that. And Oacus showed his cruelty in the scene of burning a girl's house.

The trio rescued Dain from the pirate crew and kept their lives under Oacus's attack, then found Tora. Then they journey to the Valley of the Lost and find The Guardian. The Guardian gives them two choices: They can walk away, empty handed, but free; or solve the riddles and get the treasure, failing them would result in them being stuck in the valley forever. They solve the riddles, but Neridah runs away with the Diamond and was captured by Oacus, whom they defeated. They travel to a ruined settlement near Del where they are attacked by Ichabod, who supposedly kidnaps Dain.

They travelled to Del where Dain reveals that he is actually a Grade 3 Ol. After recovering from the shock, Lief confronts Dain and by using the belt, kills Dain. However, while Lief was battling Dain, Barda, Jasmine and Doom were captured. During an execution of the people who have aided to free Deltora of the Shadow Lord, Lief discovers that he is the heir to Deltora. Strangely, the Belt of Deltora as quoted from the Shadow Lord's assistant: "If you were the true heir to the throne then the gems on the Belt would shine as bright as the sun." Lief's father (Endon) tells Lief that if the first letter of each gem are in the order to spell the country of Deltora, then when the gems were reunited they shined so bright that the creator of the Belt of Deltora is in the form of an aurora around Lief and the Shadow Lord is driven back north over the Barrier Mountains and to the Shadowlands again.

However (in the Japanese version) there is more trouble in the kingdom and Jasmine, Barda, and Lief all set out again and deal with it.

Production
The series was produced by Oriental Light and Magic and SKY Perfect Well Think. Rodda was approached with many film offers, but it was only this studio that promised to not change the story. It aired its first episode on January 6, 2007 in Japan.

It was directed by Mitsuru Hongō (Spirit of Wonder, Outlaw Star), designed by Hiroyuki Nishimura and Junya Ishigaki, and written by Oketani Arawa, Reiko Yoshida and Natsuko Takahashi. The music was composed by Kō Ōtani.

Although the series employs mostly traditional animation, the use of CGI is also prevalent for more complicated enemies such as Gem Guardians.

Opening theme
HEART☆BEAT by MARIA (episodes 1–28)

Boku no Taiyou (僕の太陽) by AKB48 (episodes 29–52)

In This Life~Tabidachi made no 3 Step (In This Life～旅立ちまでの3ステップ) by Delta Goodrem (episodes 53–65)

Ending theme
Sakura Uta (桜唄) by Rhythm (episodes 1–14)

'''Hey Now! by COOLON''' (episodes 15–26)

Go To Fly by Sunbrain (episodes 27–39)

Yume x Yume (夢x夢) by Yurika Ohyama (episodes 40–52)

Yubikiri Genman (ユビキリゲンマン) by Hoi festa (episodes 53–65)

Episodes
See List of Deltora Quest episodes

Differences from the books
The series mostly follows the books in terms of near accuracy. However, one noticeable change is that Lief's hair has been changed from black to white blond. Jasmine is shown with dark green hair. Endon revealed himself before killed as it was in the books. When the Belt shone, a great spirit of Adin rose to battle the Shadow Lord before the Belt can give the spirit power to defeat the Shadow Lord. The resurrection of the Sorceress Thaegan, how her children were not killed by each other when they fought in episode 8, Tom's Curious Shop, and the appearance of a new villain: Sorcerer Oacus. Ichabod was killed by the blisters, not the power of the Belt. Instead of drowning in a river due to stealing the Diamond, Neridah was instead captured by Oacus and was still alive at last.

Merchandise
Japanese anime, manga and related products were all released under the title "デルトラクエスト", which, unlike the Japanese novel version's title "デルトラ・クエスト", does not contain a midpoint.


 * Game: A video game for the Nintendo DS was released in 2007, though for Japan only.
 * Manga: A manga series based on the novel was written by Makoto Niwano and published by Kodansha Comics. An English translation of the first volume was July 26, 2011.
 * Trading card game: A game of trading cards based on the anime were released in Japan.
 * Capsule Toys:A miniature toy based on the anime was released in Japan.

Trivia

 * Besides the English dub, a Serbian and a Latin American dub of the anime also exists.
 * AKB48, who sang the opening theme song "Boku no Taiyo", was an unknown singer in 2007 when the anime aired, but became socially popular in Japan in the 2010s.