by cmoon » Fri Jul 28, 2006 3:59 pm
Wow! Just finished watching it, and must say this is a real treat for Tezuka fans. For starters, the animation is really top notch and shows all the experimentation we have come to known from his shorts; and the film feels at times more a celebration of animation rather than settling down and being a film (this can be both a good and bad thing). There are guest appearances by most of the major characters (Mustachio, Black Jack, Lamp, Shunken (a monk in Civil War, probably appears elsewhere), Gao/Saruta, and of course Rock (an older Rock who doesn't look so much like the one we know.) I'm really surprised there's no Hamegg, but not everyone can make the cut.
The film itself is great stuff, though it doesn't seem to be adapted from any one book of phoenix, nor does it really fit into the phoenix time-line. The role of the phoenix rather surprised me too, namely the price she exacts from Godo sort of surprised me (though it was rather touching.)
I suspect after seeing the film that this is the unedited version. It runs 2 hours and there was quite a bit of 'gratuitous' animation (parts where Tezuka just animated fun things because he wanted to!) So it is easy to imagine an edited for of this.
So were there other major animated movies by Tezuka?