ANI-MOVIES, Belladonna Of Sadness

The final entry in the "Animerama" trilogy by Mushi Production was the only one not to be done by Osamu Tezuka. Animerama was a series of adult-themed animated films from 1969-1973, although this film, Belladonna Of Sadness, features a good portion of it not in actual moving pictures but instead still shots, done in an early motion comic approach. It was directed by Eiichi Yamamoto, who worked on previous Tezuka productions like Astro Boy and Kimba. Yamamoto took this mature fantasy story and blended it with some serious psychotronic visuals, like you'd expect to watch this while listening to music from Woodstock. The story was based on La Sorcière, a 19th Century report on witchcraft and archaic arts.

Taking place in France during the Middle Ages, Jean and Jeanne are two young lovers get married, but the greedy king asks for her virginity to cover their wedding tax. Thus, Jeanne is raped by most of the nobility, and sent back abused to Jean. The battered wife is tempted by a small spirit who promises to help her in exchange for an ethereal sex exchange. Jeanne is able to use the magic into starting a new trade as a merchant, being one of the only ones in the village able to pay the insane taxes. This gets the attention of the king, who makes Jean the tax collector, which gives Jeanne a reputation as a revered figure dressed in green. The jealous queen has a servant attack her, tearing her outfit, which confusingly causes the villagers to run her out of town. Jeanne is revisited by the spirit who turns out to be Satan, and grants her even more power. With her dark magic, Jeanne unleashes a plague on the land, but convinces those infected that she has the cure with a belladonna flower. The villager begin worshiping her, and this further infuriates the queen, who sees her demise after her servant makes a pact with Jeanne for her love. The king sends Jean to convince Jeanne to join the royalty, but Jeanne refuses saying she wants the whole world instead. Jeanne is then burnt at the stake, while Jean is killed trying to save her. This sparks the villagers into their eventual contempt with the monarchy, which eventually becomes The French Revolution, seeing Jeanne as the eternal spirit of liberty.

The actual animated scenes in Belladonna Of Sadness are exceptional for the early 70s, but most creative were the tripping out montages which were normally done for sequences of sexual tension, to full out orgies. This still shot illustration maintain the flow of the story good enough while being backed up by convincing voice acting. It is not for younger audiences, but can't totally be seen as explicit "hentai" either, which is a concept that wouldn't really reach anime on a regular basis until around the mid-80s. There are some exceptional character designs, that appear to be what might have influenced illustrators like Yoshitaka Amano(Final Fantasy), so you can view this and understand where the more mature-themed anime got their start from.