ANI-MOVIES, *The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico

Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka came up with his emblematic manga of Unico in 1976. It has a happy unicorn on a constant quest for peace encountering different fantasy characters in each installment. The one-horned horse seems more like a cross between Astro Boy and Tezuka's other creation Kimba The White Lion than an actual equine. Aside from a pilot film done in 1979, there never was an anime adaptation of the manga until 1981 that was founded by Tezuka Productions and Sanrio with the animation being handled by Madhouse Studios spearheaded by Yoshiaki Kawajiri who later went on to more violent productions like Ninja Scroll and Wicked City. The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico was the first of a duology and adapts two of the manga chapters into a single story. The main difference between the anime and manga is that the original source material had the goddess Venus being the main antagonist.

An unnamed unicorn gives birth to a bunch of babies, one of which conveniently called Unico. This newborn causes so much happiness for mortals that the gods themselves become jealous of him and task the living entity of the West Wind to carry him away to somewhere called The Hill Of Oblivion which the viewer can only guess is the edge of the world. West Wind feels sorry for Unico, so she drops him off the Island of Solitude where the young unicorn befriends the young devil who lives there named Beezle. Their friendship brings the attention of the gods as they realize the island isn't so lonely anymore, and they dispatch the Night Wind to recapture Unico and take him to The Hill Of Oblivion. West Wind shows up and flies off with Unico again to a hidden forest where he befriends a cat named Katy who wants to find a witch and be turned into a human girl. The two of them find an old lady living alone in the woods which Katy believes is a witch and the cat starts warming up to. Unico uses his empathic magic to transform Katy into a girl who decides to move in with the old woman and help her clean up. This all seems fine, but a dark stranger shows up and tempts the now human Katy to his castle where he plans to feed off her. Unico shows up and frees Katy as the demon turns into an eldritch horror straight out of the end of Fantasia. This leads to an epic JRPG fight where Unico digivolves into his final form as a winged adult unicorn and pierces the colossal nightmare right through the heart bringing life back to the forest. West Wind returns to take Unico away to his next adventure in the sequel leaving the friends he made along his journey behind.

The story continues a year later in the concluding film of Unico In The Island Of Magic, the title of which is confusing enough. This first film was a good outing for Tezuka's little bundle of joy with the first half seeming like an amusing family picture, but once the evil demon shows up in the final act it changes into an extravagant battle with amazing visuals and some seriously dark imagery including the bad guy actually getting impaled. The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico is a great feature for kids in its initial portions, but parent might want to supervise the conclusion as it could traumatize them for life.