Video Backlog: “Phoenix”

Publisher: AnimeWorks (Media Blasters, USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 13 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2004
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

An ambitious short anime series, this show attempts to encapsulate Osamu Tezuka’s unfinished manga “Phoenix (Hi no Tori)” which began in 1967 and the last chapter to be published was in 1988, a year before Tezuka’s death. As you can imagine only a few of the arcs have been adapted, and from what I understand they are presented out of sequence in regards to when they were originally published. The first arc presented is “Dawn” from the first volume from 1967. This involves the empress Himiko of the Yamataikoku from the mid third century who invades Japan to seek in an effort to obtain the mysterious Phoenix and eternal youth. However general Sarutahiko takes a young boy as his son after decimating a village and complications arise for him and his adopted son. A side story is also told about a man who from Yamataikoku who infiltrates the village before it is destroyed. The next arc is “Resurrection” from the sixth volume published in the very early 1970’s. Initially taking place in the late 25th century, it flows the tale of Leona, a young scientist who is resurrected though robotics and modern medicine. The problem is his mostly cyborg brain only sees humans as frightening blobs. Guided by the Phoenix, he comes across a robot due to be scrapped, Chihiro, however he sees her as a beautiful human girl whom he falls in love with. Leona’s partner, Lamp, believes he is making story up and hiding data he had on the Phoenix’s feather, which they acquired and studied before Leona’s accident.

The third story is “Strange Beings” from 1981, which involves a young female samurai whose father is on the verge of death. A young Buddhist nun visits and tells her father she can cure him. Fearing that she will be successful and cure him, she travels her faithful retainer to the nun’s temple in the mountains and kills her. However they soon both discover that they cannot escape the mountain and she soon finds herself having to impersonate the nun as sick people travel to the temple to be healed by the Phoenix feather that the temple has. Later to becomes obvious to the pair that they are trapped in some sort of time warp. Bizarrely demons and other strange creatures also come to the temple to be healed. The next story is based on “Sun” which was the final arc completed before Tezuka’s death. It revolves around a young Korean soldier called Harima whose face is replaced by a wolf. He escapes to Japan with the help of an old woman and becomes the feudal lord Inugami ad finds himself in the midst of a supernatural war. The final arc in the series is from “Future”, originally published in 1968. In the 35th century, the world has come to an end. People live in shelters underground. A young man called Masato Yamanobe has escaped one of the cities because he has a banned shape shifting alien (a Moopie) who has taken the form of a beautiful girl called Tamami, and naturally both are in love. Pursued by a several robotic dogs, the pair are rescued by Dr Saruta, a scientist who has been exiled by society. Dr Saruta promises to help Tamami who is at her limit as long as he can use her to create new life to resurrect the Earth. Unfortunately the computers who run the underground cites decide to attack each other with nuclear weapons which wipes out humanity which also damages Dr Saruta base which proves fatal to him. The Phoenix however has made Masato immortal and his lives out his life watching the Earth resurrect itself.

Like with the “Buddha” movie which I saw a couple of weeks back, I had problems with this series. Like “Buddha”, “Phoenix” is based on a long manga, twice the length at least. A lot of material has been cut and really the only thing linking these stores is that the Phoenix makes an appearance in them. Other than that, there’s no link really. Well I suppose you could say the only real link is man’s attempts to acquire the Phoenix in each story so he can achieve immortally. While he pretty much fails each time, the Phoenix is always there imparting wisdom or guiding mankind. For me the stories were rather hit or miss. I liked “Strange Beings” the best and “Sun” was interesting too, but the rest kind of left me cold. Like the adaptations of Leiji Matsumoto’s work, I generally like the ones made back in the 1970’s and very early 1980’s, but find the recent ones rather silly. The stores don’t seem to echo the values of today. They’re way too old fashioned and too simple. With some exceptions such as “Black Jack” and perhaps “Metropolis”, I too find Tezuka adaptations made posthumously rather disappointing. More accurately, to me they feel rather silly. It feels all rather old fashioned and the dialogue hasn’t been updated to suit modern times. For example in the first arc the female lead in the side story says she wants to become immortal so she can have a thousand babies to repopulate the village. There’s also the completely implausible notion that a couple could raise a family in a created of a volcano for over a decade and a half. Some of the scenes are really, really grim too. There’ isn’t a great deal of humour to break this grimness up in some parts.

The animation is OK. It’s bog standard TV stuff, nothing to write home about. Unlike “Buddha”, “Phoenix” has retained the spirit of Tezuka’s character designs which I liked very much. Naturally Tezuka’s “Star System” is in full swing with appearances from Rock, Lamp and others. Takahashi Ryosuke of “Votoms”, “Flag” and “Gasaraki” fame is the director here. Maybe I was expecting way too much, but I was rather disappointed with this work this time around. Perhaps because of the fact this is a Tezuka work the pressure was on and he didn’t do much with the material and played it straight. Certainly the ending just felt too schmaltzy and a bit silly for my liking. Though made over 30 years ago, I would prefer to watch “Phoenix 2772” than this adaption of the material. Overall I was rather disappointed with the series, but still it was entertaining enough to give it a 6 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 28 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).