El niño mago

Just saw this on TCM and it still has the magic. This is recognizably a Taiji Yabushita film, in that he takes much of his style from classic Disney--fluid (maybe not as fluid as Disney) movement, use of music and imagery, animal sidekicks. It's not as emotionally powerful as his The Orphan Son (his masterpiece, I think), or as all-around well done as Alakazam (his collaboration with Ozamu Tezuka), or as historically important as The White Snake (which influenced Miyazaki) but it has its virtues--the inventive way the hero appears and disappears, the 'transformation battle' that occurs at the climax, the lifelike sword fights of the prince...not Yabushita's best, but still up there, somewhere.

Like Jerri LaPoint and Attila, I also saw this movie when I was very young (probably 1970). I know it as Magic Boy, because I saw it in my hometown theater for free every Saturday for about a year. I never got tired of it, and I often still think about it. It had a definite Zen feel to it, and I would give a lot to see it again. The film is classic Japanese animation, probably a lot rougher around the edges than Disney, with dubbed voices that are stiff but still quite likeable. And that's about as much as I remember about it from 32 years ago, other than I would absolutely love for my five-year-old son to see it when he turns six or seven. That gives me a little while to track it down, and any help would be appreciated. Another movie that affected me the same way was The Snow Queen (I see it titled as Snezhnaya koroleva on the IMDb site), which had a similar mixture of spine-tingling adventure, great villains and an emotional ending.

The movie is pure magic, just like Sasuke. The SFX are great, the plot is coherent and the fights! oh boy! It's a pleasure looking Sasuke materialize and de-materialize at will, or his flight scenes. The really humorous scene is when he gets to the prince's castle and gets sticked into the guard's sword until they let him pass and then he gets flying! With so much power who can put a parental figure on this boy? I ask. When I looked at this movie in my teens I loved it. I just would kill to see it edited and distributed in DVD and get it into my hands...(*sob*) However "Magic Boy" was a preview of the great potential of Asian cinema and anime production that there was yet to come.

I too saw ''Magic Boy'' on it's first release back in 1960. Being a fan of fantasy films, I was enchanted by the story and characters, though it was over 40 years before i saw it again. Alas, it lacks much of the magic I remembered. The story is just an excuse for the beautiful animation, and the characters are undeveloped. The motives of the witch, for instance, are left unexplained (yes, she's wicked, but why?) Many will think that my revised opinion is the result of seeing the film again not as a child, but as an adult. However, this is not true. Many films I enjoyed as a child still hold up wonderfully. ''Alakazam The Great'' for instance, is a superior Japanese animated feature.

I saw this flick when I was quite young ... around 1960 or 61. It made such a lasting impression on me that I would love to have the movie in video. I recall crying after the movie ended, because it was so beautiful. It started me on a lifetime of appreciation of all things magical and mystical. I can't find it anywhere. Is it available? Anywhere?