I was delighted to discover that Masami Hata did the storyboard for episode 5 of the recent anime adaptation of Tezuka's "life work", produced by NHK, and upon investigating, I noticed that none other than Gisaburo Sugii did script & storyboard for episode 7. Despite being a onetime fan of Tezuka the manga-ka, I have my reservations about whether there is really any need to resurrect Tezuka's dubious anime legacy in this day and age, but just from those two names, without further ado I decided this series was worth investigating from the beginning. Here we have two of the big Mushi Pro vets approaching retirement age working on the Master's magnum opus - plus of course other expat luminaries like character designer Akio Sugino (who else?) and director Takahashi "Votoms" Ryosuke. It's kind of touching. The end of an era. I thought they were reserving the best chapter, Hououhen, for last, but I now realize they're not going to do it?! Hello? To me, Hinotori is synonymous with Hououhen. When I sold off my set of Hinotori books, I only kept Hououhen. What are they thinking? Oh well. Production quality is said to be high, as befitting the material, and if you're going to animate a new Tezuka piece, it's the obvious choice, but despite that, for some reason I still just find the whole idea extremely nonplussing. I'll be content just to finally be able to see two great animators back in action on their home turf.