Shinji Hashimoto in #7 and Manabu Ohashi in #5. Both listed at the top of the list yet I couldn't tell what they did! Hashimoto probably did the one cut of Sakon stepping towards Bikuni, the only cut in the whole episode that was actually animated. Hata's storyboard was very Hata, so it felt good to see him being himself, but not much more than that.

Watching Hinotori convinced me that Tezuka's character designs are simply not suited to animation. Which is ironic, since they arose from animation. It perfectly encapsulates how bass-ackwards his whole understanding of animation was. Take animation designs, turn them into manga, then turn them back into animation - should work perfectly as animation, right? Wrong. They just look like cardboard cutouts on the screen. This could probably more fairly be blamed on the animators of this particular series, who either didn't try very hard or just are too damn reverent with his designs, and Sugino's actual CD, which just feels stilted and mannered by now. Goku is the real way these designs should be treated - with freedom and fun. It's about the only successful Tezuka anime I've seen that actually works as animation. It's the perfect example of what could have been achieved with the limited Mushi Pro style. All in all--animation, story, ideas--embarrassingly passé. This firebird is fowl all right, but it's a turkey.

Mossafer. This movie pops into my head every once in a while, spontaneously, just like that. It occupies that large a place in my psyche. Today's image is from this movie. This kid is the Huck of Iranian cinema. The scene where he makes fun of the skinny marathoner cracks me up every time.