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Orpheus of the Stars (US: Winds of Change)
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10/27/1979  Movie 108 minutes Sanrio
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The credits cite Hata among the 29 "animators", all but two others (Yamamoto Shigeru and Akabori Mikiharu) of whom are
American animators. These three formed part of the small group of Sanrio Eiga staff who travelled to Los Angeles and
worked at the Sanrio studio built on Sunset Boulevard expressly to produce this film, most of whom would go on to play
a central role in the next big Sanrio Eiga film, The Legend of Sirius. There is a note of confusion as to Hata's
role in the film, related to the identity of the enigmatic director TAKASHI. In a 2001 autobiography by veteran animator
Yasuo Ôtsuka, Ôtsuka states at one point in passing that Hoshi no Orpheus was directed by Masami Hata
rather than TAKASHI, contrary to the film's credits and all other published sources. Although the probable answer is simply
that Ôtsuka was citing memory and his editors failed to catch the mistake, a more tantalizing (but unlikely)
possibility is that he has unwittingly unveiled the identity of the mysterious TAKASHI; if Hata did direct the film, that
considerably changes the map of Hata's activity over the six years 1974-1979 during which Orpheus was produced.
The world's first full-length 70mm animated film, it was also Sanrio's most ambitious and expensive film (¥2.6 billion), and an American-Japanese staff of over 170 worked for six
years to produce its 140,000 cels.
Cel Count: 140,000
Production Length: 6 years
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