This is one for the children out there. The Fantastic Adventures of Unico tells about a little unicorn with an amazing talent: to make everyone he runs into happy. Its storyline and themes (in this case, friendship) are simple and easy to understand, as the movie follows the adventures of the incredibly cute Unico and his friends. If you’ve got a little brother or sister, this would be the perfect thing to show them. Especially the kids in kindergarten will love it.
But still, the question remains whether older viewers will enjoy it. If I were to judge the story in the way I do with other anime, this movie would fail horribly. Characters lack background, and Unico is surprisingly mature and brave for his age. The movie starts out nicely, though, when the gods try to get rid of Unico, but these gods play an unfortunate small role for the rest of the airtime. Halfway through the movie, a more clichéd villain gets introduced, who gets to be the big boss who needs to be defeated in the end. This end turns out to be a Disney-ending, so don’t expect much of it.
Still, the characters are interesting to watch; if you like cute stuff, at least. I do admit that Unico gets more annoying as the movie goes on, but the other characters are definitely fun to watch. Everyone has a clear role to play in this movie, and a lot of symbolism is used to flesh them out. There are quite a few adorable moments throughout the movie, and despite the fact that the storyline doesn’t always work, the themes are always spot-on.
This is one of these movies that you need to watch on a brain-dead afternoon, when you don’t want to think much. For me, this definitely wasn’t Osamu Tezuka’s best work. But then again, I’m not exactly part of the target audience. ^^;]]>
Fantastic Adventures of Unico Review – 66/100
*gasp* super nostalgia moment! This was one of my favorite movies as a little kid, I saw it even before I knew what anime was. I remember I liked this one but the second movie was much better, the first one was a kiddy movie, the second one was more of a family Disney movie, you may like it better than this one.
I actually thought this was a cute movie! Sure, it has it’s mild cliches, but hey, it’s still enjoyable! You should see the other movie called Unico In the Island of Magic.
Maybe its just me but the film stands up after all these years. It definately gets more mature and sinister in the second half and I think Unico himself has a brilliant range of special powers especially the one used when all hope seems lost. A bittersweet ending is used rather than a simple happy-happy Disney one. The 2nd movie is OK but has less plot and I don’t like the animation style as much.