Jungle Taitei Movie

From my understanding the series run was 1965 and the film was 1997. I could not find a '66 film so I am assuming this was listed in year 1966 because of the intro clip possibly from the '65 run. On to the review.

Initially feels like a Lion King copy but once the story starts you realize it is a completely different story with human interaction and not one of betrayal. It shows multiple aspects of human and animal nature. The characters are varied and there is no main character. The ending was not satisfying to me but such is life. The movie demonstrates happiness, ... grief, love, anger and greed. Overall a decent movie.

The Lion King also came after this despite the movie being produced 3 years later because it was based on the much older manga.

Overall I was surprised to be enjoyed as much as I was with this ancient movie. The visuals and audio were quite behind the times, but the amazing story by Tezuka helps pull it through to be an overall enjoyable experience. I contemplated writing a full English review, but since I cannot find any subtitled, much less dubbed, releases of this movie I didn't think it was necessary. Further, I do not really recommend watching this movie as it cuts out some of my favorite portions of the manga, and also loses much of the unique, expressive and detailed Tezuka artstyle that made it famous ... in the first place.

久しぶりのジャングル大帝でした。といいましてもアニメ版を見るのは実は初めてです。子供のころ手塚先生の名作をよく愛読したものですからあらすじはよく覚えています。そこでMAL最古の映画の初レビューを書くチャンスもあることだし今回見てみることにしました。

まず、この作品はしょっぱなからアンティークらしさ丸出しです。ビジュアルはもうぼやけだらけでほとんど何が映っているのかさえ分かりにくいです。音声のレコーディングもかなり厳しいもので長く聞いていて気持ちいいものではありません。

しかし、その弱点を持ってなお私にとってこの映画は意外と面白い経験でした。いくら見て呉れが醜くても元の物語はいつになく素晴らしいものです。初見のはずなのに見ているうちに不思議と懐かしく感じる時がよくありました。最後には続編もなく漫画の一巻目のあらすじだけで終わってしまったことが残念です。ということで私のように漫画をもう読んでいる方にはおすすめの作品です。しかし、ジャングル大帝をまだ未経験のかたにはやっぱりオリジナルの漫画、またはもっと新しいアニメがおすすめです。