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Bath House PR Anime Collaboration with Osamu Tezuka's Phoneix Streams Prologue, Episode 1
posted on by Kim Morrissy
Pony Canyon released the prologue and first episode of the Dogo Onsen hot spring bath house collaboration anime with Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix on Thursday. The anime is part of a revitalization project for the Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture bath house that began on January 15.
The prologue shows two gods Ōoku Ninushi (played Takeshi Tsuruno) and Sukuna Hikona (played by Suzuko Mori) encountering the phoenix (played by Nana Mizuki) and discovering the hot spring. The first episode shows Prince Shōtoku of the Asuka Period being stressed out because of his royal duties and relaxing at the hot spring.
The anime was produced by Tezuka Productions. It was storyboarded and directed by Fumihiro Yoshimura (Black Jack). The screenplay was handled by Shōichirō Masumoto (Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories) and Taisuke Nishimura. The character designer and chief animation director was Shinji Seya (Black Jack: Child from the Sky), and the music composer was Yuuji Nomi (Phoenix).
Viz Media published the Phoenix manga in North America, and it describes the series:
Considered by many the peak of Osamu Tezuka's artistic achievement and called his "life's work" by the author, Phoenix is made up of twelve complex stories linked by the presence of the mythical bird, an immortal guardian of the universal life force. Read in order, the separate stories jump across time, alternating between a distant future and a distant past, converging on the present, with characters from one story being reincarnated in another.
The manga has inspired a series of anime film and OVA adaptations from 1978 to 1987, each adapting a different story in the manga. The manga also inspired a 2004 television anime.
