Tezuka Osamu Story: I am Son-Goku (1989) 手塚治虫物語 ぼくは孫悟空
Director: Osamu Tezuka
Screenwriter: Osamu Tezuka
Starring: Kuniwa Ishii / Tsui Kusao / Kyouji Kobayashi / Mari Shimizu / Kosei Tomita / Yoshiko Fujita / Momi Koyama / Mayumi Tanaka / Kenji Utsumi / Tetsuya Asado / Kaibo Kawakubo / Hisashi Katsuda / Ichiro Nagai / Kaneto Shiozawa / Nishio Germany / Masuoka Hiroshi
Genre: Drama / Animation / Fantasy
Country/Region of Production: Japan
Language: Japanese
Date: 1989-08-27
Duration: 70 minutes
Also known as: 手冢治虫物语 我的孙悟空 / 手塚治虫物語：我的孫悟空
IMDb: tt1654078
Adaptation: Meta
Summary:
This is the 12th special animated program for “24-hour Television: Ai wa Chikyu wo Sukuu.” The first half of the story is an autobiographical animated piece focused on the episode in which the young boy Tezuka Osamu becomes attracted to the Chinese animated work “Tessen Koshu.” Then it uses some episodes from Son-goku to depict how he eventually becomes an animation writer. The latter half is a new science fiction version of Son-goku set against a background of Planet Sapphire in the Galaxy of 3010. This is one of Tezuka Osamu’s posthumous works. He unfortunately passed away during the planning stages.
At the world premiere, Takamasa Matsutani, president of Japan’s “Tezuka Animation Production Co., Ltd.”, accepted an interview with the “International Herald Herald”. He revealed a rather touching past incident.
Osamu Tezuka began to create this different Sun Wukong in 1952, and made it into a comic “My Son Goku” and serialized it in a magazine. When creating, Osamu Tezuka also considered using the image of Peking Opera facial makeup, but in the end he making Sun Wukong like a bear perhaps to show the difference. When he died in 1989, he left the draft of the animated film “My Son Goku” in the world. This was also Osamu Tezuka’s last animated work.
The indissoluble bond between Osamu Tezuka and Sun Wukong dates back to when he was in middle school. At that time, he watched the cartoon “Princess Iron Fan” produced by the brothers Wan Laiming, the founder of Chinese animation, and made up his mind to make animation his lifelong career. Therefore, there were later cartoons and animated characters such as “Astro Boy” and “Jungle King” that grew up with a generation. It was his comics and animations that saved the Japanese animation industry, which was on the verge of collapse at the time. “My Son Goku” also records the friendship between Osamu Tezuka and Wan Laiming.
Matsutani Takamasa said: “Mr. Wan is the person that Mr. Tezuka respects and admires the most. Many people think that Mr. Tezuka is more influenced by Disney animation. In fact, he was influenced earlier by Chinese animation, especially Mr. Wan’s animation, and more profound.” In 1988, Osamu Tezuka came to China and paid a special visit to Wan Laiming, who was already in his seventies. After returning to Japan, Tezuka Osamu completed the draft of his last animated film "My Son Goku” and wrote “This is my Son Goku” on the title page. “After he visited Mr. Wan, he already knew that he would die soon and completed "My Son Goku”. Before his death, he used his work to say hello to Mr. Wan and tell Mr. Wan, ‘I’m going.’“ When he said this, Matsutani Xiaozheng’s tone was a little heavy.
In 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Astro Boy’s birth, Tezuka released the cartoon "My Son Goku”, to which Osamu Tezuka devoted special emotions to.
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