Bagi (1984)
Kawamori inspired us all to learn from the mountain in Arjuna, but the man we learn from there has always been shrouded in mystery until I saw this movie. The man's name is Osamu Tezuka, and this is his protest anime condemning the evils of genetic engineering. Fans of Arjuna will feel right at home here, outside the notable absence of the world's most perfect boy. In his place we get a slightly less perfect protagonist who is faced with hunting down and killing the kitten he once had as a child, except the kitten didn't grow up to be a normal cat but a cat-human hybrid with additional powers. The story is mainly told through flashbacks as the tragedy of man's folly unfolds. Verbose explanations of background info are certainly not omitted here, so the viewer can fully grasp how sinful our society has become.
Some may call the production rushed or sloppy, but as the Japanese government had just made the mistake of approving research of recombinant DNA, what we actually see is the urgency Tezuka felt in getting out his message. If only we had listened, or the new reality of broken homes, oppressive dictatorships, and billions pushed towards certain death woudn't have befallen us.
