User Reviews

"Magic Boy" is one of the earliest films I remember seeing as a child. I saw it with my sister around 1960 at a special showing in a now-gone San Diego theater in the Pacific Beach area. The title, basic story, and theme melody were very memorable to both of us, and many years later we could still recall fragments of the movie.

By far the most memorable characteristic of this movie for both of us was its extraordinarily long length. IMDb indicates this film is 83 minutes long, which is about the length of the version shown on the TCM channel in recent years, but the original version we saw was *much* longer than that, almost certainly 3-4 hours long. Obviously such a long film is poorly suited to children and their typically short attention spans. After a while the excessive length became ridiculous: the catchy theme melody with lyrics "Magic Boy, Magic Boy" sung by ladies in harmony would start to play at the end of each battle, it would seem like the end of the movie, we would prepare to leave the theater, then another part of the story would start anew. This pattern happened several times in succession until eventually we just wanted the movie to end. My sister remembers a battle with a dragon, which I don't remember and which isn't in the 83-minute version.

As an adult re-watching this movie, my main impressions were that it wasn't particularly appealing, and it was even a bit weird. There is a strangely long scene early in the movie where the friendly animals are eating at a dinner table outside, with annoyingly cute music playing, and weird dubbed adult male voices for the animal sounds, but very little is going on despite the long length of this scene. This strange dinner scene is immediately followed by another strange series of incidents where a cloud of angry bees shift their attack from the bear who was disturbing their hive to an innocent fawn, then the fleeing fawn is snatched up by a hawk (as if a hawk could lift a deer!), then the deer is inexplicably dropped into a lake instead of being carried to the hawk's nest. Then the fawn is immediately attacked by a large toothy salamander in the lake that looks more like a crocodile (as if a salamander would eat a deer!), but this attack is prolonged as if the salamander is merely playing with the fawn, and all the while weird warbling sounds are played, with no dialog or cries for help for a long time. It kept seeming like there were important things that were missing, like calls for help, or Sasuke running to the rescue, or something more important happening at the dinner table. This film definitely doesn't flow as smoothly and evenly as one has come to expect from animated Disney films

Other pointless acts of violence occur throughout the film, such as where traveling bandits attack and burn down an entire town, then kidnap a little girl and threaten to push her over a cliff. Likewise, the evil witch is constantly attacking people. There is no blood, however, despite many warriors being shown cut down in battle by katana swords. Also annoying are the lyrics sung by a man (Danny Valentino) in the theme song at both the beginning and end, which are annoyingly puerile, like "'cause he was good" and an interjected "Boo!" when describing the witch.

Some positive things I can say about the film are that it has a definite oriental cultural feel to it, there are a lot of animals for the kids, there is a lot of action, nice scenery, the magic/invisibility aspects will appeal to kids, and the film's novelty makes it memorable. At least some of the writing in Sasuke's parting note is authentic Japanese script, and there are traditional Japanese-Chinese attributes like the story being of epic length, there are steep mountains with narrow mountain trails and wooden footbridges over deep chasms reminiscent of Chinese paintings, carried buckets of water, katana swords, a Japanese castle, a wooden board gong, bamboo chimes, male warriors with their hair tied into pony tails, kimonos, wood block pillows, and so on. There are valuable lessons about perseverance and hard work, but the unrealistic aspects dealing with magic, invisibility, levitation, and telekinesis partly negate those bits of educational value.

Overall, I'd say the main value of this film is entertainment for children. Adults who are interested in animation, especially the history of Japanese animation, will find this to be a historically valuable data point, but I can't imagine many adults could stand the annoying theme songs and music, the weird animal voice dubs, and the story's lapses in logic and realism.

This was the first anime I watched and the detail, the story writing and lessons learned by "Magic Boy" were inspiring. Take any martial arts master teaching young student and multiply it a thousand fold and you have an inkling of what you can behold with this movie... okay I'm exaggerating. If I remember correctly, the art was somehow reminded me of those Chinese paintings of mist/cloud shrouded mountains since that is where he is trained by the old master. I particularly remember magic boy having to get pails of water two at a time and carry them from a stream down hill over craggy mountain boulders and winding paths, in rain, sleet, snow. I recommend this movie for those with kids... it can teach them of determination and perseverance. I know there are some sort of moral lessons in there somewhere... I wish I could watch it again!

"Shônen Sarutobi Sasuke" (known as "Magic Boy" in English) was the first anime feature film to be released in the United States, and was handled by a major Hollywood studio on these shores. Those facts alone make the movie interesting, but the movie itself has other attributes that make it worth a look. It's clear that there was some influence from the Disney studio, most notably with the design of some of the animal characters, and how these animals are used for comic relief. But for the most part, the movie does its own thing, and in a very professional manner. The animation is generally smooth, and there is some animation that is surprisingly detailed even by today's standards. The art design of the backgrounds and various characters is also eye-catching.

The movie definitely looks good. However, when it comes to the writing, there are some notable weaknesses. The basic story itself has nothing wrong with it. In fact, the ancient Japan setting and use of Japanese mythology gives it some freshness compared to American animated production. Where the writing goes wrong is with the characters. The characters are pretty weak. We learn little about the hero before he goes out on his quest to become a magician. He is trained by a wizard that we hardly learn anything about, such as why he decides to train the boy. The witch, the chief villain of the movie, doesn't have much dialogue and it's hard to determine what is motivating her.

Despite these weak characters, the movie still can be enjoyed. Kids will probably be captivated by the color, action, and child protagonist. Adults will appreciate the animation and the insight into a foreign culture. It's worth a look.