Buddhist anime - Tezuka “Buddha” Planned.
June 2nd, 2009
Following on my post on the Buddha & Christ (depicted in a new manga as young flat-shares in Tokyo), I hear the great mangaka Tezuka Osamu will have his 8 Volume (English edition numbering) Buddha manga made into an anime film in 2010.
Here I take a quick look here at other ‘imported spiritual storytelling’ anime, there isn’t much. My first candidate is “Ramayana - Rama Ouji Densetsu ( ラーマヤーナ ラーマ王子伝説 ) [रामायण]” - “The Prince of Light” - “The Prince of Light - The Legend of Ramayana” - “Warrior Prince, The Legend of Prince Rama” (1993) a sweet & accurate anime retelling of the great Hindu epic. Released in English, Hindi and Japanese there is some genuine Sanskrit chanting when appropriate, it was a ‘Nippon Ramayana Films’ production directed by Yugo Sako and Krishna Shah.

Here is part of the splendid review on beliefnet.com - the story of Yugo Sako:
“Religion and spirituality impacted director Sako since he was a child. Born in 1928 in central Japan, he was orphaned at the age of 3. Monks in a Zen Buddhist temple raised him to become a future priest. He has strong memories of religion classes for local children and was passionate about collecting cards about the life of Buddha that were used in the classes. “This was my initial contact with Buddha and India.”
In college, he majored in Buddhist Studies. He then practiced asceticism at the Heirinji Zen Temple but soon realized that the priesthood was not for him. He returned to secular life and eventually set up his own company, Tokyo Cine Vision Ltd, which made music albums and TV documentaries.
He first visited India in 1985 to film a documentary, “The Ramayan Relics,” about an archeological excavation near Ayodhya. He was smitten by the story of Prince Ram’s triumph over the forces of darkness, and as his research into the epic deepened, he realized it was much more than just a myth: It encompassed a whole philosophy of living and had historical underpinnings.
He read Valmiki’s Ramayana in Japanese and went on to study 10 different versions, all in Japanese. Although he was a documentary filmmaker, he felt only an animated format could capture the true magic and power of Ramayana. He says, “Because Ram is God, I felt it was best to depict him in animation, rather than by an actor.”

Meeting with academics, archaeologists and historians, Sako painstakingly researched the story of Ram, and spent months checking out costumes and architectural details. As a foreigner, he wanted to be extra vigilant in staying true to the epic. All the futuristic gizmos, flying vehicles, and even weapons of mass destruction depicted in the film are mentioned in the Ramayana.
Sako collaborated with Ram Mohan, an eminent animator in India, to design the key art. In 1990, he started work in Japan on the principal animation, using over 450 artists.”
Thanks again for that to beliefnet.com.
I can’t find a sales link anywhere, I bought my copy in EMI, Engineer Street, Bangalore. Search on eBay is what I would do.
Now about Tezuka’s Buddha - I doubt it can be made into a film, there is simply too much of the extraordinary detail that made Tezuka such a great inventor, originator, style-setter, story-arc teller, in Japan they simply call him “The God of Manga”.
It could be, should be, made into an old-style long-running anime TV series; funded by a rich Buddhist Organisation, or a Government or an NGO & thus unconstrained artistically & commercially.
The 8 volumes of “Buddha” (Hardback/Paperback) are available from Amazon UK.


