Back around the time the first eukaryotic organisms were developing on the Earth’s sea floor, I coined the term “Tar and Sugar Movies” to describe the earliest films of the Walt Disney Animated Feature canon. I chose the name in reference to the often jarring tonal shifts between cloying cutsiness and shocking darkness of those films. In retrospect though, I think I got it wrong. The true Golden Age of the Tar and Sugar aesthetic was not the late thirties and forties, but the nineteen eighties.

Here is the typical eighties cartoon experience:

And I think, with today’s movie, I may have found the ultimate Tar and Sugar movie. And, as in most things in this life, they do it better in Japan.

I don’t have to introduce Osamu Tezuka by this point, do I? Born in 1920s Osaka, created manga and animé as we know it, the Japanese Walt Disney, one of the most influential animators of all time you know all this. He was also quite possibly one of the most prolific creators in history, writing and drawing well over 700 manga series in his lifetime encompassing virtually any genre you could think of and targeted at every possible age demographic. The basis for today’s movie was the children’s manga Unico, about a cute little unicorn who has magical powers that he uses to bring happiness and joy to everyone he meets.

Well, I’m sure there’s no way that could possibly take a dark turn.

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