Tezuka debut film returns to big screen for peace fest

The very first animation film made by late cartoonist Osamu Tezuka, who laid the foundation of Japan's comic and animation industry, will be shown at a Tokyo movie theater for the first time in 35 years during a peace festival in March, Tokyo Metropolitan Government officials said.

"Tales of the Street Corner" was made by a team led by Tezuka, who later launched Japan's first weekly animation TV series. "Tetsuwan Atomu"(Astro Boy) began its run in 1963 and proved to be extremely popular throughout the nation.

Tezuka's experimental film depicts the drama and tragedy that occur on a street corner, where colorfully animated posters move along the walls. The posters are replaced with those of militarists, and the street is eventually destroyed by a war.

Tezuka, who won a number of international and domestic animation awards, told a magazine reporter that he, as a person who survived World War II, directly depicted a war in the film.

The film will be shown as part of a peace festival organized by Tokyo citizens to commemorate the Great Tokyo Air Raid of March 10, 1945. The March 8 showing at Tokyo International Forum in Yurakucho, Chiyoda Ward, will be free of charge. The film has no words, only background music.