The Story of Animerama: A Thousand and One Nights

Osamu Tezuka, Eiichi Yamamoto, and the rest of the staff at Mushi Productions had nothing but high hopes for the Animerama film series when it started.  They believed they could produce a film as lavishly animated as anything that had come out of Toei with cutting-edge content to boot.  In some ways, it felt like a return to the early days of the studio.  Just as before, though, those hopes were dashed by the realities and complications of making a feature-length animated feature.  The production of A Thousand and One Nights was marked by uncertainty, experimentation, indulgence, and chaos.  Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the film isn’t how it looks or the story it tells, but that the end result turned out so well in spite of its origins.

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A Thousand and One Nights got off to a rocky start.  First and foremost, this classic collection of medieval Middle Eastern folk tales wasn’t even Mushi’s first choice of story to adapt.  Tezuka's original idea was to adapt Faust.  Tezuka claimed this idea was dropped due to complications with book publishing rightws.  Others have speculated that it was because it was around that time that the 1967 Richard Burton film Doctor Faustus was released in Japan and he feared their film would be seen as derivative.  After some deliberation with both Eiichi Yamamoto and Gisaburo Sugii, they settled on A Thousand and One Nights as production began in the spring of 1968.

For those of you familiar with it only for fairy tales like Aladdin or Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves, this might seem like an odd choice for an adult animated feature.  The reason for this lies with the other Richard Burton, the 19th century English explorer, writer, and translator.  Burton's obsession with sex and sexual behaviors bled into his writing, much to the shock and dismay of Victorian moralists.  This was no less true for his translation of A Thousand and One Nights, which he dressed up with "anthropological" accounts of Middle Eastern sex practices (that were mostly mistranslations or straight-up orientalist fantasies).  

While the child-friendly version of A Thousand and One Nights had been available in Japan since the Meiji period, Burton's version only became available in Japan in the 1950s. Its Japanese translation was more blunt about its sexual content than the original English, to the point it was partially censored by the publisher.  This only served to highlight the book's salacious reputation, which continued to linger into the 1960s. If anything, this sordid publication history made A Thousand and One Nights a rather fitting choice for the Animerama project.  Of course, adapting a story collection like A Thousand and One Nights brought with it challenges of its own.

Eiichi Yamamoto hadn't been Tezuka's first choice of director (having offered the seat to both Gisaburo Sugii and Takashi Yanase), but he quickly settled into the role while Tezuka tasked himself with writing the screenplay and creating the storyboards.  The film's troubles began when Tezuka submitted his first draft of the story, which the producers rejected for being too boring.  This rejection infuriated Tezuka so much that he threatened to leave the production entirely.  Yamamoto was able to smooth his boss's ruffled feathers and keep the peace, but this also meant it was up to him to find some writers to shape Tezuka's ideas into something that would satisfy everyone involved.  

Yamamoto brought in a couple of outside writers to work on the script.  The first was Hiroyuki Kumai, the leader of an avaunt-garde theater company.  The second was Kazuo Fukazawa, a Toei writer and director whose only other experience in animation was writing the script for Horus, Prince of the Sun. What they ultimately came up with for A Thousand and One Nights was not an adaptation of any one particular story, but instead a mish-mash of ideas borrowed from multiple tales.  They had a protagonist loosely based on Aladdin, a treasure cave full of thieves borrowed from Ali Baba and a handful of genii and iconic monsters (and oddly enough, the Tower of Babel).  It was all tied together with their original narrative, about Aldin the poor water vendor as he falls for the slave maiden Miriam, loses her, goes on a series of adventures, tricks his way into becoming the king of Baghdad, only to be tempted by his own long-lost daughter.

The film's visual style is largely the work of mangaka-turned-animator (and future Anpanman creator) Takeshi Yanase.  He had been recommended to Eiichi Yamamoto by his friend Gisaburo Sugii, who felt that Yanase's style and manga work up to that point made him a good fit for this sort of adult-oriented material.  Yanase's inspiration came not just from medieval Persian artwork but also modern cinema.  For example, he struggled for some time to find a design for Aldin.  It was only after Yamamoto made an off-hand suggestion to use French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo (and his performance in 1960's Breathless in particular) that Yanase was finally able to settle on a look and personality for him, combining Belmondo's distinctive look with that of Aldin's voice actor Yukio Aoshima.  Meanwhile, he would based the scheming advisor Badli on English actor David Niven and the handsome young shepard Aslan on French actor Alain Delon.  

While pre-production of A Thousand and One Nights had been defined by uncertainty, the production itself was defined by experimentation and indulgence.  The biggest indulgence was in the way the film was made.  For these films, Tezuka would employ a brand-new production model, one closer to that seen at Disney and other major western animation studios.  This meant that a few select key animators were assigned to particular characters with a team of lesser animators working under them, all of whom would work on any and all scenes featuring those characters.  Aldin and Badli were assigned to Sadao Miyamoto, who also served as an animation director.  He shared that role with Kazuko Nakamura, who was one of the few female animators at the studio.  She took on all the female characters as well as Aslan (as she was a fan of Alain Delon).  The rest of the supporting cast were divided up among other animators such as Sadao Tsukioka and future Sanrio Films director Masami Hata.

This new production model went over well in the early days of production, as it encouraged a spirit of collaboration and experimentation among the staff that hadn't been seen at Mushi since its early days.  That collective collaboration extended into the film's storyboards as well.  While Tezuka storyboarded most of the film, there were select scenes storyboarded by Eiichi Yamamoto, Takashi Yanase, Masami Hata, and even Osamu Dezaki (who at this point was still an up-and-coming animator).  Yamamoto also brought in a couple of talented freelancers from Toei to take on some of more challenging action sequences, even if they were not allowed to be credited for their work.  That's how he managed to get Hideo Furukawa to animate a fight between a giant and a roc and the legendaryYasuo Otsuka to handle the horse race between Aldin and Badli.

All of the staff were encouraged by Yamamoto to experiment with different visual styles and methods and the results can be found throughout the final film.  Mixed media methods were used to rotoscope characters onto live-action ocean waves or interact with curtains made of real cloth.  Still images are used to punctuate moments of drama, while others are assembled into montages like manga pages.  The skyline of Baghdad and the rolling hills of a tropical island are recreated in exquisite, jewel-toned scale models.  Elements of psychedelica were added to appeal to young adult audiences.  Yamamoto even went so far as to hire a college band known as The Helpful Soul to contribute insert music for the film in addition to Isao Tomito's lush orchestral score. 

This spirit of creativity and experimentation also extended to the adult content.  From the start, everyone involved wanted to make it clear that the Animerama movies were meant to be provocative but not to cross the line into pornography.  The makers were not above using sexual content to lure in curious audiences but their hope was that they could elevate the material through the use of beautiful, abstract animation, most of which were assigned to 'guest' animators picked by Yamamoto.  Kazuko Nakamura was the one who turned Aldin and Miriam’s first time into a dreamy, psychedelic collage of flowers, paisley, and color.  Meanwhile, animator and illustrator Moribi Murano was in charge of most of the scenes on the island of snake women, giving them an exotic but uncanny look.  In comparison, Gisaburo Sugii rendered them as a literal ocean of bodies threatening to drown Aldin in comely flesh.  He also portrays Aldin's coupling with their queen as an ever-shifting mass of limbs and curves, a spectacular sequence animated entirely in pencil over a bright pink background to a strange, atonal score.  This moment serves as something of a visual pun - in this moment, A Thousand and One Nights is literally a pink film. 

Ultimately, Tezuka and Yamamoto hoped that this focus on erotic material was just a temporary measure.  Once they had a captive audience for these films, they could tone down the tawdry content in order to focus on other, more lofty subjects.  As we'll see, these plans did not exactly work out for them.

Of course, not all of the staff's contributions were so high-minded and experimental.  Tezuka was not above indulging himself on this production in a few different ways.  There are scenes in this film that can only be described as Horny Furry Nonsense that feature key animation by Tezuka himself, scenes that seem to exist entirely for the sake of his well-documented fondness for catgirls and furry transformation art.  He also brought in a number of well-known Japanese writers and media types who were personal friends of his to deliver one-line cameos.  Alas, he also once again gave in to his worst indulgence: falling behind on storyboards.  

Tezuka started working on the storyboards in the fall of 1968 and once again he produced far more than was necessary.  Yamamoto recounted at one point that if they had made the film according to all of Tezuka's storyboards, A Thousand and One Nights would have been over four hours long.  Yet because of his ever-present manga deadlines and other professional obligations, Tezuka was slow in producing those storyboard pages.  He wouldn't finish them until February of 1969 and by that point his delays had thrown the production into complete chaos.  Without a complete storyboard, it was hard for Eiichi Yamamoto to determine what material could (or should) be cut from the film.  Even after heavy edits, the film's final run time ended up at two hours and ten minutes, making it the longest Japanese animated film to date.  Meanwhile, without finalized storyboards it was hard for the animators to get to work earnestly on most of the film.

All these delays came to a head at the beginning of 1969.  The film's premiere was six months away and its production deadine was in March, but by that point only five minutes of animation had been completed (and most of that had been for a proof-of-concept clip made to present to Nippon Herald).  With deadlines looming and pressure from the producers rising, Eiichi Yamamoto had no choice but to shift the production into crunch mode.  That novel production model fell to the wayside as Mushi Productions was transformed into what animator Masakazu Higuichi described as "a nightless city."

Animators were called upon to draw upwards of 200 drawings per day, with some even being called upon to help paint cels afterwards.  They worked deep into the night every single night for the next six months.  Some animators resorted to sleeping under their desks.  As the year wore on, animators were pulled from across Mushi's sub-studios to work on this film, to the point that then ongoing productions like Dororo were put on temporary hiatus to accomodate it.  At least 12 smaller animation studios were hired to outsource animation, with some testimonies claiming as many as 20.  Tezuka even enlisted some of his manga assistants and family members to help at one point.  By the time the deadline passed, over 180 of Mushi's 250+ employees were working on A Thousand And One Nights in some form or function.

Sadly, this was nothing new for many of them.  Crunch had been a regular part of their work since the early days of Tetsuwan Atom.  The only notable difference was that this time it wasn't necessarily Tezuka who was breathing down their necks.  Even then, it wasn't enough to complete the film on time.  They weren't able to start editing the film until the end of May.  Photography wasn't complete on the film until June 9th.  Even on the day of its premiere, Yamamoto had to stretch for time to ensure there would be enough time for the film's final reel to be printed.

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After many stressful months, A Thousand and One Nights was ready for its premiere on June 14, 1969...well, almost ready.  Reports from the time note that the version screened at the premiere was missing footage from the island of snake women as well as the film's climatic tower collapse, along with a number of scenes that featured missing or incorrect coloring.  These moments would be corrected shortly thereafter, a preview of what would happen a couple of decades later with much more lavish films such as Akira.  

Still, its premiere served as a point of pride for Tezuka and Yamomoto.  It was screening at some of the most popular movie theaters in fashionable Tokyo districts like Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Ginza, places that seldom screened animated films of any sort, much less Japanese-made ones.  It did quite well theatrically, as it ranked third in its opening weekend and grossed 306 million yen (making it the third highest grossing Japanese film of the year).  The critical reception was mixed, but generally leaned towards the positive.  Yamamoto recounted reporters telling him at its premiere that it was “more avant-garde than expected, but not so out of the ordinary.”   Meanwhile, the Mainichi Daily News described it as “so different from other animated cartoons that viewers are at first frustrated by the strange style.  But, as the story develops, one becomes less and less annoyed until finally being completely drawn into the fantastic world of this animated cartoon.” 

Sadly, international audiences were not quite so charmed with it despite Nippon Herald's best efforts.  They cut 17 minutes to tighten its pacing and reduce its run time.  They produced a dub for it with a group of English-speaking actors out of Italy.  Like most anime film dubs of this era, it’s stilted and a little cheesy, but it gets the point across without taking too many liberties with the materail.  They gave it a moderately wide international release with a shockingly short turn-around for time.  Within a month of its release you could find newspaper articles about it in places like Baltimore and Fort Worth.  Nippon Herald openly declared their plans to release the film in France, West Germany, Italy, and Yugoslavia, and based on surviving materials it apparently made its way as far as Thailand and Australia.  Alas, this dubbed international cut fared so poorly with audiences that for many decades it was considered lost media.  No one was even certain if it still existed until portions of it (including the dubbed trailer) were included on a 2004 Japanese DVD release.

Considering how chaotic and stressful its production was, it’s something of a miracle that A Thousand and One Nights ended up as entertaining as it did.  Despite all the uncertainty, indulgence, and terrible struggle that went into its creation, it did manage to capture a sort of bawdy, freewheeling spirit of adventure that fits not just with the source material but also the spirit of the times.  It's weirdly charming in its own idiosyncratic way.  While the animators were not above cutting some corners to complete the film on time, more often than not it’s done in a way that turns that economy into its own sort of style.  Those sequences that are lavishly animated are as beautiful and fluid as anything that Mushi Productions had produced up to that point.  Isao Tomita’s score is suitably lush and blends shocking well with The Helpful Soul’s brand of fuzzy, groovy rock, particularly the earworm that is “Aldin’s Theme.”   

That being said, it’s far from perfect.  The plot loses its focus in the second act and takes a long time to get it back.  The characters are shallow and the story is not particularly interested in the thoughts of the women caught up within its plot.  Some of those mixed media experiments don’t entirely work, particularly the rotoscoping.  That being said, it’s hard to deny the air of confidence and enthusiasm that radiates from each frame.  As Caribou-Kun noted in his own video, A Thousand and One Nights was Mushi Productions setting out to prove not just what they were capable of as a studio, but what anime as a whole could achieve and I think it was mostly successful at that goal.

At the end of the day, it didn't matter to Tezuka that A Thousand and One Nights wasn’t universally loved.  It didn’t matter how much stress it put on his staff or how many people quit the studio afterwards.  It didn’t even matter that the studio ended up losing ten million yen on the venture, as all of that last-minute outsourcing ballooned its budget to 75 million yen and Mushi only earned 65 million yen from the box office as part of their arrangement with Nippon Herald.  All that mattered to was that A Thousand and One Nights was proof that this Animerama project had potential.  There was indeed an audience for adult animation from Japan out there.  If Mushi Productions could learn from their struggles and refining upon the good point, then surely the next Animerama film would be a success.  This was the approach he kept in mind as production began right away on their next film: Cleopatra.

              Part Two: A Fateful MeetingPart Four: Cleopatra

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Jonathan Clements. Anime: A History.  BFI Palgrove. 2013.

Rayna Denison and S. Van der Peer.  "1001 Nights and Anime: The Adaptation of Transnational Folklore In Tezuka Osamu's Senya Ichiya Monogatari/A Thousand and One Nights (1969)."  Open Screens Journal, 4 (1).   2021.

Gan Sheuo Hui.  "A Reevaluation of the Importance of Mushi Pro's Three Adult-Oriented Animated Films In the Development of Japanese Animation."  Cinema Studies No. 2. 2007.  Academia.edu

"Interview with Director Eiichi Yamamoto." A Thousand and One Nights.  Discotek Media/Eastern Star.  2020.

Fred Patten.  "Tezuka's Adult Features: A Thousand and One Nights (1969)"  3/24/14.  CartoonResearch.com

Natsu Onoda Power. God of Comics: Osamu Tezuka and The Creation of Post-World War II Manga. University Press of Mississippi: Jackson.  2009.

"千夜一夜物語."  Wikipedia (Japanese)

Toadette. "Rintaro, 'New Moomin' (1972), and the Last Days of Mushi Pro."  3/23/23.  On The Ones.

Matteo Watsky.  "The History of Mushi Pro - 03 - The Beginning of the End (1967 - 1969)." 4/29/2023.  Animétudes.