The Story of Animerama: Cleopatra
A Thousand and One Nights didn’t come together quite as smoothly as Osamu Tezuka and Eiichi Yamamoto hoped, but they did manage to make a commercially successful film that captured some of the rebellious, experimental spirit of Mushi Production’s early days. That experience meant that things could only improve for their next Animerama feature. After all, they had an absolute slam dunk of a premise: the story of Cleopatra and her infamous affairs with Julius Caesar and Marc Antony. With Tezuka at the helm and an experienced crew behind him, there was no way this could fail! Yet Cleopatra would fail, due to factors both within and outside of Tezuka’s control. Its failure marked the beginning of the end for both the Animerama project and Mushi Productions, and it would coincide with the lowest point in Tezuka’s animation career. ________________________ While Tezuka was generally pleased with how A Thousand and One Nights turned out, he was still peeved at how few of his or