Tenguri the Boy of the Plains could have been just another obscure and forgotten piece of animation from the past...which it kind of is actually but the value it carries makes this an interesting entry within anime history. It is the result of several intertwining stories the birth of a culturally and internationally significant studio and an unbelievable although indirect crossover from two of the most important forces in anime. During the early 70s the tumultuous state of Toei Animationhttps://anilist.co/studio/18/ToeiAnimation and its exploitation of animators alongside the bankruptcy of Mushi Productionhttps://anilist.co/studio/68/MushiProductions have led many to quit the company and make their own animation studios. Among this is one Daikichiro Kusube who in his second attempt to create an animation studio found ShinEi Animationhttps://anilist.co/studio/247 known today for producing some of Japans cultural landmarks in childrens shows Doraemonhttps://anilist.co/anime/2471/Doraemon1979/ and Crayon Shinchanhttps://anilist.co/anime/966/CrayonShinchan/. Around the same time Osamu Tezuka classic workaholic was approached by a dairy company to write and direct an animated short promoting their product. However as Tezukas interest in anime waned and as he started to focus more on manga he was unable to provide the company his assistance leading the company to end up commissioning the newlyformed ShinEi Animation to produce the short following Tezukas script. The company frustrated by about two years of Tezuka tippytoeing around the project gave the studio an insurmountable onemonth deadline to finish the short. As a result this would only be one of the very few instances a burned out Yasuo Otsuka would ever hold the director role and on future projects with Studio Ghiblihttps://anilist.co/studio/21/StudioGhibli would only take animationrelated positions. For such a short timeframe however Tenguri just shows how much talent and craft these animators put into their work. Otsukas short is filled with fluidity just the kind of animation you would nearly expect from a World Masterpiece Theater episodeand the similarities do not stop there. While on the exterior Tenguri has a heavily formulaic premise taking elements such as the titular characters design after Isao Takahatas adaptation of Heidi blended with a blatant advertising message it is filled to the brim with detail. With the combined efforts of Otsuka Yoshifumi Kondo and other inhouse A Pro veterans with the assistance of Hayao Miyazaki in layouts Tenguri is undoubtedly one of the better shorts that have withstood the test of time. To top it off the music was composed by Michio Mamiya notable for his collaborations with Takahata on such projects as Horushttps://anilist.co/anime/1044/TaiyounoOujiHorusnoDaibouken/ Grave of the Fireflieshttps://anilist.co/anime/578/HotarunoHaka/ and Gauche the Cellisthttps://anilist.co/anime/1049/CelloHikinoGauche/. Tenguris obscurity is understandablecoupled with its strong similarity to Heidi actual releases of the shorts DVD never really made its way to the Englishspeaking community until the late 2000s and even then so few historians have made efforts to bring this short into public consciousness. I hope that this review might somewhat aid in the wider knowledge of this short that carries a much deeper more interesting story behind its commercial underpinnings. Sources: A Production/ShinEi Animation historyhttp://www.pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/aproduction Ghibli Tavern Tenguri Boy of the Plainshttp://www.onlineghibli.com/tavern/thread.php?boardid=4threadid=589page=1 GhibliCon Tenguri Boy of the Plains Lost Miyazaki/Otsuka Anime on DVDTenguri Boy of the Plains Lost Miyazaki/Otsuka Anime on DVD The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga by Helen McCarthyhttps://www.amazon.com/ArtOsamuTezukaGodManga/dp/0810982498