So I dug out Unico, the most heartwarming and bittersweet combination I can think of in an animated form.
So let's dig into the second part of the first DVD and get ready for big smiles and moments that make you just want to
Right.
First off, let's review what happened last time.
We witnessed a group of "Gods" decide the best solution to deal with a unicorn with "the power to make people happy" was to kill him, only deciding on banishment in the last minute. We had an accidental murder, consorting with demons, magic, kidnapping, and a child being stripped of the only friend he ever made at the moment he discovered what it meant to be happy.
I can't wait to see what happens in part two.
When the West Wind drops Unico off again, he finds himself in a large garden/forest area near a river. Drifting down the river is a sealed basket, from which comes the cheerful song of some creature declaring itself to be, and I quote, "a cat."
We're already off to a cheerful start with you have cats tossed in rivers.
Unico falls off the bridge into the basket while watching the cat, and the two bond over being abandoned creatures. The two continue drifting down river (instead of, oh, I don't know, trying to get to land and taking the nearby road to civilization), and the cat explains that she's on a mission to find a witch to train help her become a witch herself. Because every cat should have goals.
In fact, we get the whole thing done in a short little musical number about "Katie the Kitty Witch." It even has a few cameos in it.
The two float down to what Katie is convinced must be a magic forest, and the two disembark to find themselves a witch. Fortunately, nearby happens to be a small cabin in the woods (remember, this wasn't made by Joss Whedon), which they both observe is in pretty bad shape. Katie's convinced "the witch" will be back any time, and soon an old woman stumbles in. Despite all appearances to the contrary, Katie refuses to believe the old woman is not, in fact, a witch, and all three settle in for the night.
Oh, and Katie also says that the first thing she wants to do is turn her into a human girl instead of a cat, because having a cat perform magic (like that song just talked about) would be ridiculous.
Unico watches Katie plead with the old woman (who sadly does not seem to speak "cat") and silently wishes he could grant Katie's wish. Of course, because he's Unico, his horn starts to glow and Katie turns into a young supermodel, complete with heeled shoes.
Katie starts helping the old woman around the house as "thanks" for what she believes was witch magic, but soon grows tired of doing "dirty work" and wanders off to find out "what else human girls do."
If this was any other anime, I'd start to get nervous right about now.
Unico finds her lying in a field of flowers being lazy (See? Nothing to worry about), and his magic promptly turns her back into a cat. She insists on being human again, but he says he can't because "it only works on people he cares about." Unico is cold as ice.
Katie starts off to find a real witch, but sees just how helpless the old woman is without anybody to help her, and her attitude starts to shift. She starts trying to help out while still a cat, but her efforts don't seem to be recognized by the old woman. However, when the old woman falls into the river (I swear, this is the most helpless old woman who ever existed), Katie immediately dives in to help her and changes back into a girl mid-dive.
She pulls the old woman out, she and Unico make up (well, Unico makes up with her), and normally that'd be the end of the episode.
Well, forget that, this is Unico, and we gotta get weird.
Later, when Katie is getting water from the river, this dude shows up out of nowhere complete with a sudden burst of crows from the brush to announce his presence.
He starts asking Katie questions about where she lives, who she is, and what she's doing in "his" forest. He identifies himself as "Baron de Ghost" which I'm sure is a long-standing noble family name and in no way indicates he's a "bad guy." He invites her to his castle to sing for him the following night, and forbids her from telling anybody where she's going.
Totally, totally not creepy.
Katie, of course, falls in love with him instantly.
That night, a dark wind blows through the forest, sending all of the creatures of the woods into hiding. Lightning flashes in the distance, and a dark rider emerges from the darkness, his cape billowing behind him as his dark steed gallops on. He pulls his horse up to stop, and waves his arms, bringing all of the acorns and grapes down from their trees and vines.
...okay, not the most intimidating act, I'll admit, but work with me here. All of the small creatures lured out by the sudden bounty of food start to eat some, and immediately become possessed by dark magic. In one instance, some squirrels attack a monkey for reasons I don't understand, but we'll work with it.
Who could this dark stranger be? Well, if you guessed Baron de Ghost then you're just not a very trusting soul, are you?
I mean, you're right, but still!
The next morning Katie tries to sneak out to go to the Baron's castle, but Unico spots her. Unico warns against going out into the forest, since his "unicorn sense" tells him something bad is going to happen. Katie tries to figure out a way to get Unico distracted, but it seems nature already has something in mind as Unico spots the injured monkey that the squirrels attacked.
If the Baron planned that, then I have to give him major points for taking care of all the details. "You know, on the off chance there's a magical unicorn living in that cabin with this young girl, I should have the local wildlife critically injure a monkey to keep it distracted."
Katie wanders lost through the woods until she comes upon what look like some strawberries. She takes one and eats it, and in what I hope is more of the "dark" magic, her eyes turn from blue to red and she gets instantly drunk and starts stumbling through the woods. Fortunately, the trees are aware enough to get out of her way, and even bend branches down to catch her when she starts to stumble. Some mushrooms even helpfully light a path for her, and the ground pulls together when she almost falls into a ditch.
Totally, totally, totally not creepy. Or suspicious.
Katie continues on her path until she comes upon the Baron's castle, and I'd just like to point out that it looks like this, but it's still technically the morning. As in, there should be sunshine.
Geez, all that's missing is some bats flying out and the clouds spelling out "Scooby-Doo."
We have a drunk teenage girl who's really a cat transformed by magic, a dark and mysterious "baron" who can apparently use magic over all the inhabitants of a forest and control the landscape, and our hero busy healing a monkey with the magical power of "licking it with his tongue." The suspense! The drama! The anticipation! Tomorrow we'll conclude the first Unico movie and break it down fully.
The Good (so far):
Once again, the animation is completely gorgeous. The hand-drawn frames and cels just radiate the care that the artists put into this work, and even small background details are made with an expert's hand. They remind me a lot of some of the older Disney works, like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, where people would spend so much time setting up the backgrounds that, to most children watching, might be wonderful but never really appreciated on any level of expertise.
The characters are also very well done. Unico is, of course, simultaneously the most boring (no flaws whatsoever besides occasional clumsiness) and the most fascinating (ridiculous levels of magic and an interesting idea of how to use it), Katie manages to pull off the perfect cat behavior even when in human form ("bored now, gonna lie down in the sun"), and even the old woman who gets almost no characterization is interesting because you're left wondering just how she got there in the first place and survived this long. Plus, she has a cat who keeps disappearing and reappearing and a girl wearing an identical ribbon showing up and staying with her. Then again, my guess is that if she doesn't question a cat hanging out with a unicorn, she probably doesn't question a lot of things.
The Bad (so far):
Subtlety is not this program's strong point, but then again subtlety is to many anime what space travel is to fish. "Baron de Ghost" doesn't do anything to attempt to hide the fact that he probably has terrible things planned for Katie, and even seems to be animated in a completely different style to make himself seem even more jarring.
Granted, this could also be considered a positive, since many children who would watch this wouldn't really be able to comprehend subtle villain behavior, and changing the animation to make people uneasy about him is a good way to add to it.
There are a few logic loops that I'm left pondering. Doesn't Unico miss his home? Why does Katie keep singing her "I'm a cat" song when she's no longer a cat? Why doesn't the old woman get really freaked out by the appearance of a unicorn? Why is there a monkey in this forest?
So next time we'll wrap this movie up, and then we'll move on to the other major work with Unico in it, Unico In The Island Of Magic. Trust me, no matter how weird it gets tomorrow, the two days after will trump it easily.
I remember watching this when I was really little, but all I could remember was the cat wanting to be a girl, and her finding the old woman. I was searching for that, and found it here on your site. Thank you for posting this. I feel like I never would have found it, otherwise.
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