User reviews

In medieval Japan, Sasuke and his sister live in the forest with their animal friends. He battles a water monster which turns into a witch. His sister tells him that the monster's name is Yakusha. Years earlier, the witch had corrupted the happiness of the people. A powerful wizard was able to transform her into a tiny salamander. Since then, she has grown big and powerful, on the verge of returning to her former self. Sasuke sets off to see the wizard.

This is an early colored animated movie from Japan. They are obviously trying to marry a traditional story with the Disney formula of cute animals and an underdog hero's journey. It's fascinating. The animation has a bit of ugliness which does add to the charm of the visual look. The traditional story is interesting. It's straight forward. If it needs improvement, Sasuke needs to slow roll his powers. It's a quick training montage transition between an eager young fighter and a supernatural superhero. It would be nice to have a smaller build. I don't get the sense that he's the underdog after his training and the tension for the final battle is not that high.

Just saw this on TCM and it still has the magic. This is recognizably a Taiji Yabushita film, in that he takes much of his style from classic Disney--fluid (maybe not as fluid as Disney) movement, use of music and imagery, animal sidekicks. It's not as emotionally powerful as his The Orphan Son (his masterpiece, I think), or as all-around well done as Alakazam (his collaboration with Ozamu Tezuka), or as historically important as The White Snake (which influenced Miyazaki) but it has its virtues--the inventive way the hero appears and disappears, the 'transformation battle' that occurs at the climax, the lifelike sword fights of the prince...not Yabushita's best, but still up there, somewhere.

I saw this flick when I was quite young ... around 1960 or 61. It made such a lasting impression on me that I would love to have the movie in video. I recall crying after the movie ended, because it was so beautiful. It started me on a lifetime of appreciation of all things magical and mystical. I can't find it anywhere. Is it available? Anywhere?

I too saw ''Magic Boy'' on it's first release back in 1960. Being a fan of fantasy films, I was enchanted by the story and characters, though it was over 40 years before i saw it again. Alas, it lacks much of the magic I remembered. The story is just an excuse for the beautiful animation, and the characters are undeveloped. The motives of the witch, for instance, are left unexplained (yes, she's wicked, but why?) Many will think that my revised opinion is the result of seeing the film again not as a child, but as an adult. However, this is not true. Many films I enjoyed as a child still hold up wonderfully. ''Alakazam The Great'' for instance, is a superior Japanese animated feature.

I ,like Jerri from K.C., saw this movie in 1961 as a Saturday matinée in the small Midwest town I grew up in. I was fascinated by the story and the animation. Up to them it had been Woody Woodpecker and Tom and Jerry for me. The animation was very artistic and the story something very different from cartoons produces in the USA. Like Jerri cried at the end of the movie. I have been searching for the movie for several years now, but, to no avail. I hope the whom ever currently own the rights will consider sharing it with the rest of us animation addicts. It really qualifies as some of the early Anime and would be a great addition to the collectors of this genre.

It's worth watching this movie if you are a fan of anime, but don't expect a good movie. While the basic plot is classic, there is absolutely no character development and the sparse dialogue is horrible. Yes, even for a movie made for children, the writing is inexcusably poor.

The theme song is one of the worst of all time, so at least that's amusing, but that doesn't make up for the lousy dubbing.

The movie is pure magic, just like Sasuke. The SFX are great, the plot is coherent and the fights! oh boy! It's a pleasure looking Sasuke materialize and de-materialize at will, or his flight scenes. The really humorous scene is when he gets to the prince's castle and gets sticked into the guard's sword until they let him pass and then he gets flying! With so much power who can put a parental figure on this boy? I ask. When I looked at this movie in my teens I loved it. I just would kill to see it edited and distributed in DVD and get it into my hands...(*sob*) However "Magic Boy" was a preview of the great potential of Asian cinema and anime production that there was yet to come.

I saw this movie on the big screen when I was 9 years old. The witch was as scary and impressive as the one in Sleeping Beauty. The boy's progression through learning magic was inspiring that all things are possible.

I continue to hope that this classic is not lost forever.

Like Jerri LaPoint and Attila, I also saw this movie when I was very young (probably 1970). I know it as Magic Boy, because I saw it in my hometown theater for free every Saturday for about a year. I never got tired of it, and I often still think about it. It had a definite Zen feel to it, and I would give a lot to see it again. The film is classic Japanese animation, probably a lot rougher around the edges than Disney, with dubbed voices that are stiff but still quite likeable. And that's about as much as I remember about it from 32 years ago, other than I would absolutely love for my five-year-old son to see it when he turns six or seven. That gives me a little while to track it down, and any help would be appreciated. Another movie that affected me the same way was The Snow Queen (I see it titled as Snezhnaya koroleva on the IMDb site), which had a similar mixture of spine-tingling adventure, great villains and an emotional ending.

I saw this on first release, on the big screen. Released by MGM (Japan).

It has since been shown on UK satellite tv, but a long fight sequence seems to have been cut short. The transformation fight has some similarities to the later transformation fight in Disney's The Sword in the Stone - if you can watch the two back to back, the differences in style and tone are quite interesting.

Magic Boy is relatively primitive compared to modern anime, however you can still see the attention to detail, and the importance of the story telling. The sheer determination of our little hero is quite something to behold.

Worth checking out if you can find it and like modern anime.

I saw this movie several times around 1963 (in the Philipines) when I was about 5 years old. The movie theater was just across the street from our house and I went there everyday (for free) and I was able to see a lot of movies even at such a young age. I have forgotten many of the movies that I saw then but this one remained etched in my mind. There was something enchanting about this movie and it really mesmerized me. I remember it was about a young boy on some kind of a mission and that he had magical powers. And that's all I remember about this movie!

That's why I have not voted on this movie (yet!). I would really like to see it again but this is a very hard to find movie. Perhaps somebody out there can tell me where I can find or buy a copy. Any help is highly appreciated.