A Classic 80’s Anime Film More People Should See

Due to my interests and the YouTube algorithm taking notice of that sort of thing, now and then, I get a short anime edit in my feed. And one, in particular, has popped in my feed multiple times: eevee- hana by the channel yotsu.

And once more this week, I watched it again, only I decided to find out what the name of the anime was and actually watch it this time around.

The anime featured in yotsu’s edit is a 1987 film called Genji Monogatari. Or The Tale of Genji for an English translation of the title.

The film is based on an ancient novel from Japan, authored by Murasaki Shikibu, a noblewoman of the Heian period. However, the film changes some details and only covers the first three chapters of Genji’s life. But because of the strange, though admittedly poignant way the lady-in-waiting ended the story, I feel like the film covered enough to stand on its own, and the changes it made didn’t hinder anything.

Even though there isn’t any great 80's sakuga action going on, this is still one of the most beautiful anime films I have seen. There are many melancholic purples, Genji’s character design and all of his wives and mistresses look like goth lesbians. I mention this because I mistakenly thought for the longest time that the original edit I had watched must have been an 80's yuri O V…