That resemblance only becomes stronger during an extended, horrifying scene where Tinkle loses his mother to a monstrous black salamander, an alternate shape for the evil witch Yakusha, who seems to kill for pleasure. Grief-stricken, Sasuke embarks on a quest to learn magic so he can destroy her-a bold decision, since it may end a reign of terror stretching back to Yakusha’s origin a millennium ago, but also an ill-advised one, since it leaves Oyu, Tinkle, and Sasuke’s other animal buddies completely unprotected, to the glee of Yakusha and her fractious bandit hirelings.įor anime fans, Warner Archive’s release comes with a series of aggravations: It’s MGM’s 1961 American dub, with no original-language option, but also without any credits for the American voice cast.
The body of the film keeps the bandits’ original Japanese-language songs intact, but without subtitles, so there’s no hint what they’re singing. And the opening and closing music is overdubbed with a crooning, clunky Danny Valentino ballad with an embarrassingly stereotyped “Oriental theme music” riff and comically banal English lyrics.
