I've been lucky enough (thanks to Google) to find a second movie poster for Toei Doga's landmark 1958 movie Hakudaden. This poster does a great job showing you the highlights of the movie, and the proper attention to the main characters. Despite what you may expect, the Panda and his animal friends play a supporting role. This is a romance story between two young lovers, and their drama fuels the movie.
It appears to me that Toei has neglected their early features, and that's shameful, because these were Japan's greatest animation movies of the period, and were significant in the evolution of what became modern anime. Perhaps these movies just don't fit within any established cliques. They're too "Disney" or too kiddie-ish. But it would be foolish to ignore these great films. Toei should be wise enough to properly reissue their classic catalog on Blu-Ray, with subtitles and even the old American-dubbed soundtracks.
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