A major link between 1970s European feature-length animation and contemporary Japanese anime, Space Firebird 2772 was written and produced by Osamu Tezuka, considered the most influential manga artist of all time. Complete with candy-colored visuals, a swooning orchestral score, and enough carnivalesque characters to resemble a hippie love child of Fantastic Planet and Yellow Submarine, it outlines the themes-a machine-dominated totalitarian future, a nearly extinct natural world, sexy lady robots-that would soon dominate Japanese anime. Kind to both animals and robots (especially his metallic-thonged caretaker-robot Olga), the young space pilot Godoh is ordered to track down a dangerous “space firebird” that could hold the answer to Earth's salvation-or its doom. Tezuka conjures up cliffhanging moments, fascist threats, natural disasters, and space battles, lending Godoh's struggles the epic feel of a classic myth, albeit one framed by a strange, robo-sexual love story between boy pilot and robot girl.