铁臂阿童木 / 新选组

Within the Tezuka Osamu World (closed on January 16, 2011) located inside Kyoto Station Building, there was a theater called the 300-inch Theatre where this original short anime was screened. The program consisted of a double feature: an animation work densely packed with the essence of Tezuka's representative manga masterpieces, and an animation introducing historical episodes related to Kyoto. The Phoenix acts as the storyteller, weaving these two parts together. When it comes to representative Tezuka works, Astro Boy, maintaining its popularity across generations, is of course a prime example. This time, the episode "The Blue Knight" was selected from the vast original work. While collaging famous scenes from the TV version of Astro Boy, it depicts the conflict between the Blue Knight, who considers humans—those who dominate robots and other creatures to claim Earth as their own—as the enemy, and Astro Boy, who believes that humans will someday realize Earth does not belong solely to them and refuses to fight. The Phoenix, posing the question "Why do humans choose conflict as a means to solve problems?", looks back on Kyoto's history and observes the Ikedaya Incident carried out by the Shinsengumi at the end of the Edo period.