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Note: Spoilers abound

„I‘m only able to take on this form because you‘ve proven that you truly love me.“

–„Oh Unico you‘re absolutely beautiful“

Unico the unicorn is, I‘m going to be honest here, the ideal any human should try and aspire to be.

Bringing happiness to those around him and challenging his friend‘s worst impulses, while showing bravery and action for them in the face of insurmountable darkness, we should just all always be that. We should always strive to be something that lights up the world, even if we fail or will not see the fruits of such efforts.

His only crime in the story was bringing lasting joy to all around him and for that he is relegated at the start of the film to always be on the run, as the gods despise his ease of bringing content to the hearts of those around him easier than a life of toil they had planned for every human in the world. Living in a world like ours, a world seemingly hateful to a sense of true connection and being content and happy, it is no wonder this film just hits harder every time I visit it with long years of increasing hardships in between and the world growing colder through each calendar slipping through our fingers.

Seeing someone who just wants the best for others and himself in the most unselfish ways, the most giving ways and the most patient ways, even for those we scorn, makes this a potent, but gentle touch to the soul. We can always make connections. Hell, Unico is such a friendly, kind and loving creature that on this endless journey of flight from threat of oblivion his first friend is a literal devil! Said devil ends up loving Unico so dearly, yearn for his absent presence so achingly that he at one point demands the same winds of fate that sweep Unico should carry him to his beloved friend, now far away and making someone else equally happy despite the hardships at hand.

This kinda thing makes you wanna call your friends and family to tell them how much you love them and how happy they make you (they do!). You definitely make them happy and telling them how much you love them will enrich both of your lives, so this is your reminder!

Living an existence of acting sincerely in the name of love and friendship truly is unmatched way of living any life, and seeing a family film just boil it all down so earnestly, so beautifully is a gift we should cherish and facilitate in the mediums we want our youngest to grow up with, as their hearts are learning how to love the world. Did I say beautifully? Cause, my god it is equally beautiful and vibrant to look at as Unico‘s various feats and friends saturate the heart. Colors abound, the charming optical effects,  the hand drawn animation (the way that stubby unicorn runs in place before taking off is ghmjhfdhjksdh!) and its mix of other mediums and textures is rich, rich, rich enough to turn one‘s eyes into emeralds when they are not heart-shaped or blurring all I see through sincerely happy tears.

On top of all that is the layer of meta beauty that Tezuka was able to spawn what he himself fell in love with in this medium, and able to set it up to be filtered for a new generation. His own affection for Snow White and Bambi that sent him on his own journey of drawing and animation. You see it all here in the castles, forests, the titular doe-eyed animal protagonist and equally doe-eyed cat-turned-human through acts of sacrifice and affection, all of it being played into their happy ever after through accumualted transformative love, interacting with forest critters, exploring castles owned by the villain force and even dodging those environs transformed through malice, where just like in Disney‘s earliest feature, trees become monstrous and the land is swallowed up in a storm unlike any other.

Seeing Katie, the now human as she wished to be thanks to her new one-horned friend, witnessing Unico take on a the full majestic form of a full-grown Unicorn, having herself known the transformation from a stubby cute creature to a beautiful, full self that is sustained on love, is the stuff that makes anyone who has experienced and ounce of empathy melt from the inside out. The simplicity on display and the sincerity and colorful, glowing beauty and how it‘s all transformed into motion and vivid imagery through the love for the medium and the wider natural world … it‘s just… how can one not cry from the sheer majesty and love of it all, I have two eyes and a heart, don‘t I?

Also it may mirror some feelings of transitioning that I cherish but THAT‘S NOT THE POINT NOW. Now is the time to cherish something simpler, something primally powerful that can only happen through simplistic, sincere and empathetic storytelling.

It was always a mistake to drag out SCENES of ‚all is lost‘ into entire extended plot beats that we have all timidly accepted today, when the beauty and power of a small but very charged scene of actual full loss goes so much farther. Experiencing Unico‘s life extinguished and the color of the world seemingly drained around, til there is only faint light, high-contrast shadows and the pale blue of the mourning world remaining, til his own kindness and sacrifice is given back to revitalize him anew is the stuff of dreams.

Dreams are impressionistic yet hold a lasting effect and films and stories can be too when kept relatively simple like this. There is a worry of insecurity among those who feel they have to justify their own liking of simple but beautiful things, as if that simplicity will detract from anything possibly substantive, that it reflects on their own lacking understandings of some wider contexts and appreciation, or that the magic that any piece of art should be explained to be fully appreciated. But no matter how simple art can be, when filtered through the human hearts it will become enriched by each of those persons‘ being, soul and experiences that they give to that piece of art. Affection for others enriches the world, affection for art enriches its existence and meaning, and affection overall is truly the greatest magic in our and any world, fantastical or real. We feel its absence more now than ever, but as human hearts still beat, so will the capacities for love to grow with each beat.

It is why seeing Unico re-awakened in his full form, becoming a piece of beautiful light fueled by love, tearing through the hollow darkness of the antagonist where a heart should be; the embodiment of destructive darkness that envelopes the film‘s final third, strikes so hard at our own hearts in ways that makes us want to give and live to be that kind of a presence. A being that can drive away the darkness of the world simply through acts of love.

Maybe here, like in life, like Unico, we are destined to move on from whatever happiness we create for others and ourselves, but while we are anywhere we should aspire to embolden the hearts of those around us and make their existence a happier one.

We should all be Unico.