Unico
Unico is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. It was serialized in Sanrio's manga magazine from November 1976 to March 1979 and collected in two volumes. The series follows the titular unicorn as he uses his magic to help friends from around the world across different time periods. The series was drawn in a western style, being published in full color and read from left to right. It has since been published in different collections and has been adapted into film and comics. A modern-day reboot of the series began publication by Scholastic under its Graphix imprint in 2024.
Plot
Unico is a young, innocent male unicorn who possesses a special ability to bring happiness to anyone near him. The story begins in ancient Greece with a young mortal girl named Psyche. She is the first friend to Unico, and is apparently so beautiful that the goddess Venus becomes jealous. The goddess attributes Psyche's beauty to her happiness and decides to separate the two. After kidnapping Unico in a pet contest, she calls upon the second star, Zephyrus, also known as the West Wind. The West Wind is commanded to take Unico through space and time, to the Hill of Oblivion with no memories of Psyche where he will wander forever. The West Wind takes pity on Unico, and decides to pass over the Hill of Oblivion and send him to different places in different time periods. Unico befriends the people he meets there and helps them achieve happiness, before the West Wind takes him away once more to avoid detection from Venus, wiping his memories in the process.In the 1981 film adaptation The Fantastic Adventures of Unico, the gods believe that only they should have the ability to control others' emotions and decide that Unico must die. However, the gods feel that punishment may be too harsh and instead choose to send the West Wind to capture Unico and take him to the Hill of Oblivion. Upon learning of the West Wind's defiance, they send the Night Wind to capture Unico.
In the reboot series, Unicorns were born from "life's secret undercurrent", and the friendship between Unico and Psyche sends an inspiring force between people throughout time, angering Venus. After a long time of transporting Unico to different places, the West Wind follows a whisper promising to break the cycle, sending the unicorn to the modern day.
Characters
Media
Manga
Unico was serialized in Sanrio's manga magazine from November 1976 to March 1979. Consisting of eight chapters split between issues, its chapters were collected in two volumes published by Sanrio. Kodansha published both volumes as part of the Osamu Tezuka Complete Works.A second manga was serialized in the magazine Shougaku Ichinisei from 1980 to 1984. The series follows Unico's adventures with the boy Esuo and the dragon Ragon. 29 chapters were collected in 2 color columns in 1983 before all 40 chapters were collected in a single black-and-white volume in 1993 as part of the Osamu Tezuka Complete Works set.
In 2012, Digital Manga Publishing successfully funded a Kickstarter to publish the manga in full-color in English in Omnibus format. The company launched a second Kickstarter to reprint the manga in 2015.
OEL Reboot series
In Spring 2022, Tezuka Productions, along with illustrator duo Gurihiru and writer Samuel Sattin, launched an international Kickstarter campaign to fund a new manga titled Unico: Awakening aka "Unico: An Original Manga". An OEL Manga series that reboots the Unico franchise. The campaign was fully funded within 24 hours. In Summer 2023, the Kickstarter campaign announced that the first volume's initial 162-pages was bumped up to a total of 224-pages. On September 20, 2023, Scholastic Corporation announced that the manga series will be published by their Graphix imprint banner with the first volume, a reimaging of the chapter "The Cat on the Broomstick" was released August 6, 2024 in the United States. Tezuka Productions and Scholastic also announced the series to be expanded to four volumes alongside an activity book and handbooks to accompany them. On January 20, 2026, Tezuka Productions and Scholastic announced the series to extend to a total of eight volumes. On October 27, 2023, the manga series was announced to be given a Dutch translation with "De Fontein" publishing the manga series in the Netherlands with a Dutch release in Fall 2024. A preview of the first volume was sold as part of Free Comic Book Day 2024 on May 4, 2024. In a Fall 2024 interview for the website "Licensing Magazine" to promote BLE 2024. Reemsborko revealed that an animated adaptation of the Unico reboot series was in early development.As part of the Kickstarter campaign, an American mini-comic titled "Unico" by Steenz and American picture book by Madeline Copp were created for backers of the project under the "Unico: Awakening Artifacts" series. Which was a limited edition collectibles created by American cartoonists and artists.
An animated trailer for the series' first volume was uploaded to Scholastic's YouTube channel on June 6, 2024 animated by Denver Jackson. An animated music video called "Song of Unico" based on Volume 1 was uploaded on September 9, 2024, in both English and Japanese. On November 19, 2025, the series' first volume was announced to gain a wide release in Japan on December 18, 2025, to commemorate Unico's 50th Anniversary celebration in 2026 where it's known as Unico: Bond of the Stars - Awakening Chapter - published by ShoProp Publishing. Tezuka Productions would also upload a Motion comic version of Volume 1's prologue on December 12, 2025, narrated by Takuya Satou with voices by Hana Ayasaka and Ayako Sugio to the company's Japanese YouTube channel.
A second volume titled Unico: Hunted based on the chapter "Black Rain and White Feathers" was announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 and was released on July 1, 2025. An animated trailer for the second volume was uploaded online on June 1, 2025.
A third volume titled Unico: Lost which adapts the chapter "The Tale of the Fangs of Athens" will be released on July 7, 2026.
Anime
''Unico: Black Cloud, White Feather''
In 1979, the same year the manga ended, Unico made his animated debut in Kuroi Kumo Shiroi Hane, an ecologically themed pilot film which was later released directly to video. The short was shown to members of Tezuka Fan Club on April 30, 1979. The short adapts the manga chapter "Black Rain and White Feathers" serialized in 1977. In the pilot, Unico meets a young girl named Chiko in Canada who is ill because of the pollution from a nearby factory, and becomes determined to save Chiko's life by destroying the factory in order to cure her. Unico was voiced in this film by Hiroya Oka in Japanese and Rosa Romay in the Spanish dub in 1980. The songs was written by Yoko Narahashi, Akira Ito, Mickie Yoshino, and sung by Yukihide Takekawa. In the United States, the short was included as a bonus feature for the Blu-Ray re-release of Unico in the Island of Magic by Discotek Media with English subtitles. On August 9, 2025, the pilot was uploaded to Tezuka Production's official English YouTube channel for a limited time to promote the release of Unico: Hunted, the second volume of the OEL reboot series by Samuel Sattin, Gurihiru, and Scholastic.''The Fantastic Adventures of Unico''
Although the TV series was not picked up, Unico was adapted into two feature-length anime films produced by Sanrio and Tezuka Productions with animation by Madhouse Studios.The first movie, titled The Fantastic Adventures of Unico in English and simply Unico in Japan, was released in Japanese theaters on March 14, 1981, in Mexico on Canal de las Estrellas on September 27, 1982, and direct-to-video in the United States by RCA Columbia Pictures Home Video on May 12, 1983. This musical film, narrated by singer–songwriter Iruka, directed by Toshio Hirata, and written by Masaki Tsuji, with animation by Yoshiaki Kawajiri, adapts the chapters "Unico and Solitude" and "The Cat on the Broomstick".
Unico gets sent into a place out of sight from the gods, leaving him all alone. He discovers the Demon of Solitude inside a temple, and angered by his presence, destroys the temple, revealing his son and successor, Beezle. He takes advantage of his friendship with Unico, taking his horn and playing dangerous games, eventually leading to Unico falling into the sea. Beezle realizes how lonely he is and risks his life to save Unico, returning his horn and turning him into a mighty winged unicorn that takes them to dry land. As a symbol of friendship Unico grants Beezle with a horn of his own, before being whisked away to a forest.
Unico meets and befriends Katy, an abandoned cat who wishes to be a witch and is finding one to live with. She and Unico find a small house belonging to an old woman, who Katy believes is a witch. Unico decides to turn her into a human girl, and she helps and befriends the old woman. She also meets Baron DeGhost, the lord of the forest. Against Unico's wishes, she decides to head to his castle, where he intends to seduce her. Unico rushes to save Katy, with Beezle insisting that the West Wind take him as well. The baron transforms into a demon after being seemingly impaled, and Beezle and Katy's grief transforms Unico into the winged unicorn once more, killing him for good before being taken again by the West Wind.
This movie includes several songs, most of which were performed by the movie's narrators, Iruka in the original version, Joan-Carol O'Connell in the English dub, and Rocío Banquells in the Spanish dub; however, Chao/Katy's recurring theme song, Chao no Kuroneko no Uta, was sung by Chao's voice actresses, Kazuko Sugiyama in the Japanese version, Robin Levenson in the English dub, and Liliana Abud in the Spanish dub. The movie's other songs include Unico no Teemu, Hontou wa Subishikute/''Lonely, and Majo Neko Chao /Katy The Kitty Witch, all sung by Iruka, O'Connell or Banquells. The credits theme Ai koso subete/Love is Everything is sung both by Sumie Shima and the Japanese music group BUZZ''. For the US release, all of the songs were dubbed into English along with the spoken dialogue, except for the ending song over the closing credits, which is an instrumental in the English version. Unico was voiced by Katsue Miwa in the original version, Barbara Goodson in the English dub, and Matilde Vilariño in the Spanish dub.
''Unico in the Island of Magic''
Moribi Murano directed the second movie, titled in Japanese and Unico in the Island of Magic in English, which was released to Japanese theaters on July 16, 1983, five days before the release of the first Barefoot Gen movie, which used many of the same production staff. It was also released direct-to-video in the United States by RCA Columbia Pictures Home Video on November 10, 1983, and on Canal de las Estrellas in Mexico on January 30, 1988.This film essentially picks up after The Fantastic Adventures of Unico with the West Wind dropping Unico off in a new location where the gods will be unable to locate him. The story begins with the West Wind erasing Unico's memory of the past events and he is left to once again fend for himself. Unico runs into a Heathcliff-like cat named Melvin Magnificat who is the apparent boss of the forest which Unico has stumbled upon. Later, Unico meets a kind-hearted young girl named Cheri. Cheri's older brother, Toby, is working for the evil Lord Kuruku, who plans to turn all living creatures, animals and people alike, into unusual zombie-like beings called "Living Puppets" to be his slaves. Toby's job is to change people into Living Puppets and then lure the Living Puppets to Kuruku's fortress on Nightmare Island off the East Coast of Sweden in exchange for learning more of Kuruku's magic. His plan is to obey and serve until he learns enough to be the master, but fails to protect Cheri twice. Toby also takes on Melvin Magnificat – who hates Unico because Unico "intruded" in "his" forest – as his assistant. After Cheri's parents and neighbors all get turned into Living Puppets, she and Unico team up to stop Kuruku.
Seeking advice from the Trojan Horse, Unico and Cheri learn that Kuruku is a puppet who was mistreated by his owners and discarded. He washed up at the Ends of the Earth – where all unwanted "junk" ends up eventually – and was brought to life with the power of 200 years of sunlight exposure, determined to take revenge on the human race. With help from the Sphinx's daughter, Unico – who realizes that Kuruku is really just a lonely, friendless creature – is able to break Kuruku's spell, but since Kuruku's hatred was the only thing that kept him alive, Kuruku dies, reverts to puppet form, and Cheri keeps him as a toy. Soon afterward, the West Wind finds Unico and spirits him away once again to avoid detection by the gods.
As with the first movie, the second movie's ending song became an instrumental in the Spanish and English dub. Katsue Miwa in the original version and Barbara Goodson in the English dub reprised their roles as Unico in this film, while Rosa Romay played Unico in the Spanish dub.
''Saving Our Fragile Earth: Unico Special''
Saving Our Fragile Earth: Unico Special is a 2000 animated short starring Unico directed by Masayoshi Nishita that was a Japanese–Chinese co-production.The short involves Unico visiting a world where humanity has become extinct and the earth has become uninhabitable. After befriending Tsubasa, a wooden creature who believes himself to be human. Alongside Sphinx from the chapter "The Tale of the Fangs of Athens" and The Spirit of Time. Unico travels back in time to prevent humans from badly polluting the earth where they encounter a Demon Monster enraged over humans mistreating the environment. After calming down the monster, Unico conveniences him that not all humans are careless and successfully befriending the former antagonist. The short ends with Unico getting his memories erased and traveling to another location while Tsubasa and Sphinx are reincarnated as a human baby and human mother.
Unico is voiced by Aracely Arámbula in the Spanish dub, while Akiko Yajima voiced the character in the original Japanese version.
Voice cast
''The Fantastic Adventures of Unico''
Additional English Voices
- Ardwight Chamberlain
Home media
The 1981 and 1983 theatrical films were dubbed into English and received North American exposure through VHS releases in the mid-1980s and airings on the Disney Channel.In 2012, Discotek Media released The Fantastic Adventures of Unico and Unico in the Island of Magic on DVD, with both the Japanese and English audio tracks. The 1979 Unico pilot film was featured as an English-subtitled extra on the Island of Magic DVD.
Discotek Media re-released The Fantastic Adventures of Unico and Unico in the Island of Magic on a double-feature DVD on April 29, 2014. The DVD did not contain the pilot. Discotek also released the Blu-ray versions of both films in 2014. Crunchyroll began streaming the films online in 2016, while RetroCrush began streaming them in 2020.
Other appearances
Unico made cameo appearances in several episodes of the Black Jack TV series adapted from the Black Jack manga.Unico also made an appearance in the Game Boy Advance game Astro Boy: Omega Factor, where he gives Astro Boy the ability to have a warm and tender talk with Dr. Tenma, his father. Unico also appears in the Astro Boy manga in a comic book. In the story, he is Dr. Foola's inspiration for a new robot: a mechanical unicorn.
Unico can also be seen in a brief cameo in Columns GB: Osamu Tezuka Characters for the Game Boy Color.
The Unico films were produced by Sanrio, so some of Sanrio's characters, such as Hello Kitty, Tuxedo Sam, and the Little Twin Stars, make cameo appearances in the films.
Unico co-starred alongside Pinoko in the 2005 animated short Dr. Pinoko's Forest Adventures. In the short, Unico was voiced by Rumiko Tezuka, Osamu Tezuka's eldest sibling and daughter.
On February 18, 2021, Tezuka Productions and Kemono Friends collaborated to add Unico alongside Phoenix into the Japanese mobile game Kemono Friends 3 as special DLC characters. The titular character was given a humanized design and depicted as a female. Unico and Phoenix would later returns to Kemono Friends 3 on October 30, 2025, which introduces a female version of Kimba the White Lion. In the game, Unico is voiced by Haruna Kawai.