Synopsis

At the Tezuka Osamu World in Kyoto Station, there's a special 300-inch theater showing original short animated films. The Phoenix acts as a guide, introducing a couple of stories—both animated adaptations from Tezuka's manga, with one focusing on Kyoto's history. For the first film, the Phoenix picks "Old Woman" from Black Jack, exploring how much love can develop in a single lifetime. It's about an elderly woman who constantly asks her daughter-in-law for money, driving the family to constant bickering. When Black Jack gets involved and learns the real story, he discovers that decades ago the woman paid a famous doctor to save her dying son—and she's been working to repay that debt ever since. Her son had no idea. Once he finds out about his mother's sacrifice, he's shaken by the realization that she valued his life more than her own. Black Jack then challenges him: could he love her just as deeply in return? The Phoenix uses this as a bridge to the second story, about the historical move of Japan's capital to Heian. She explains that only love that matters more than life itself can endure forever—and this massive national project was essentially an attempt to give a city that kind of eternal existence.

Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.