TENSHI NO TAMAGO [ANGEL’S EGG]
(The fortieth anniversary of the far-too-little-seen animated epic Tenshi no Tamago (Angel’s Egg) in its highly-anticipated 4K remaster, opening theatrically 19-November-2025. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)
“Angel or devil? I don’t care. For in front of that door, there is you.”
Within the territory of speculative fiction, an unequal melange directly (or inspirationally) derived of Boris and Arkady Strugatsky’s Roadside Picnic, H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Insmouth, Stanisław Lem’ Solaris and the New Testament of the Christian Bible. As source-material goes, one could not have much needs for more.
In its opening moments emerges a girl, unnamed; a protector of the titular egg. Flowing white hair, apparently youthful amongst these ruins of a city yet preoccupied with her task for untold years. Then arrives a boy, also nameless, carrying a weapon with an unmistakable resemblance to a crucifix. He inquires about the egg. She asks who he is? He asks who she is? Neither answers.
They walk. They rarely talk. Tanks roll on, nearby. Civilian-spectres hunt illusory fish, way in the middle of the air; mere shadows. Little else occurs yet no individual moment of this glacially-paced film is without purpose over its concise and compact seventy minutes. Angel’s Egg as close to a perfect film as has ever been created.
Writer / director Mamoru Oshii, acclaimed for his television work on Urusei Yatsura, first forays in feature-filmmaking culminated in two lengthier Oni tales. The success of that duo led to an offer to write and direct a Lupin III project, a badge of honour bestowed a handful of years earlier on Hayao Miyazaki (and his curious Castle of Cagliostro). However, the studio found his proposed script to be incomprehensible and filming never developed beyond its initial stages. Oshii salvaged aspects of that screenplay—specifically the Biblical story of the ark—for Angel’s Egg and the subsequent Patlbaor debut. From the debris of foundering and the skeletal remains of an angelic / demonic not-quite-bird, an achievement of immense wonderment.
Angel’s Egg found its immaterial essence in an inspired collaboration between Oshii and artist Yoshitaka Amano, co-creator of the story and primary craftsperson of the character designs. Amano and Oshii were an ideal pairing of talents. As rewarding as it is to witness their assembled techniques of visual storytelling on par with the landmark works of the silent-era, the stunning soundtrack by Yoshihiro Kanno—essentially the hybrid of a piano concerto and a choral work, concluding with a variational form for solo piano—is among the finest film-scores ever composed.
In a parallel world, Angel’s Egg was the near-universal success and Ghost in the Shell its overlooked also-ran. Which is not to disparage the greatness of the latter whatsoever. The former, though, is another realm of extraordinary unto itself. This GKIDS reissue, essentially a first-time release in the U.S., is favoured with overflowing gratitude for the potential success the film never achieved in its initial go-‘round. It should additionally serve as an opportunity for overdue celebration of one of the finest filmmakers in anime or any genre.
TENSHI NO TAMAGO [ANGEL’S EGG] (1985) dir. Mamoru Oshii
— Jonathan Marlow [Executive Director | Scarecrow / SV Archive]
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