This is the one where the pretty prince stops being a prince. The first film spent its energy on Chapra, the slave boy who lied his way into a general's armor and died for it, and on Tatta, the pariah kid who could throw his soul into animals. That was Tezuka setting the trap: you came for Siddhartha's enlightenment and he made you care about the people the caste system grinds up first. Endless Trip is the renunciation chapter, the walk out of Kapilavastu into the dust, and Toei animates ancient India with the kind of soft, storybook color that makes the cruelty land harder than any grimdark treatment would. Tezuka never let holiness off the hook, and he never let the poor be scenery. Watch it for the moment the road stops being a metaphor and starts being a road.

The second film in a planned trilogy adapting Osamu Tezuka's Buddha manga continues the story as a supernatural drama set in India some 2,500 years ago. Siddhartha, born a prince of the Shakya clan, renounces his royal station so he can see the world for himself. On his travels he encounters Assaji, an odd boy who can foresee what is to come, along with a monk who has a single eye. Shaken by the suffering he finds all around him, Siddhartha works to bring back peace. At the same time, Prince Ruri of Kosara launches an assault on the Shakya clan.