In 1965, Osamu Tezuka bet everything on a single hour of animation when nobody else believed a TV special could sustain that length. What arrived was Treasure Island remade as animals, a rabbit and a wolf and a parrot reimagining Stevenson with the kind of detail only someone who'd already revolutionized anime could manage. It never got a second episode. That's the thing: you're watching the only proof it ever existed at all.

Shin Takarajima is a 1965 adventure special that retells Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island with a cast of animals in place of humans. The hero Jim appears as a rabbit, and the pirate Silver is drawn as a wolf. The special was meant to open Mushi Pro Land, a planned series of hour-long animated programs, and it became Japan's first 60-minute animated TV broadcast. The series never went further, so this was the only episode that aired. Despite the shared title, it is unrelated to Osamu Tezuka's manga New Treasure Island.