“The Tale of the White Serpent” (白蛇伝 Hakujaden) is the first color anime feature film, released in 1958. It was also the first to be released in America, under the title “Panda and the Magic Serpent”. It is also known variously as “Legend of the White Snake”, “The Great White Snake” and “The White Snake Enchantress”.
The film is essentially an adaptation of the Song dynasty folktale from Chinese mythology “Madame White Snake” (白蛇傳). Shin Uehara adapted the folktale and kept the Chinese-style characters and names. The decision of a Chinese story being used as the concept blueprint came from Toei president Hiroshi Ōkawa, who wanted to strike a tone of reconciliation with the Asian neighbors.
Given the point in time, the film pushed Japanese animation technology to the limit. The film was a large scale major project, involving a total of 13,590 staff; surprisingly, it only took eight months to finish.