An Olympic Fable: Run for Life
* Based on Dazai Osamu's 1940 short story, itself based on Greek legend (via a poem by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller). Melos is a Greek country man that is arrested and accused of conspiracy against the king. He gets three days to travel to his sister's wedding while Selinentius (Selinae), a genius sculptor that Melos just met stays as a hostage. Source: Wikipedia Note: Initially released as a TV special. In 1992, this was followed by a 107 minute animated film directed and written by Masaaki Osumi. The story was animated as a 30 minute stop-motion short for the Classic Children's Tales series (1992), and again, as a 10 minute short directed by Keisuke Morishita, for the Famous Japanese Fables series (1997).