Trivia / The Fantastic Adventures of Unico

• Actor Allusion: In Spain, Unico was voiced by Matilde Vilariño, best-known for voicing Maya the Bee in the Spanish dub, who shares similar personality traits, including compassion towards everyone.
• Adored by the Network: During Disney Channel's early days, this movie alongside its sequel movie would frequently be aired on the network throughout the 1980s, usually back-to-back.
• Acting for Two: In the English dub, Barbara Goodson provided the voices for some of the newborn unicorns during the film's prologue and Unico himself.
• Celebrity Voice Actor: In the Spanish Dub, Unico was voiced by late voice actress Matilde Vilariño. Best-known in Spain for voicing child characters on radio shows and the original Spanish voice of Maya the Bee.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Unico is voiced by Katsue Miwa in the original Japanese version, Barbara Goodson in the English Dub, and Matilde Vilariño for the Spanish dub.
  • Beezle is also voiced by a female in the original Japanese version, Cheryl Chase in the English Dub, the 1986 Italian, dub, and Spanish dub.
• Completely Different Title: The film is known as Baby Fairy Unico in Korea.
• Dueling Dubs: The movie was dubbed twice in Italy. The first from 1986 (which only aired on TV) and a second dub in 2022 (for the Italian streaming service CHILI), with the 1986 dub being difficult to find due to never gaining a home release in that country.
• Edited for Syndication: While Spain dubbed the movie in 1984, the movie was later edited in 1989 where it was split into two parts as separate "episodes" or "stories" as part of the "Videocuentos Infantiles" ("Children's fairy tales") VHS series by Planeta-De Agostini. The first episode contained the film's prologue, Unico meeting Beezle, and later befriending Katy when she turns into a human. The second episode has Katy meeting Baron Ghost with Unico rescuing Katy and defeating Baron Ghost's Demonic Form before getting separated from his friends.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Some international dubs of this movie and its sequel Unico in the Island of Magic have become difficult to find online. While the Latin Spanish dub of this movie can be found through low-quality uploads, the German dub of this movie isn't so lucky.
• Late Export for You : In the United States and Spanish speaking countries, this movie along with its sequel Unico in the Island of Magic were able to gain official dubs, but the original manga never gained an official translation. It took until The New '10s for the manga to get an official English translation.
  • Germany was able to dub the movie in 1990, 9 years after its original Japanese release.
  • A European Spanish dub was released in 2008 by Divisa Home Video, 27 years after the original Japanese version.
• Missing Episode:
  • The Hungarian dub of the movie that was released sometime between 1984 or 1986 (possibly gaining a theatrical release) has ended up lost for unknown reasons. The only information behind the dub's existence is with a rare poster promoting the movie in that country◊ and the dub's cast.
  • The Persian dub of the film that aired in Iran at an unknown period has also ended up lost. The dub aired on a few unknown television stations in Iran and possibly given a theatrical release in that country. The only evidence of the dub's existence is from a 2014 Iranian blog post covering the film which included a screenshot from a televised broadcast of the film.
• Non-Dubbed Grunts: The first Italian dub from 1986 doesn't dub some of the character dialogue and noises (such as Unico and Katy crying and Beezle trying to remove Unico's horn) for some scenes.
• No Export for You: In France, the manga gained an official translation in the 2010s but not the movies.
  • There was also a German dub under the title of Unico – Das Hörnchen that was broadcast on ZDF, though the second movie never got one.
• Market-Based Title:
  • In Latin America, this movie is known as Único el unicornio (Unico the Unicorn), while in Spain, it is called Unico, el pequeño unicornio (Unico, the Little Unicorn).
  • In Sweden, the film is known as Unico - Das phantastische Abenteuer eines Hörnchens (translating to Unico - The Fantastic Adventures of a Unicorn).
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": During Katy/Chloe's musical number about her dreams on becoming a witch, Kiki and Lala (aka "The Little Twin Stars") alongside Hello Kitty make silent cameo appearances in the background. At the time, the first Unico movie and it's sequel Unico in the Island of Magic would frequently air on Disney Channel (then known as "The Disney Channel") in the United States throughout the 1980s. Around the same time period, Hello Kitty has started catching on with American audiences and other Western countries. However, the Little Twin Stars (and other Sanrio Characters) were still unknown to non-Japanese audiences making the Unico movies their first exposure to some Western and Spanish speaking countries.
• Milestone Celebration: In honor of the film's 40th Anniversary in 2021, Tezuka Productions and the Kemono Friends mobile game Kemono Friends 3 announced a collaboration where a Little Bit Beastly version of Unico was added as a guest character on February 18th, 2021. "Hiroman's Cafe" even opened a temporary "Unico Restaurant"◊ during Spring 2021 that made Unico-themed food and exclusive artwork.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Early in the film's production, Venus the manga's main antagonist was planned to appear in the movie. While she ended up replaced by a group of unnamed gods, she appeared in a few concept art and in the "Osamu Tezuka character art book" by Yoh Yoshinari.
  • During the film's production, the crew considered on redesigning Chao/Katy by giving her pupils instead of beady eyes. Even Osamu Tezuka felt that translating Katy's original design would be difficult to pull off. The animators decided to retain Katy's dot eyes much to the delight of Tezuka.
  • Katy was originally planned to transform into an anthropomorphic cat instead of a human girl. As seen in Yoh Yoshinari's "Osamu Tezuka character art book", two designs of her anthropomorphic form was going to be the same size as her cat form.
• The Other Darrin:
  • In Japan, Unico's first voice actor (Hiroya Oka) was replaced by Katsue Miwa for the movies.
  • Sames goes with the Latin Spanish dub, where Unico's voice actress (Rocío Banquells) (who voiced the character in Unico: Black Cloud and White Feather) was replaced by Verónica Castro for the movies.
  • Due to Italy redubbing the movie in 2022, the original 1986 Italian voice cast (notably Unico and The West Wind) has been replaced by newer Italian voice actors and actresses.
• The Song Remains the Same: Besides the English dub, three of the film's songs are undubbed. The 2022 Italian redub manages to actually dub the film's songs with a new theme song performed by Santo Verduci.