Directing
A baseball game between the rabbits and tanuki (raccoon dogs).
A rare glimpse of early Japanese sound anime and prewar Japanese culture, The Roots of Japanese Anime features the masterworks of such pioneers of Japanese animation as Noburo Ofuji, Yasuji Murata, and Kenzo Masaoka, in addition to Mitsuyo Seo’s Momotaro’s Sea Eagle, the notorious war cartoon billed as Japan’s first feature anime. These movies represent the brilliance and variety of anime, ranging from beautiful Japanese paper animation to powerful multiplane cel cartoons. They also evoke the fascinating complexity of Japan, a nation that is then both marching towards war, enlisting kids in militarist nationalism, yet also delighting in a mixture of modern popular culture, ancient folk tales, irreverent comedy, and the everyday life of prewar Japanese children.
The story is based on the traditional, Japanese myth of Urashima Taro; in which a fisherman is transported from the seashore into a fantastic underwater world on the back of a giant turtle.
Animals train for the animal Olympics.
A group of animals take part in Olympic sports.
Sports Day at Animal Village. Japanese animation short.
A train conductor goes about his duty. All the characters are animals in human form. Hippo ladies in dresses try to jam into cars and other passengers pull jokes and cause havoc.
A man and his young son travel through the countryside to take their donkey to a horse auction. Unfortunately every person they pass has a different opinion on how this should be accomplished, leading to disastrous results when the dim-witted father abandons common sense in an attempt to please everyone.
Once upon a time, the birds and the beasts fought each other in a war. It was a terrible conflict, and the clever bats would side with the birds when the birds were looking victorious, and then they would become allies of the beasts when that side was winning battles. At last the war came to an end, the two parties reached an amicable settlement, and a great party of friendship was held. But when it came to the turn of the bats to perform in the program, their fence-straddling tactics were exposed, and everyone refused to associate with them. Since that time, the bats have been too ashamed to show their faces during the day, coming out only at night to flit silently around.
Private 2nd Class Norakuro is having the training for recruits, but makes so many mistakes.
The Larks' Moving Day. Early Japanese animation.
A picture-story showman is reading a story about a troublemaking tanuki on the street to children. A starving tanuki with nowhere to go plots to steal offerings from Mangokuzan Temple, which has a lot of offerings. The raccoon sneaks into the temple. While he is eating bean-paste buns, a child bonze comes. So, the tanuki turns himself into a statue of Buddha. A shortened and revised version of The "Enchanted Kettle". According to The History of Japanese Animation written by Katsunori Yamaguchi and Yasushi Watanabe, the picture-story scene at the beginning of the film and the scene of the raccoon dog dancing at the end were added in this version.
A Yasuji Murata version of the classic Japanese story Saru Kani Gassen.
A group of animals want to end the violence of the wolf.
When copper wire is wrapped around an iron rod and connected to a battery, it becomes an electromagnet. A science teaching material movie that explains the principle and structure of electric bells and telephones by applying the principle of an electromagnet through a fusion of live action and animation.
An old man with a huge lump on his face encounters a band of Tengu in the mountains.
Very early animated short from Japan featuring a cast of anthropomorphic animals.
Norakuro is now a corporal. On his day off-duty, he goes to eat chicken on the stick. On his way home, he falls into a slumber and dreams of fighting with the Monkey Corps, his enemy.
A family of mice dance to entertain a cat that disrupted their festivities after returning home early. (Source: MyAnimeList.net)
An adaptation of the The Ugly Duckling.
