Writing
A baseball game between the rabbits and tanuki (raccoon dogs).
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.
A group of animals take part in Olympic sports.
Tsuburaya served both as director and cinematographer of this feature-length national policy documentary, supported by the naval ministry, which creates a sketch of life among cadets aboard a naval training vessel on a voyage around Indochina, Malaya, Hawaii and the South Pacific islands. The film clearly outlines the economic motives behind Japan’s southward expansion, but also presents the music and dance traditions of various regions, in what has been termed “folklore through sound”.
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.
Private 2nd Class Norakuro is having the training for recruits, but makes so many mistakes.
The Larks' Moving Day. Early Japanese animation.
A Yasuji Murata version of the classic Japanese story Saru Kani Gassen.
A group of animals want to end the violence of the wolf.
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.
An adaptation of the The Ugly Duckling.
This early Japanese animation opens with a festival of sorts...
During the late Kamakura period, there lived a famous swordsmith known as Masamune whose renown as a swordsmith was so great that even long after his passing the term “Masamune” was used to describe any fine sword. Even today, the Masamune Prize is awarded to swordsmiths of outstanding skills in their craft. In Yasuji Murata’s cutout animation The Monkey Masamune a humble messenger is rewarded with the gift of a Masamune sword when he saves the life of a monkey and her child.
An adaptation of Aesop's fable The Ant and the Grasshopper but with a slight change. We have a diligent family ants versus a drunken lazy frog, a bourgeois butterfly and grasshopper couple. As winter comes, the frog, butterfly, and grasshopper are ill and starving.
Norakuro keeps getting his allies and enemies mixed up during training.
Momotaro takes to the ocean to fight a shark.
