"Momotarô: Umi no shinpei" ("Momotaro, Sacred Sailors") is a creepy and rather insidious animated Japanese film that also has the distinction of being the first full-length animated movie from that country. Since it was made during WWII, it's not surprising that the film is infused with lots of propaganda and glamorizes life in the Japanese Imperial Navy. The film has little to do with the traditional Japanese tale of Momotarô. It uses the characters from the story but otherwise is mostly a film extolling the virtues of hard work and patriotism...and the evils of Westerners and is targeted mostly to kids Targeting such ugly propaganda at kids isn't unheard of...but it's pretty sad.
The story begins with Momotarô and his friends from the folk tale (a dog, a monkey and a pheasant) returning home on leave from the navy. Surprisingly, however, for the longest time not very much happens in the film. The characters scamper about, sing and make all sorts of vacant, creepy faces at the audience...but not much occurs apart from this and the local children idolizing these heroes to the Empire. The slowness of the film is made more obvious because the animation quality of this black & white movie isn't very good and the film seems to be moving in slow-motion. To save money, the studio used a lower than usual cel-count and it's certainly NOT qualitatively similar to Disney!
What follows is a long montage showing all the animals working hard for the good of the country. During much of this, they sing about lucky they are to work hard and they are preparing for the next military encounter. Then, Japanese plane after plane arrive...and the happy pilots and bunny ground crew prepare for the next glorious mission. Eventually, this spirit of patriotism is tested when the nice Japanese animals are attacked by the enemy. The nice animals rise up to destroy the evil Westerners...and a few scenes, such as them bayoneting the rubbery-armed Western soldiers, are amazingly graphic for a kids movie. Again, it's obvious that this is Momotarô in name only!
So is all this any good? Not really. The animation is third-rate (at best) compared to later Japanese animation, the story has a vile pro-war message specifically targeted to young children and, worst of all, it's really boring. The story lacks fun and song after song about the joys of hard work and patriotism hardly are the sorts of things kids would enjoy...at least NORMAL kids! In fact, it's such a creepy and nasty film I don't recommend it for ANY kids. The animation of the faces is often nightmare-inducing! It's more a curiosity...one history lovers might find interesting though not especially good and incredibly slow. And, sadly, I wondered like another reviewer just how many kids who saw this didn't even ultimately survive this ugly war.
