Fuku-chan’s Submarine 1944, Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku 1956, & Beer Mukashi Mukashi 1956

Let’s review three of Tadahito’s films that I can find on youtube. One is 2D animated, and the other is the first two stop motion films in Japan, Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku as his second directed, and Beer Mukashi Mukashi as his first stop-motion animator.

Let’s start with Fuku-chan’s Submarine in 1944. It’s…basically the complete human version of Momotaru’s Sea Eagle. A navy goes out to sea to stop the enemy.

The editing is bad; most of the actions are broken, though the excuse is this film was recovered with scenes missing. Thankfully they don’t show the enemy’s face much this time, though their ships have a big star and one ship literally has a face. Eh, Disney did that too with “How to Sail A Boat”. You can say “Their ship funded by Texaco” or “It’s a Texan Ship”, at least for the first wave of fleet. The second wave is American, so no denying. It was later reveal that there are 13 battleships to represent the 13 Colonies. Umm…Subtle? I don’t know, I might not be a fan of a war genre or have the army as the “foreground”, though WW2 Looney Tunes or Power Rangers is one of those rare exceptions.

The next is Japan’s first stop-motion film in 1956, Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku. Uriko-Hime was born from a magic fruit founded by an old couple. She grew up to be a great weaver. Amanojaku is a Yokai or Mountain Demon who wants to have fun and ruins Uriko-hime’s loom. (Compare to Po Kong, the Chinese Mountain Demon with a Panku Box gate found in Japan in Jackie Chan Adventure, Amanojaku is a light mountain demon) Uriko-hime befriends Amanojaku, as he pulls a Rumpelstiltskin by making strings or solid objects with a spinning wheel. There are these three crooks somewhere in the story. They’re not entirely important.

The story was recently remade in 2D animation with the Uriko-hime shown hatching from the Wintermelon, had a childhood than a fruit that looks like an eggplant, and Amanojako was a playful possessing demon or spirit. I recommend the remake than the original.

I’ll save my opinion about the stop-motion at the end. The design and atmosphere is decent though.

The last one is Beer Mukashi Mukashi is about a mug head to tell the history of beer throughout the world from the Stone Age or Mesopotamian to their modern age, specifically the brand, Asahi Lager Beer; A Japanese Beer that still exist, yet unsavorily to critics today.

A Stop-motion commercial was nothing new, as it was kinda started with George Pal with the Puppetoons, as he usually ties them to Phillip Radio or Horlick’s Energy Drink. The commercial tied to a film is new to Japan, as far as I know, but in stop motion is their first. Advertisement Beer in Cartoons might not be the safest, but then again, Screen Gem did that twice with Mr. Magoo with Stag Beer and Flintstones with Busch Beer.

"Oh there's a lot Busch going to be sold!"

-Fred Flintstones, voiced by Alan Reed.  

This might be harsh to say, but Tadahito was meant to be a stop-motion animator than 2D animator. There’s some good animation in 2D in the short, but debatable since short films usually have more than one animator. There seem to be more control to animating the stop motion than having the 2D animation having the scene dragging out too long with pointless or repetitive scenes. While Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku had decent animation in movement, the lip movement are absent in the film. Doing lip movements to the first Japanese stop-motion would have been time consuming with a deadline, or they didn’t want to ruin the dolls. This is where Beer Mukashi kind of made up of having a lip movement for the Mughead, even if they cut corners by cutting less of Mughead’s scenes for some 2D scenes. I can say that Tadahito may have made the staple of the hand gesture and the simple shaped facials for Rankin Bass. Though maybe this is part of the reason why Japan rarely do stop-motion due to being mostly time consuming. Godzilla vs King Kong is one of those example that it was going to stop-motion.

Overall, skip Fuku-Chan’s Submarine, and give a little thought of a step to see Uriko-Hime to Amanojaku & Beer Makashi Makashi as an interest to see the start of Japan’s stop-motion and Tahadito’s stop-motion career to be influential.

Next time, I’ll start with the first of the Animated Western film with The Man From Button Willow. These are due to the fact that the next options in the list are TV series, and I needed this Western film to start with and get it off my chest. However, Easter is coming up, so I going to review a film that no one will suspect me in reviewing, as long it's kinda Easter theme or related to films such as Rankin Bass Easter films.