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.
