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1948: THE BATTLE OF KINUTA STUDIO
In early April, Watanabe’s new leadership fired 1200 employees, including over 250 studio staff, specifically targeting “Communist party members, sympathisers and all forty-two animators”.
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1947: MASAOKA’S POWERPLAY
The list of companies selected to make propaganda for the Occupying Forces in 1947 was very short. Alongside Daiei, Shochiku and Toho was a much smaller name: Nihon Manga Eigasha. And that was MASAOKA Kenzō’s firm.
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1947: ARAI & TOHO
On May 3, the new Constitution of Japan came into effect, replacing the Meiji Constitution of 1889. The Occupiers had taken the entire system of governance and thrown it out.
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1946: KUMAKAWA’S MAGIC PEN
It also wasn’t a shock to learn that OFUJI Noburo made it into the studio in 1946 too. His cartoon was the first animated version of any work by “the father of the Japanese short story”, AKUTAGAWA Ryunosuke.
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1946: MASAOKA & TOHO
Japan, on the other hand, remained Japan. General MACARTHUR, now the effective leader of the country, was completely upending it. But he chose to use as much of the existing framework of the state in place as he could to enact the changes needed to democratise the country.
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1945: THE OCCUPATION BEGINS
After rough weather delayed the ceremonies for a day or two, the two sides met aboard the Missouri on September 2nd. General Douglas MACARTHUR of the American armed forces, and Japanese Foreign Minister SHIGEMITSU Mamoru, signed the Instrument Of Surrender. Japan had offically surrendered to the Allied Powers, and ended World War II.
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1945: MOMOTARO: SACRED SAILORS
It’s time for the review I’ve been dreading, ever since the blog started: “Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei” / “Momotaro: Sacred Sailors” or “Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors”.
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1945: THE END OF THE WAR
The events of 1945 which led to the end of World War II.
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1944: MOCHINAGA SUBMERGES
One film from this year is watchable. It was the directorial debut of MOCHINAGA Tadahito. Geijutsu Eigasha hired MOCHINAGA in 1941, to build Japan’s first multiplane camera for SEO Mitsuyo.
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1943: MASAOKA, OFUJI AND THE LOST
The next animated film to come out in Japan – that still survives, of course – baffled me before I watched it, because I didn’t see how it could have been made.