RUNNING OUT OF METAPHORS FOR MURATA
In my last blog, I said I didn’t think OFUJI Noburo would hire fifty people. On the other hand, if you told me that MURATA Yasuji had invented a team of animation robots to assist him, I’d believe you. In 1932, under his direction, Yokohama Cinema Shokai continued to produce cartoons at a staggering rate, given the technology available to them.
“The Development Of The Train”
They opened the year with “Kisha no Hattatsu” / “The Development Of The Train” (Yokohama Cinema, January 1932), which was based on a school textbook. But I don’t think that’s the main reason this got made; Murata’s long-time editor, AOCHI Chuzo, feels like a railhead to me.
There wasn’t a lot of actual animation here; as with Yokohama Cinema’s previous educational work, it’s used to show idealised versions of complicated equipment. The rest of the film is explanatory intertitles and live-action footage, edited together from an American film that I’d bet came from Aochi’s own collection, and films about the British railway centennial and the modern Japanese rail network, borrowed from the Japanese Ministry of Railways.
My dear Great Auntie Bolivia is also a railhead, so I asked her for her opinion too. She said it was fantastic and impressive, and a good teaching tool. I have to confess I learned a couple of bits of steam history here too, even if the triumphant “look at our railways!” bit at the end did include tracks laid in Taiwan, Korea, and even a hint at the bottom of the fateful South Manchurian Railway that I’ve mentioned previously. I wonder if a British film from the period would have waxed sanctimoniously about railways in British India and Australia? Probably.
There isn’t enough animation here for me to give it a reasonable score. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy it.
“Tonpei And Sarukichi”
Next was “Manga Tonpei to Sarukichi” / “Tonpei And Sarukichi” (Yokohama Cinema, March 1932), which could be called “Porkpie and Lucky Monkey” if you were really pushing your translation software.
Tonpei is a literal lazy pig; he didn’t do last night’s dishes, and he ignores two alarms to sleep through till noon. So he waddles over to Sarukichi’s place. Sarukichi isn’t monkeying around, he’s working hard harvesting fruit, so he’s justifiably angry when Tonpei steals it all. When the pig tries again next day and finds that Sarukichi’s locked the house up and gone to work in the hills, he beats up the monkey’s kids and breaks in. Thankfully, Sarukichi’s had a phone put in and rushes home to save his family. But Tonpei killed one of his children.
Sarukichi beats Tonpei up – in fairness, wouldn’t you? – and the pig runs and lies to the authorities to get his revenge. King Lion and his servants take a cannon– you’re kidding – to Sarukichi’s hastily repaired house, but thankfully the monkey deploys a barbed-wire fence to keep them out. It doesn’t work and the lion attacks, but Sarukichi’s house transforms into a tank – what the hell? – and squashes the lion, who retreats behind his men.
The ensuing battle wakes a mole up, who orders his people to rise up in support of the monkeys – oh-KAY – and then the lion orders an air-raid which totals the house-turned-tank. In retaliation, the moles put explosives underground and blow the lion’s entire army to tiny pieces which rain down. Unbelievably, the closing title reads “Sarukichi enjoyed a glorious victory”. Yeah, with no house left and a dead kid. Such glory. Much victory.
Seriously, What Were They Playing At?
I never knew what was coming next in this film. This is exactly why I insist on giving these cartoons their proper historical context; while this one was being made, Japan was still fighting a war of expansion in what’s now China. If you don’t know that, it makes no sense. This piece of propaganda is written to remind the Japanese people that sacrifices must sometimes be made for “security”. This gets no score. I wouldn’t know where to start with it anyway.
“The Cat Purr Dance”
I’m going to stick something light-hearted in next, because I know what’s coming up. At some point this year, Murata made “Nyago Dance” / “The Cat Purr Dance” (Yokohama Cinema, 1932). It’s a three-minute record-talkie, but sing along at home folks, the sound hasn’t made it to the present day.
A clan of white mice find their way into a house and steal food, breaking through the paper walls as they go. They line-dance and jump all over the furniture. A thin black cat arrives and initially scares the mice, but ends up dancing for them instead. Then the mice dance for the cat, but that’s not good enough so it actually chases them off. And the cartoon ends.
As I’ve said before, there’s no real way to judge a record-talkie without the record. So there’s no score. But I needed a brief pause between this year’s two big chunks of Murata-made propaganda.
“Momotaro Under The Sea”
“Umi no Momotarou” / “Momotaro Under The Sea” (Yokohama Cinema, June 1932) brings back folk-hero turned war-veteran Momotaro; last year he turned America’s national animal into a plucked turkey, and now he’s back. We see some superbly drawn fish and a beautifully observed hermit crab on a scooter, fleeing from a huge, terrifying and equally well animated shark.
A very Japanese-looking military council sit in the Dragon Palace from the Urashima Tarō story. They send word by telegraph to Momotaro, who arrives with his dog and monkey, in a submarine. They had to leave the pheasant at home, he can’t swim. In a scene weirdly reminiscent of “Spongebob Squarepants” (United Plankton/Nickleodeon, 1999), Momotaro’s monkey slides down an anchor rope to talk to a giant squid and a puffer fish to get the lie of the land. Er, sea.
Momotaro finds the cave that the shark is hiding in, and torpedoes it. The shark comes out to fight back and manages to bite the submarine’s conning tower off. But the sub’s crew are able to fire one last torpedo which blows the shark’s tail off, and Momotaro swims up to finish the job with his sword. There’s blood all over the place and his crew rejoices. Back on land the news of the victory spreads quickly, and our three heroes are given seashell medals.
Not Easy To Understand
If this wasn’t more propaganda, I’d be unhappy that the version in the Japanese Film Archive had all the explanatory intertitles removed. I couldn’t follow the details of the plot at all. But the broad strokes are still clear, and as usual, the animation is superb. There’s one very clever section where the sub turns around to sail the other way across the screen, which involved at least eight carefully different drawings. It must have been a bugger to do. But technical mastery doesn’t make up for the basic jingoism that’s in every frame of this work. No score.
“Sports Day At Animal Village”
Murata’s other film from June was “Taiiku Day” / “Sports Day At Animal Village” (Yokohama Cinema, 1932), and it’s something of a sequel to his “Animal Olympic Games” from four years earlier. Presumably the IOC wouldn’t let him renew the licence.
This time around we get monkey gymnastics, a kendo match that descends into a lion and a tiger wrestling one other, diving from a polar bear and a hippo, and synchronised dancing of a kind that would have been familiar to Japanese schoolchildren. Then there’s a boxing match between a kangaroo and a pig, and a tug of war between an elephant and a team of various animals, which ends the cartoon abruptly due to lost footage.
There was exactly one joke which landed in this cartoon, when the kangaroo’s joey comes out of her pouch and gets a few tiny punches in on her opponent. The rest of this wasn’t a patch on the previous Olympic cartoon, and so “Sports Day At Animal Village” gets 3/10.
Finally for this year, Murata retold Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of rootlessness, “Ahiru no Ko” / “The Ugly Duckling” (Yokohama Cinema Shokai, September 1932). Since it hasn’t seen a new English adaptation this century, I’d better give it a full outline.
“The Ugly Duckling” – the original version
A strange egg finds its way into a duck’s nest, and it takes ages to hatch. But once it has, it becomes clear that the cygnet, the titular ugly duckling who emerges from it, doesn’t belong. His hatching mother loves him, but other ducks attack him, saying “he’s too big and strange, and he deserves a good whacking.” He soon becomes “the laughing stock of the whole barnyard”, and his nest-mates wish he was dead.
In despair he runs away from home, but everywhere he goes he faces more danger and abuse. He spends the autumn with an old lady, her cat and her hen, all three closed-minded and judgemental. When they work out he can’t do the things they value, he’s pushed out again. Once he’s a year old, he finds a flock of beautiful swans, and flies towards them hoping they’ll put him out of his misery. But then he realises that he, too, is a swan, and “the most handsome of all”, and learns to take joy in who he really is.
“The Ugly Duckling” – animated
And up to a point, that’s the plot of the cartoon, which includes details I’ve skipped for the sake of brevity, but wisely snips out some of the more brutal plot points. But there are some enormous, plot-altering additions. In the original, even the duckling’s mother gives up on him. Here, she cares enough that the cygnet bows sorrowfully to her sleeping form before he leaves. And the film has no old lady. Instead, the hen and cat are kindly. The cat even saves the duckling from being eaten by a weasel.
When summer comes, our duckling has grown into a beautiful swan on his own. Then there’s some out-of-place live-action footage of two children playing with a puppy. The cat and hen are proud of their adopted son, but he’s busy, fondly remembering his duck mother.
The changes are down to an adaptation by Murata’s cinematographer and presumed railhead, Aochi Chuzo, and they completely change the meaning of the story. Andersen explores the joy of a misfit finding his place in the world; Aochi’s lost swan is happy alone, but wishes there could have been another way.
The Differences, And Why
All the animals are beautifully drawn, which Murata has always excelled at when he’s going for emotional heft over kiddy comedy. The story is well told and makes sense in its own right. But in removing the idea that there’s more than one way to live your life from the story, Yokohama Cinema have cored out its heart. An examination of the relative values ascribed to individualism and collectivism in 1930s Japan and 19th century Denmark is a degree-level dissertation. And I’m just someone who fell down a pre-war animation rabbit hole.
But given the original story’s hyper-individualistic moral, I’m slightly surprised that Murata and Aochi chose to adapt it at all. So “The Ugly Duckling” gets 6/10, as a work that could have been fantastic if only the creators had been able to stick the landing and split the difference.
fin
That wraps up my look at 1932. I would like to give special thanks to this blog’s pillars; AniDB, who have helped me work out what to look for, the Japanese Film Archive, who have given me the material to actually watch, and the inseparable pairing of Jonathan Clements & Helen McCarthy and their “Anime Encyclopedia”.
In addition, this time around I’d also like to thank the Hans Christian Andersen Centre for making the definitive English translation of “The Ugly Duckling”, by the late actor Jean Hersholt, available online.
I’ve been Douglas Howell, and I’ve been watching Japanese animation. Join me next time, as someone makes Japan’s first animated talkie, and a monster of Japanese cinema starts tuning up its roar.