Found this on a Japanese music site called Qetic. Thought it was a cool moving gif and very cool graphics from Japan. Just a short time waster on a Saturday night.
CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE IT MOVE
This actually has rhythm too. Some Japanese artists really make some great stuff - especially when it comes to animation type of things.
The cartoon is not nearly as bloody and gutsy as American anime at the time, but you can sense the subtleties of the Japanese mindset and just how "dark" a society Japan really was at the time (I still think, in many ways, Japan is a very "dark" country... But that's a post for another time).
The cartoon is Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors. In Japanese: 桃太郎 海の神兵（ももたろう うみのしんぺい）"Momotaro Umi no shinpei." Interestingly, there's an entire Wikipedia entry in English no less (saves me a lot of work!)
Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei (桃太郎 海の神兵, lit. Momotaro's Gods-Blessed Sea Warriors or Momotaro, Sacred Sailors) is the first Japanese feature-lengthanimated film.[3] It was directed by Mitsuyo Seo, who was ordered to make a propaganda film for the war by the Japanese Naval Ministry. Shochiku Moving Picture Laboratory shot the 74-minute film in 1944 and screened it on April 12, 1945. It is a sequel to Momotarō no Umiwashi, a 37-minute film released in 1943 by the same director. It is black and white.
Plot: After completing naval training, a bear cub, a monkey, a pheasant, and a puppy say goodbye to their families. Like the prior film, the movie features the "Peach Boy" character of Japanese folklore. The film is about the surprise maneuver on Sulawesi island, depicting parachute troops' actions. The monkey, puppy and bear cub are the ones that become parachute jumpers while the pheasant becomes a pilot. The whole movie also depicts the Japanese "liberation of Asia", as proclaimed by the Government at the time.
There are some musical scenes. Of note is The Song of AIUEO (アイウエオの歌AIUEO no Uta), a scene where Japanese soldiers teach local animals how to speak.
Background: The Naval Ministry previously showed Seo Fantasia, a 1940Disney film. Inspired by this, Seo tried to give dreams to children, as well as to instill the hope for peace, just as he did in the prequel movie, Momotaro's Sea Eagles.
The Song of AIUEO (アイウエオの歌 AIUEO no Uta) is famous for being given a homage in the series Kimba the White Lion (ジャングル大帝 Janguru Taitei) by Osamu Tezuka (Tezuka watched the film in April 1945. He later said that he was moved to tears by the movie's hints of dreams and hopes, hidden under the appearance of war propaganda).
For a long time, the film was presumed to have been confiscated and burnt by the American occupation. However, a negative copy of the film was found in Shochiku's Ofuna warehouse in 1983 and was re released in 1984.A reproduced movie was later screened and the VHS package is now available in Japan.
So, without further ado, here is the cartoon Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors in it's entirety (parts 1/9 to 9/9). I placed them all here for your convenience so you wouldn't have to search for them.
If you just want to get the gist of the film, I suggest watching the first part and the very last part... The lunacy of war. Why do we do this?
By the way, the foreign soldiers in the final scene are British and not Americans... But the very last scene where the Japanese kids are jumping out of a tree onto a map of the USA drawn on the ground is, quite, well, "interesting."
Playing with dolls is for little girls. Collecting ridiculously expensive dolls is for collectors (preferably women). My ex-wife collected porcelain Barbie dolls and some of those were way over $1000 a piece. I'm sure she still has many of them.
Being a guy, I'm not really into dolls. Funny that. Even when I was a kid I didn't much care for dolls. I remember in the mid-sixties when the first GI-Joe dolls came out, my parents bought me one. I think I liked it when I first saw it. But when I opened the box, I thought,
"Gee, mom, dad, what am I supposed to do with it?" I didn't really think dressing and undressing a male doll in uniform was all that fun.
I think I set the GI-Joe on fire in a realistic reenactment of the Battle of the Bulge... I often set my toys on fire when I was a kid.
In the last 20 years or so, playing with dolls has come back into fashion for some guys. Though they won't call them dolls. They are called "figurines." Call them what you want, they are still dolls.
One time, I went to a friends house and in his room, he had all sorts of these figurines lined up at the head of his bedroom wall. They were things like Star Wars' Darth Vader, R2D2, Luke Skywalker, Star Troopers, etc. You get the picture.
He said to me, "Mike! Do you like my figurines? Aren't they cool?"
I ribbed him back when I said, "Yeah. Real cool. I think I stopped playing with dolls when I was 6 years old."
"They are not dolls! They are figurines!" He protested.
"Yeah. Whatever..."
That reminds of my second daughter, Sheena. When Sheena was about 6 or 7, Ren & Stimpy was on TV. I loved that cartoon. On Ren & Stimpy, they had a fake commercial for a toy called, "Log." Log was just as the name said it was; it was a piece of wood. Since I watched Ren & Stimpy religiously, my kids watched it too.
Never underestimate the power of TV on a child's mind. That's why it is so bad and dangerous.
WATCH THIS FAKE COMMERCIAL FOR LOG FROM
THE CARTOON REN & STIMPY
One time, after the commercial for Log came on, my daughter said, "Daddy! I want one!" I was so surprised. "Are you kidding me?" I thought. I decided then, that I should use that opportunity to teach her a lesson about life and about BS on TV.
Soon after it was her birthday so I went to Tokyu Hands Department store and bought a piece of wood that looked like Log, wrapped it up and gave it to her for her birthday. She was so happy to get it. After opening the package, she said to me with wide eyes full of bewilderment, "Daddy? How do you play with it?" I sang the song:
What rolls down stairs
alone or in pairs,
and over your neighbor's dog?
What's great for a snack,
And fits on your back?
It's log, log, log
It's log, it's log,
It's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
It's log, it's log, it's better than bad, it's good."
Everyone wants a log
You're gonna love it, log
Come on and get your log
Everyone needs a log
log log log
*whistle*
LOG FROM BLAMMO
I think she was so disappointed. Of course, I had also predicted that she would be so I had bought her some other presents that I can't remember.... Funny that... I'm sure that neither can she... But I bet we both remember Log.
Now there's a new doll in town that's making noise. Well, she's not new. She's old. It's Barbie. But this time, she has tattoos and is, er, well, ostensibly "Punk." Yeah. "Punk" as in "Punk Barbie." How could Barbie be punk, you ask? Well, easy. Just imagine if Paris Hilton decided that she'd go punk for the evening and there you have it... Punk Barbie is about as punk as Lady Gaga or Boy George...
Punk Barbie is causing a fuss amongst parents who actually think their little snowflake will run out and get a tattoo just because their Barbie doll has them...
In an article from the New York Daily News some candidates for Parent of the Year were appalled and quoted as saying,
"I'd kill my daughter if she came home with a tattoo," said Tom Gurry, 43, of Rego Park, Queens, who has an 11-year-old.
"Barbie's supposed to be a role model for young girls, right? I don't want my daughter looking up to someone like that."
Another contestant parent said,
"I don't think that's an appropriate toy for a young girl," she said. "You don't want your kids to think tattoos are a good idea at such a young age because they last a lifetime."
Tiffany Newkirk, 51, said her 17-year-old daughter has been pestering her for permission to get tattooed.
Gee... I'd hope that, at 17, Barbie wouldn't be such a great influence on your dumb kids... Hopefully they can get good influences from wholesome things like MTV, American Idol, and their dimwit parents....Can you imagine your five-year-old with an awesome spiderweb on her neck, dragons on her arms, and three nose rings? Kewl!
These same parents who are complaining about Punk Barbie are the types who will complain later on, when their daughter is 16, drops out of school, and really does get tattoos an her neck and face that "...it was all Barbie's fault!" Yeah. Your kids being all f**ked up couldn't possibly be the result of being spoiled to death by idiot parents.
I think it stands to reason that if the Barbie you gave your daughter is the biggest influence on her life, you might need to look more closely at who the parent is. Barbie may be the president, and an astronaut, and a doctor, and a race car driver, but the last time I checked, she's not a mother.
So if she's the primary influence on your daughter's sense of ideals and fashion, you might want to kick her out of her dream house and on to the curb.
Or you could just leave Barbie alone.
And you be the parent instead.
Punk Barbie sold for $50 at retail, but they are all sold out (Go figure!) Now, according to Ryan, they are selling on E-Bay for $100.
So, Ryan, you think that's bad? Hell, in Japan, Punk Barbie is selling for over $1,250.00! (USD!)
¥98,000 Japanese yen is $1252.56
Hopefully my kids won't have their lifestyles and fashions influenced by Barbie... But then, again, if they can afford more than $1,250 for a Godd*mn doll, then I guess they are adult enough to know what they want to do...
So, I won't say anything, unless, of course, my daughters bring Ken home one day and say they want to get married to him. That's when daddy puts his foot down!
Yesterday's blog was extremely, er, "popular"... Actually, I posted about this sort of stuff on this blog long ago when this blog was just in infancy, but at those times, I guess I only had 5 readers (4 of those being my family).
This brings me to being able to coin a new word in the blogosphere. And that word is "Blag." "Blag" means a blog post that brags. OK? So I brag that I have made a new term because I am so fricking superior that I can show you stupid white imperialist trash just how superior our Japanese air-forces are to your corrupt Rooseveltian power-hungry scum are. Damn! I'm great!
Also just how cool and suave and debonair I am because I have come up with new terminology.
Anyhow, here's another cool Japanese anti-American anime is that I want to introduce to you uncultured foreign savages....
From Youtube (especially watch from 1:00 in the video...) Ha! Ha! Ha! We bomb Pearl Harbor in Momotaro's Sea Eagles and kick some serious American butt!) Die! Die! Die! Amerikanischer Swine!:
American cartoons weren't afraid of stereotypes during World War II; Popeye and Bugs Bunny battled racist visions of Japanese soldiers, and one can easily guess why the short "Tokio Jokio" wasn't part of regularLooney Tunes TV rotation. Of course, Japan had its own school of WWII cartoon propaganda, and the most famous are Momotaro's Sea Eagles and its sequel, the first feature-length Japanese cartoon, Momotaro's Divine Warriors.
Unlike the slapstick of Popeye shorts, the Momotaro cartoons are relatively serious children's films in which Prince Momotaro and his cuddly animal friends don sailor suits and bomb Pearl Harbor. Well, they don't actually say it's Pearl Harbor, but Momotaro's Sea Eagles glorifies its heroes' attack on the ogres and other vicious foreign devils of Onigashima. Momotaro's Divine Warriors tells much the same story, but with even more scenes of cute little bears and squirrels and monkeys crowding into realistic airplanes and parachuting down to slay their racial inferiors.
Momotaro's Divine Warriors isn't available on DVD in North America, but Momotaro's Sea Eagles is. Zakka Films released it as part of a "Roots of Japanese Anime" collection, along with less offensive animated works. Historical value aside, the film is both insidious and surreal, like a Funny Little Bunnies version of Triumph of the Will.
Sakigake!! Otokojuku! Must be the world's most nationalist traditionalist pro-Japanese male anime ever made! And it is hilariously funny!
Sakigake loosley translates into "first line of attack" (or "Charge!"). Otokojuku is "Men's school". So, these guys are the first line of attack at a men's high school. Get it? No? Oh, you will...
Sakigake!! Otokojuku (lit. Charge! Men's Private School) by Akira Miyashita is a comedy martial arts manga that was originally serialized at the Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1985 to 1991. It is staged in a private boy's school that teaches ōendan to troubled teenagers. The students are trained to "revive the Spirit of Japan" and mainly engage in fighting or killing courses. The nature of the manga is usually considered by the readers as a comical, or even parodic view of Japanese nationalism.
I've posted about this hilarious cartoon and other anti-American anime before in Hilarious Collection of 12 Most Anti-American Anime. The makers of this cartoon take a comedic look at hating foreigners and definitely have humorously decided the correct place of women. I'm sure they long for the good old days when men were men and women were women. The days when women walked two steps behind their man (well, actually I know lots of Japanese women who still do this). Sakigake!! Otokojuku! also disrespects foreigners. The makers long for the good old days when foreigners (read: uncultured savages) were foreigners and not living in Japan!
Hee! Hee! Who doesn't?
Here is a snippet of my favorite Sakigake!! Otokojuku! of all time. It is the most anti-American cartoon I've ever seen. This stuff is hilarious as the sterotypes just crack me up. See if you enjoy it too!
God! Isn't that fantastic? Can you imagine something like that on TV in the USA? The PC crowd would NEVER allow it! Sekigake!! Otokojuku! "How to Deal With Foreigners". In the above episode, the protagonist, Momotaro kicks the butt of an American. After mopping the floor with the guy, the Japanese girl "falls in love" with him. She says, "He's so strong!" and runs up to him and asks if he'll start dating her. He replies,
"Yesterday, dating a foreigner. Today, dating a Japanese. I hate stupid girls who change their minds all the time!" As the boys are walking away they say, "Otokojuku doesn't need women!"
大爆笑！(LOL!)
See, I told you that this cartoon was wonderful!
Sakigake!! Otokojuku! Is a very famous cartoon that ran on Fuji TV for only 34 episodes in 1988. I think it was cancelled because many people failed to see the irony, cynicism and humor and thought that the makers of this cartoon were completely serious.
Trust me, I was here in 1988 and there were a heck of a lot of people with no sense of humor... I mean, just how racist and sexist could a cartoon on national TV be? (As opposed to sexually explicit manga and all sorts of other underground publications that still exist?)
This next snippet is from an episode where the boys go to a "fashionable" club to kick the butt of the regular American guy who was usually the main antagonist mocking Japanese men and taking advantage of "naive" Japanese women. The boys are getting ready to gang up on him and beat him up, but first, they have to confuse the dumb foreigner by bedazzling him with his command of the English language. The episode itself is funny, but the best part is the English subtitles! Enjoy!
In Sakigake!! Otokojuku! women are definitely looked down upon (as well as the main characters sometimes being made fun of because of being stupid). Women in this anime, as in the minds of the makers of it, most certainly have their place in Japanese society.
The note on this next Youtube video is hilarious:
Fans all know women should never appear in this, the manliest series ever. EVER. This movie takes it one step further and proves that the manliest of men can be fooled by plastic dummies with hooters, eighties hairstyles and swimsuits. Post cockblock, the Otokojuku delinquents must take on WHALES AND AN ARMED HELICOPTER for their mistake. Poor guys. A little Engrish pops up again, and Toramaru kills a whale with his own lethal fart technique. Must be seen to be believed
Sakigake! Otokojuku! Women are Always Traps!
Oh, how the makers of this anime must long for the good old days of Japan! (Or, at least, when they were getting paid to make this great cartoon!)
Oh, how I long for the good old days when Japan had cartoons like this!
What was the greatest cartoon ever made? I'm sure it is debatable, but it doesn't seem like it was a Japanese cartoon with its limited animation techniques. It had to be an old one from the glory days of animation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think (and others agree) that the greatest cartoon ever made was undoubtably "One Froggy Evening" a cartoon that was released on Dec. 31, 1955. Many critics have called this the "greatest cartoon ever made."
Some critics and observers regard this cartoon short as the finest ever made. Steven Spielberg, in the PBS Chuck Jones biography Extremes & Inbetweens: A Life In Animation, called One Froggy Evening "the Citizen Kane of animated film."
Here it is for your pleasure; this fabulous film. It is here until someone complains. Enjoy!
One of my favorite blogs on Japan is Pink Tentacle. Pick Tentacle is a blog about Japanese Art, Culture, Science and Technology.
I highly recommend it.
Today, they have an unusual collection of 24 traditional Japanese monsters. Have you ever wondered where the Japanese get their ideas for those silly monsters in the Godzilla movies? I have. Well, the fact of the matter is that Japan has had some very strange (or silly) looking monsters for a long time.
Pick Tentacle has uncovered a collection of 24 of them and made high quality scans for your viewing pleasure! The description reads:
TheBakemono Zukushihandscroll, painted in the Edo period (18th-19th century) by an unknown artist, depicts 24 traditional monsters that once used to spook the people of Japan.
This is an interesting collection as, usually, the only other places you can see these spooks is at a local festival... And speaking of festivals, it's festival season now in Japan so get your notebooks out and jot down these characters now... They all look the same until you know the names...
Odoroshi (おどろし) is a red-faced monster with big eyes, black teeth, and long hair.
Yume-no-seirei ("dream ghost" - 夢の精霊) appears as a thin old man in a white robe.
Yamamba (山姥) is a mountain hag.
I like this last one. There was a while there, about 5 or 6 years ago, when Shibuya girls wore outrageous makeup on their faces and broad white eyeshadow. That fashion was called, "Yamamba" like the mountain hag above.
It is called Electronic Theater and is a class of post-expressionism. This particular item is a very Avante-Garde black and white cartoon called, "Distrust of Romantica" by Hitoshi Suenaga in 2001. Don't watch it more than twice, you'll have nightmares.
-------- Keywords: Distrust of Romantica, Mike in Tokyo Rogers, Hitoshi Suenaga, anime, animation, cartoon, Marketing Japan, Mike Rogers
There is a really great super-new digital artist in Japan named Kousuke Sugimoto and he has been really making some fascinating works.
Japanese director Sugimoto Kousuke started to produce animation in 2004; now he is more involved in making 2D animation music videos for local indie pop/rock bands.
He is quoted as saying, "I wanted to bring different meaning to the black-and-white world from the coloured world, by using bright colors for the other worlds."
Here is a recent work that was discovered by Kousuke Sugimoto on Pink Tentacle:
This video -- directed by Kousuke Sugimoto, with music by Takayuki Manabe -- was created in celebration of the 100th issue of IdN magazine.
This is some fascinating work from his YouTube site:
