Momotarou no Umiwashi

We already know that this is a LITERAL piece of imperialist propaganda, so I’ll try to bring something new to the table and review this objectively (animation quality, storyline, voice acting, music, and enjoyment). Obviously, I do not support the absolute atrocities this condones.


Animation: 7/10

Quite frankly, I was shocked by how fluid some of the scenes (particularly the attack and flying scenes) were in this film. It may sound unbelievable, but this 80-year-old animation tops the lower end of what is put out today (looking at you, low-budget, generic, seasonal isekai series. While it isn’t “great” by any means, for the time, I have to ... at least give credit for what is BY FAR the most positive aspect of this entry.


Story: 2/10

I’ll just say it now, it’s a stretch to even call what was shown here a ‘story’. It is nothing more than a VERY rose-tinted depiction of Pearl Harbor, with numerous childish jokes spliced in to hold the target demographic’s attention as they were spoon-fed an inaccurate portrayal of this (at the time relatively recent) event.


Characters: 2/10

Wow, I’m so glad I care about exactly zero of these nameless characters whose only trait is raging patriotism. Then again, they didn’t explicitly fail to explain very obvious features which hinted at a backstory that never came (if you know me, you know exactly who I’m referring to), so I won’t fail this category completely.


Voice acting / Music: 3/10

I’m fusing this into one category, as the number of legitimate voice lines (beyond a generic “banzai!”) was so low I could probably could them on my hands. This was due to the majority of scenes being (poorly) mimed out by the ‘characters’, in addition to slapstick ‘comedy’ which isn’t really funny to anybody above the age of six. The music was cheesy, cheerful, and exactly what you would expect if you’ve EVER listened to generic 1930’s/1940’s upbeat background music.


Enjoyment: 4/10

My enjoyment was solely from an interest point of view (I’m rather into watching and critiquing niche WWII films, no matter which country they originated from), so you’re likely to have a wildly lower enjoyment rating. Even then, I would much rather go rewatch pretty much any other entry in that category over this, since I found myself bored out of my mind for the vast majority of the film’s runtime. The only redeeming aspect was the ability to make an occasional “that is NOT how physics works”, or “how are you not dead already?” jab as I often enjoy doing with downright awful storytelling.

Ultimately, I would only recommend this if you’re like me and have already exhausted the supply of decent WWII anime films, but still wish to continue down this very questionable (glass) rabbit hole out of morbid curiosity or the insatiable calling of your weird special interest.

Momotarou's Sea Eagles is better than its extended sequel in two major ways. One that is it shorter, and two that it has a synchronized and concise narrative. The film is a Japanese propagandistic perspective of the bombings of Pearl Harbor and the offensive on the Pacific theatre of the Second World War. It makes for a curious contrast to American propagandistic films of the same time - a la popeye that dealt with the event in vastly contrasting terms. We already see the employment of non threatening anthropomorphic personifications standing in for the Japanese as opposed to the threatening demon like external existential ... threat from the opponent becoming a part Japanese animation lexicon and stylistic toolkit.

Once again, it is worth remembering that the director of this film was a known communist sympathizer at the time and opposed to Imperial Japan's expansionist policies. He had also previously been detained and tortured on occasion for his political sympathies. This made his participation in these propagandistic works reluctant at worst and self sabotaging at the best. Mitsuyo Seo went out of his way to portray the brutality of war with the prolonged live footage of the bombings inserted into his film, something that flew right past the naval supervisor censors who saw this as a victory lap of their strategic achievements at that point in the war.

As a piece of art, there's nothing really particularly of interest here beyond its historical nature as being the first real Japanese feature length work. It isn't particularly provocative but adds some context into how the Expansionists thought about the war effort.

The more I think about this historically, the more retarded the whole project seems. Japan attacked Peal Harbor and felt the need to instill in children such an achievement, perhaps even brainwash them into celebrating the Empire's actions overseas. What next? They hire a leftist artist to direct a pro-war propaganda animated movie. Sounds good? Unworried about the future, the military rejoiced over a rather unimpressive final product. Seo most definitely felt bad about all this, meaning his efforts towards the film's realization must have been the bare minimum. He'd still direct a sequel before Hiroshima's bombing. The government never thought for a second that ... they could lose the war, that all this pathetic pretentiousness would be glued on the wall of shame for future generations to contemplate. And it is not even good. Even the most morally questionable projects from Disney and Warner Bros. still had beauty resulting from the hard work of artists whose ideologies didn't interfere with their skill. Momotarou no Umiwashi is a bad movie no matter how you look at it. Not denying its historical importance, which comes down to Tezuka being inspired, but it aged horribly, both technically and conceptually. Check it out to laugh at the Army's conceit which in turn led to their demise.