Yokohama Cinema Shokai

A train conductor goes about his duty. All the characters are animals in human form. Hippo ladies in dresses try to jam into cars and other passengers pull jokes and cause havoc.

Tsuburaya served both as director and cinematographer of this feature-length national policy documentary, supported by the naval ministry, which creates a sketch of life among cadets aboard a naval training vessel on a voyage around Indochina, Malaya, Hawaii and the South Pacific islands. The film clearly outlines the economic motives behind Japan’s southward expansion, but also presents the music and dance traditions of various regions, in what has been termed “folklore through sound”.

The Larks' Moving Day. Early Japanese animation.

Once upon a time, the birds and the beasts fought each other in a war. It was a terrible conflict, and the clever bats would side with the birds when the birds were looking victorious, and then they would become allies of the beasts when that side was winning battles. At last the war came to an end, the two parties reached an amicable settlement, and a great party of friendship was held. But when it came to the turn of the bats to perform in the program, their fence-straddling tactics were exposed, and everyone refused to associate with them. Since that time, the bats have been too ashamed to show their faces during the day, coming out only at night to flit silently around.

A Yasuji Murata version of the classic Japanese story Saru Kani Gassen.

An old man with a huge lump on his face encounters a band of Tengu in the mountains.

An adaptation of the The Ugly Duckling.

A baseball game between the rabbits and tanuki (raccoon dogs).

A picture-story showman is reading a story about a troublemaking tanuki on the street to children. A starving tanuki with nowhere to go plots to steal offerings from Mangokuzan Temple, which has a lot of offerings. The raccoon sneaks into the temple. While he is eating bean-paste buns, a child bonze comes. So, the tanuki turns himself into a statue of Buddha. A shortened and revised version of The "Enchanted Kettle". According to The History of Japanese Animation written by Katsunori Yamaguchi and Yasushi Watanabe, the picture-story scene at the beginning of the film and the scene of the raccoon dog dancing at the end were added in this version.

During the late Kamakura period, there lived a famous swordsmith known as Masamune whose renown as a swordsmith was so great that even long after his passing the term “Masamune” was used to describe any fine sword. Even today, the Masamune Prize is awarded to swordsmiths of outstanding skills in their craft. In Yasuji Murata’s cutout animation The Monkey Masamune a humble messenger is rewarded with the gift of a Masamune sword when he saves the life of a monkey and her child.

Two girls were watching a street performer. The girls sang out loud and the performer brought them up front so that they could sing for the audience. (Source: MyAnimeList.net)

The story is based on the traditional, Japanese myth of Urashima Taro; in which a fisherman is transported from the seashore into a fantastic underwater world on the back of a giant turtle.

This very brief cartoon from Japan whose title translated means "The Monkey Fleet" and runs little more than a minute has the Asian monkeys battling octopuses as they both go underwater with the simian animals riding in submarines shooting their torpedo bullets at the sea creatures.

A movie about Hokushin Japan