Toho Eiga

1942 adaptation of Izumi Kyoka's novel.

A hotheaded youth in 1880s Meiji Japan apprentices to judo master Shōgorō Yano, trading brute jujutsu bravado for discipline and humility. As Sanshirō matures, he proves judo’s spirit against old-guard challengers—including a deadly duel—while falling for his vanquished opponent’s daughter. Based on the novel by Tsuneo Tomita, son of Tomita Tsunejirō, the earliest disciple of judo.

What is marriage? Young couple in match-making wanted to know before they decide. They visited married couples of sisters and brothers. Love comedy in 1942.

1941 Toho adaptation of Natsume's novel.

The Opium War is a 1943 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Masahiro Makino. "Ahen senso" in Japan refers to the First Opium War. The story of the film concerns this war.

Wartime propaganda filmed by the Japanese in occupied China, Shirley Yamaguchi portrays an orphan rescued from the streets by a kindly Japanese merchant marine officer. Part spy thriller and part Shanghai travelogue, it was part of a popular series known as "Chinese Continental Friendship" made by the occupying Japanese in China.

Young men endure challenging flight training in the Yokaren, a program feeding new pilots into the Army and Navy. By the time of the filming, the pressure of the war had led the government to shorten the training and expand the age range of the recruits. Yokaren was highly selective, and thus an object of great fascination and desire for boys and young men. In this Navy–sponsored film, Setsuko Hara plays the daughter of a family that often entertains recruits on their days off—a surrogate sister to many trainees. Her fragile younger brother aspires to join the program, but is rejected. With perseverance and much support from Hara and their mother, he surmounts his weaknesses and becomes a flier.

Ine Onoda, the eldest daughter of a poor family of farmers, raises a colt from birth and comes to love the horse dearly. When the horse is grown, the government orders it auctioned and sold to the army. Ine struggles to prevent the sale.

Song of the White Orchid was a co-production of Toho and Mantetsu, the railway that served the colonial region of Manchuria, and the first film in the Kazuo Hasegawa/Shirley Yamaguchi (Ri Koran) “Continental Trilogy.” Handsome Hasegawa (representing Japan) runs up against an impertinent Yamaguchi (representing the continent); not surprisingly, in the course of the film the woman comes around and realizes the benevolent intentions of the Japanese. In Song of the White Orchid Yamaguchi leaves Hasegawa, who plays an expatriate working for the railway, because of a misunderstanding. She joins a communist guerilla group plotting to blow up the Manchurian railway. Learning of the subterfuge that led to the misunderstanding, she renews her faith in Hasegawa—and by extension Japan—and tries to undermine the plot.

Set against the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion, two Osaka families navigate the radical social shifts of the early Meiji Era. As the merchant class ascends to economic prominence, the former samurai class faces a steady decline in status and traditional structure.

Japanese Navy air cadets train for the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the HMS Prince of Wales.

A self-absorbed young actor humiliates an elderly Noh performer, who then commits suicide. His act of cruelty compels his father to disown him, leading the once promising actor to a life on the streets. But his desire to win back the respect of his father and the affection of the dead actor's daughter pushes him toward a more noble existence. Naruse employed a delicately structured mise-en-scene in this family melodrama, which evokes the work of Josef von Sternberg.

Japanese propaganda film

Another adaptation of Tange Sazen.

This film depicts a troupe of wandering kabuki players traveling through rural Japan.

Based on "Heaven and Maiko", a short story from the book "Chiisaki Hanabana" by Yoshiya Nobuko, it is the story of two girls of different family backgrounds in Osaka.

Japanese adaptation of LES MISERABLES. The last film of director Itami took inspiration from Les Miserables. Transpiring during the Southwestern War of 1877 in Japan, which was the last civil war in the country, a criminal escapes prison only to be found by a monk. The criminal decides to turn a new leaf based on their conversation and goes on to become a town's mayor. He hears news of a mistaken arrest and identity. The revelation of truth is the start of a series of miseries.