Taro's Toy Train

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.

Our Baseball Game

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

Private 2nd Class Norakuro: The Training

Private 2nd Class Norakuro is having the training for recruits, but makes so many mistakes.

The Larks' Moving Day

The Larks' Moving Day. Early Japanese animation.

Momotaro's Underwater Adventure

A early Japanese animation short.

Sanko and the Octopus: A Fight Over a Fortune

This early Japanese animation opens with a festival of sorts...

Princess of the Moon Palace

When a young princess is kidnapped by an evil toad, her salvation is in the hands of a brave villager.

The Monkey Sword Masamune

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.

Corporal Norakuro

Norakuro is now a corporal. On his day off-duty, he goes to eat chicken on the stick. On his way home, he falls into a slumber and dreams of fighting with the Monkey Corps, his enemy.

Over a Drink

An unemployed man picks up a flyer which happens to be a notice asking for investors to put up capital for raising a sunken ship. The sum is 10 yen each. To the man, who cannot even scrape together enough money to buy a 10-sen shochu (cheap distilled spirits), this notice seems to be completely beyond his realm. That evening, the man passes by a bar and is enticed inside where he drinks himself to sleep. When he comes to, he realizes that he is at the bottom of the sea. The man meets a samurai who is suspicious of him at first, but when he r...

Why Is the Sea Water Salty?

When a poor, yet honest, man rescues an old man who has fallen off a log bridge, the little people of the forest give him a "Mortar of Treasures" that will grant any item that a person desires. The man uses the mortar to become the richest person in the village. But the man's greedy brother steals the mortar and, determined to enjoy all the luxuries by himself, climbs into a rowing boat and heads for an isolated island. On the way, however, he asks for salt from the mortar, but then cannot figure out how to stop it. Finally, the boat sinks u...

Momotaro's Sky Adventure

Very early animated short from Japan featuring a cast of anthropomorphic animals.

Kamishibai: The Story of the Tanuki

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 a...