Momotaro's Sea Eagles (Momotaro no Umiwashi) is a 37-minute Japanese animated film from 1943. Released during World War II, it is a propaganda film meant to promote Japan's war effort against the United States, not unlike some Popeye cartoons of the era which did the exact opposite.
Plot[]
Featuring the "Peach Boy" character of Japanese folklore, this film was aimed at children, telling the story of a naval unit consisting of the human Momotaro and several animal species representing the Far Eastern races fighting together for a common goal. In a dramatization of the attack on Pearl Harbor, this force attacks the demons at the island of Onigashima (representing the Americans and British demonized in Japanese propaganda), and the film also utilizes actual footage of the Pearl Harbor attack.
Use of Popeye characters[]
The film's poster makes unofficial use of such iconic American characters as Betty Boop, Popeye and Bluto, showing them utterly defeated alongside Franklin D. Roosevelt. The film itself only employs Bluto, depicting him as a drunken ogre and implying he is representative of the American people as a whole.
Trivia[]
- The sound of Bluto crying is reused from Adventures of Popeye, during the Axe Me Another scene.
See also[]
External links[]
- Momotaro's Sea Eagles at the Internet Movie Database