My Big Emergency (1936)
aka Oira no hijoji
Article 5535 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-11-2018
Directed by Sanae Yamamoto
No cast
Country: Japan
What it is: Japanese animation

The peaceful members of the world of Frogland have to defend themselves when they are victims of a sneak attack by an evil horde of airplane bombers.

I don’t know if I’ve correctly assigned the Japanese title to this animated short that was passed on to me under the main title above, but it was the only movie listed on IMDB from 1936 that is credited to Sanae Yamamoto, so I’m making a leap of faith. Of the early Japanese shorts I’ve been watching lately, this is the one closest in style to equivalent American cartoons of the era. It has some Felix the Cat touches, and the pilots of the bombers look quite similar to the character of Bimbo from the Fleischer brothers shorts. It’s actually quite creative and very well done, with the anthropomorphic animals being the main fantastic content. However, as an American, I can’t view the cartoon without feeling a great sense of irony in the fact that this short about a clearly evil sneak air attack came from the same country responsible for the sneak air attack on Pearl Harbor.