Earlier this month at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, film distributor Shochiku held the a public screening of Momotarou: Umi no Shinpei (Momotaro, Sacred Sailors), a 1945 war propaganda film considered to be Japan’s first feature-length animation work.
Mitsuyo Seo, who directed Momotarou no Umiwashi, joined Shochiku in 1942 and led production on the new work titled Momotarou: Umi no Shinpei.
In April 1943, as the war between Japanese and Allied naval forces in the Pacific reached a turning point, animators at the Shochiku production house began planning what would become Japan’s first feature-length animation film.
Shochiku had established its animation division, the Shochiku Animation Institute, in May 1941 to capitalize on the boom of “cartoon films.”