An indentured Chinese laborer, brought to Japan to work in a coal mine during WWII, manages to escape his captors. He hides out in the Japanese countryside, so far from human habitation that he does not realize when the war ends, with ultimately tragic results. Based on a story by Yoichi Takashi.
Two baby girls were born in the same hospital: one of them is the daughter of an aristocratic family while the other belongs to a depraved household which lives in the slums of the city. However, the nurse-in-charge, Michiko, secretly switches the two babies due to a personal grudge, resulting in a change of fates of the girls from then on. Many years later, the lives of the two girls continue to be intertwined with each other, with the rich Miki ill-treating the poor Nozomi, yet both of them hold similar dreams to become a singer.
(Source: Anime News Network)
This was the first episode of Mushi Pro Land, a unique series of 60-minute animated programs. It was also Japan's first 60-minute animated TV program. However, the series never materialized and only this episode was actually aired. The story follows Stevenson's "Treasure Island," featuring characters in the form of animals. For example, the pirate Silver is illustrated as a wolf, where the main character Jim is changed into a rabbit. This has, therefore, nothing to do with the "New Treasure Island," Tezuka's masterpiece Manga.
(Source: AniDB)
The film was directed by Noboru Ishiguro (The Super Dimension Fortress Macross) and is based on the true story of Yoichi Hatta (1886-1942), a civil engineer who traveled to Japanese-ruled Taiwan in 1910 to build a complex irrigation system in the barren southwest. Hatta manages to overcome the initial doubts of local farmers, but a tragic tunnel accident eventually halts the project and shakes his confidence.
(Source: AniDB)
An anti-war anime based on a book containing contemporary accounts of the fire-bombing of the city of Fukuoka on the evening of June 19, 1945.
August 1945. In a converted theological seminary on the outskirts of Nagasaki, a young doctor works to help his patients, as unsettling news comes of a new weapon used by the Americans on the city of Hiroshima. When the second nuclear weapon is dropped on Nagasaki, the hospital staff must work to save lives in the midst of the concentric circles of death that their city has become.
An educational film about the Elephant Trains in Japan. During WW2 many zoos were slaughtering their dangerous animals (such as elephants) as a safeguard against Allied bombings which might release the animals. After WW2, the only elephants that remained in Japan were two at Higashiyama Zoo in Nagoya. Special trains called Elephant Trains were arranged to bring children from all over the country to Higashiyama Zoo.
In the summer of 2000 in Hollywood, Spielberg's Dreamworks Film Corp. made the film "Chicken Run" with Nick Park, the great master of clay-figure animation, and it became a big hit. A chicken was the main character, and the story unfolded like the masterpiece "The Great Escape." Thirty-five years ago, Mushi Production created an animated work in which a chicken was the main character and a rebellion between the rulers and the ruled eventually escalated into a great war. Despite the scale of the story, the film ran for only three minutes. The ability to depict the endless repetition of war in human history in just three minutes is a unique feature of short animation, relying on exaggeration and great imagination.
(Source: en.tezuka.co.jp)
On September 26, 1959, Super Typhoon #15 (also known as "T5915", "Vera", or "Isewan Typhoon"), struck the coast of Japan with the maximum wind speed of 305 km/h, causing over 5,000 dead or missing plus over 30,000 injured, the heaviest casualty caused by a single typhoon in Japan in 20th century. This animated movie was produced on the 30th anniversary of the tragedy in order to commemorate the dead and survivors.
(Source: AniDB)
An educational film about the Kuzuryuu River in Japan. It starts out in the Meiji Era where the villages along it kept getting plagued by floods. The villagers prayed for it to stop but it did nothing. A young boy who lost his childhood friend to the floods grows up into a man and decides to take matters into his own hands. He starts constructing an embankment which leads to a village-wide project which spread to other villages along the river.
In this film, because of complaints from children that Goku is depicted as too much of an eager student, he is instead portrayed as a very naughty modern boy. It then received so many complaints from the PTA about its bad language that it was forced out of the show after all.
(Source: Official Site)
Part of the series of educational videos that teaches kids and young adults several basic tax lessons.
Pilot movie of Umi no Triton, it was created in October 1971 for the intention of selling the series to international markets and features a more Western-style drawn Triton. The pilot was released to the public on the Umi no Triton: Original Gekijou-ban DVD release nearly 3 decades later.
Hirayama Jirou has lost his mother in the Great Kanto Earthquake and now runs a soba stall with his father. He decides to join the crew of the famous ocean liner Hikawa Maru and finds work cooking in the ship's galley. Through his eyes, the film explores the ship's 85-year history.
(Source: Anime News Network)