Baguda-jou no Touzoku

"This is Dangobei, the laziest man in Baghdad"

This is one of (if not *the*) earliest cut-out-animation films from Japan.

As far as mid-1920s cut-out animation goes, the animation quality is decent but nothing spectacular. I appreciated the effective usage of some cinematography effects, namely the fades, spotlight cut-outs and that unusual wreath-blossoming-spoitlight effect. I especially liked how many of the spotlight cut-outs had certain pieces intentionally sticking out of the spotlight, such as the antlers of Dangobei's helmet.

In terms of story and writing, there are some excellent gags in this short film. I especially laughed at the angry tree and the soldiers' over-the-top siege tactics. ... However, the main story itself is a let-down. The story's execution is confusing, particularly in the middle with the snow fairy. Most grievous of all, the twice-repeated "moral" of the story - that happiness should be earned by oneself - seems to be rather undermined by the magic stone that gives Dangobei everything he wants. The real moral of the story seems to be "happiness should be earned by finding a magic stone that solves all your problems".

"Baguda-jou no Touzoku" or the "Burglars of 'Baghdad' Castle" is a silent animation made in 1926. Overall I can form a concrete paragraph of what I think about this anime so, I shall split it in bits (story, art, sound, character, enjoyment, overall):

The story is mediocre and is about taking action in order to fulfill your own dreams or in the literal words of the show "One's happiness ought to be earned by oneself". However the show does a poor job executing this, showing actions that are quite literally the opposite of the message.

the art uses the style of Chiyogami, or cut-outs of things like ... decorative paper and overall is done well. As an artist I can only imagine how hard it was to constantly move the paper to make the animations move.

Sound: N/A Its a silent film after all

The characters of this anime were just not good. We are told that the main character, Dangobei, a thief is a lazy man, but overall we are shown no sign of this.

Enjoyment: Mediocre

Overall: Decent

If you want to watch this anime I recommend going to: https://animation.filmarchives.jp/en/works/view/15479.

Small Spoiler Ahead with a bit of repeated information:

The Burglars of "Baghdad" Castle is an innovation to the animation scene as a whole and is the first step for the famous pioneer Noburo Ofuji animations, Chiyogami( cutout animations), as well as animation as a whole. But overall the anime is pretty underwhelming (at least for me). This is mostly because of the static and bad story. The whole anime is about using your own power to get what you want but this man throughout his short journey uses the power of a magic rock to get what he wants. Like seriously? The writing overall is based off of "The Thief of Bagdad" (1924) which isnt an animation but I recommend you to watch as from the few clips I have watched is quite interesting.