Rekkoku Rikugun

This is a really interesting little silent film. The artwork and animation are very crude - even when compared to similar works of the same era (it's about as sophisticated as a modern-day high school student project). Hence the low score.

And yet, there's more to this than just the quality of the art. There's also the history behind it. Like so many of the short films produced in Japan during this time period (early thirties), you can get a chilling feel for Japan's view of the world, as it (and other countries) lead up to ... greater aggression.

The crudely drawn Mr. Circle and Mr. Square travel the world to compare the war assets of different countries. First are armed forces, then tanks, then poison gas plants (!!), then air forces and finally military budgets. Time and again, Japan comes up in last place when compared to the greater forces of the Soviet Union, Britian, France, Italy, China, and even the (at that time) tiny United States. And they make a sour face each time, worried about the war posturing and where Japan stands against their belligerent neighbors.

If you are interested to take the time to tour through the archives of Japanese animation history from the early thirties up until the late thirties, you really can get a good feel for the mood of the country changing, as the stories become increasingly nationalistic (and into wartime, by law they were required to be so).