Tora-chan no Makan Mushi: warning children to behave well at work

Kenzo Masaoka, “Tora-chan no Makan Mushi” (1950)

In the last cartoon to feature Tora-chan (Little Tiger) and his friend Miike-chan, the two kittens have grown up a bit and are now working on a cargo ship as a welder and painter respectively. The sailor in charge of them, a buffoon and the butt of many jokes in this cartoon, boards the ship with his monkey and loads his cargo of fireworks onto the ship’s deck. He carelessly tosses aside his cigar and Tora-chan needs at least four attempts (involving a lot of repetition) to tell the sailor that the cigar is about to blow up the fireworks. Sure enough it does and Tora-chan jumps into the sea to enlist the help of several octopuses to squirt ink at the ship to quench the pyrotechnics display.

The animation is much, much better and more detailed and realistic in its backgrounds. The ocean especially is rendered well in its waves and the light reflecting off them. Fish are drawn very well even if the octopus characters aren’t. The characters look a bit more refined in their technical details even if one of them is boorish in behaviour. The animation does well in portraying distance perspective and in characters moving forward from mid-distance in the background.

While there’s a lot of slapstick about and the film does end inconclusively, it at least carries a message about being disciplined at work, working well with one’s colleagues and the consequences of bad behaviour, poor personal habits and not listening to warnings. The sailor gets his comeuppance and presumably will have to spend much more time hauling cargo.

I confess to being quite disappointed in this film and the previous film “Tora-chan to Hanayome” after having seen “Suteneko Tora-chan” which has quite serious themes for a work aimed at families with young children.