Doubutsu Tonarigumi is a propaganda film from the early days of World War II. Personally, I’ve always found this type of thing kind of interesting whether it’s blatantly racist American comics or my own country scapegoating Jews for everything. In spite of the fact that Jewish people did nothing wrong. Let’s see what some old-fashioned Japanese propaganda looks like.
Story:
The film is basically a series of snippets about the importance of having an organised neighbourhood association. They can pass on flyers, spread awareness of over-priced black markets trying to profit off of scarcity, put out fires, chase away pushy salesmen and shelter together in the event of a bombing.
This is a lot more mild and tame compared to a lot of the WWII propaganda pieces I’ve seen. Which makes it significantly less problematic to look back at but it also makes it less interesting. When I look at a comic of Superman using racial slurs while fighting very questionably drawn Japanese soldiers, it’s awful but also morbidly fascinating. The same is true for a lot of those old propaganda pieces. But this one is just cloying and boring. The big message seems to be “make your neighbourhood better by snitching.”
Characters:
The members of the neighbourhood association are basically indistinguishable from one another. There’s not even enough personality amongst them to be called archetypical.
Art:
For 1941, the animation isn’t all that bad. It definitely doesn’t hold up by any means. The animation is awkward and choppy. The characters look pretty shite too. The best you can say about it is that it doesn’t include a bunch of egregiously offensive designs. Which may seem like it should go without saying but it is a WWII propaganda piece.
Sound:
This sounds its age. The mixing is badly done. The voice acting is very stilted. And I’m sure part of that is just how bad sound recordings were back then.
Ho-yay:
None here. Partly because of when it was made and partly because the characters are beyond paper-thin.
Final Thoughts:
It’s pretty rubbish. Maybe in the early 1940s this looked and sounded impressive. But that doesn’t alter the basic fact that there’s nothing of substance here. It doesn’t even have the decency to be a PSA/ propaganda work that’s so outrageous and absurd that it’s kind of fascinating. My rating is going to be a 3/10. I wouldn’t bother tracking it down unless you’re really curious about WWII propaganda to the point where even the boring ones are of interest.
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