A farmer walking in the woods is frightened away by a shapeshifting fox, who then disguises himself as a samurai and makes his way to a temple, haunted by a young shapeshifting tanuki whose various attempts to frighten the fox/samurai away fail. The young tanuki telephones his father, and they join forces against the samurai.
Direction
Oishi's Disney-meets-ukiyo-e chaos
Sound
Telephone rings in 1933 Japan hit different
Director
Ikuo Oishi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This is early yōkai animation—tanuki and kitsune rivalry stories date back centuries, but Oishi makes it slapstick.
Ikuo Oishi studied Disney techniques; this short shows the collision of American rubber-hose animation with Japanese folklore.
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