The Fleischer Brothers’ Gulliver’s Travels (ガリバー旅行記),
the second feature-length cel animation ever made, was a big success when it
premiered just before Christmas in 1939.
Because of the war, it did not reach Japan until 1948 where it is
believed to have been the inspiration behind Kindai Eiga-sha’s unusual 1950
animated short Gulliver’s Great
Activities (ガリヴァー奮闘記/Gulliver Funtōki, 1950).
Japanese companies had long before the war already cottoned on to the
fact that animation was a great way to promote products. There were the record
talkies which used animation to promote popular music in the 1920s and
early 1930s. One record talkie that I
know of, Chameko’s
Day (1931), even additionally features Lion Toothpaste product placement.
Gulliver’s Great Activities
was funded by the Japan’s National Tax Agency (国税庁) with
the aim of promoting the payment of taxes by the general public. I do not know how widely the film was
distributed, nor how successful it was in motivating people to pay their
taxes. From an early 21st
century perspective, the efforts seem pretty ham-fisted and they amuse me
greatly.
With the landscape, town, and character designs, the filmmakers have
done a reasonable job of creating an 18th century European
environment. Almost all adaptations of Gulliver’s Travels play fast and loose
with the original plot and settings – the Fleischer Brothers’ film was only
very tenuously based on the opening chapter (A Voyage to Lilliput) of the
original novel, and Gulliver’s Great
Activities seems loosely based on the 1939 animation – an adaptation of an adaptation
of sorts. While Fleischers’ film was
definitely marked with their in-house “cartoon”- style, the Kindai Eiga-sha
film seems more based on European illustrations and paintings.
That being said, the anachronisms are startling. The first appears in
the opening credits. The ship that presumably Gulliver is travelling on when he
gets shipwrecked has a prominent iron cross on its sail. This is indeed surprising because the iron
cross has for centuries been the symbol of the German military and its antecedents. In the original novel, Gulliver sets sail
from Bristol with a Captain William Prichard, so it would be much more likely
that she ship's sails bore the cross of St. George, if it had a symbol on it at all.
The next anachronism that I spotted occurs when the townsfolk have been
informed that a giant has landed on the beach.
One woman comes to her window brushing her teeth with a toothbrush. Now,
Jonathan Swift was indeed obsessed with hygiene and the theme of cleanliness
comes up often in Gulliver’s Travels,
but not toothbrushing. The toothbrush,
which has been around in various forms since ancient times, did not really take
off in England until William
Addis invented the modern toothbrush in 1780.
From here on in, the anachronisms demonstrate that there was no concern
for historical accuracy – the anachronism are there in aid of the government
propaganda. Gulliver, it seems, is a
metaphor for the ways in which the government -using funds raised by taxes - can aid the community. After initially tying Gulliver up, a huge
storm brings flooding and the Lilliputians decide that this giant could be
useful in repairing and preventing flood damage. They send motorized trucks with goods from
the government stores to feed and revive Gulliver. After building dykes, he then aids big
industry (a smelter), followed by trade and commerce.
In his final act of heroism, Gulliver aids in putting out a fire that
threatens to burn down the town. This
sequence is particularly amusing because despite all of the anachronistic imagery of modern technology,
the town has only a manually operated water pump. This is just one of several moments in the film
designed to provoke laughs from the intended audience – in this case, one of
the men gets hosed in the face. I was laughing for an entirely different reason.
Directors Tokio Kuroda (黒田外喜男) and Shigeyuki Ogawa (小沢重行) have used a mix of cutouts and cel animation, which
causes some continuity problems between cuts.
The film looks amateurish compared to the Fleischer Brothers’ Gulliver’s Travels, but then they only
have a minuscule staff and much less experience when compared to the more technologically advanced Fleischer
Studios. It is by no means a classic,
but I certainly enjoyed watching it.
This film appears on Disc 4 of Digital Meme’s Japanese Anime
Classic Collection.
35mm talkie
length: 9’07”
Production Company: Kindai Eiga-sha 近代映画社
Producer: Masao Tsukimura: 月村正雄
Planning: The National Tax Agency 国税庁
Directors: Tokio Kuroda 黒田外喜男 and Shigeyuki
Ogawa 小沢重行
Concept by: Shinpei Yamaguchi 山口晋平
Screenplay by: Katsushi Toba 鳥羽克始
Cinematography: Ichiro Kimura北村一
Dialogue: Theatre Piccolo テアトルビツコロ
Music composed by: Kazuo Kojima小島和夫
Music performed by: Tokyo Symphonic Ensemble 東京シンフォニックアンサンブル