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Pioneers of Japaneses Animation: From Tekobo to Momotaro

The Grandfather who makes the Flowers Bloom

Yasuji MURATA

Japan1928 5min 16mm B&W

Synopsis

One day, an honest old man spreads ashes on a cherry tree that won’t blossom and brings it to full bloom. The lord rewards him, and his greedy old neighbor, envious of him, also spreads ashes on a nearby cherry tree, but it just goes soot-black and he is ridiculed.

Diretor

Yasuji MURATA

Creating the subtitles at the Yokohama Cinema Club, Yasuji Murata got interested in foreign animation and started studying it on his own. His Fight of Monkey and Crab was released in 1927. He improved the technique by putting a motor on a moving-camera, and his cut-out animation technique equals that of latter-day cel animation. Among his main works are Octopus Bones(1927), Saru Masamune(1930), Aerial Momotaro(1931), The Monkey Goes Fishing(1933), Corporal Norakuro, The Mooncastle Princess(1934), and A Night at the Bar(1936).