Why this weird 1930s Tanuki cartoon is worth 5 minutes of your life

This short is barely a few minutes long, so honestly, yes, you should just watch it right now if you have any love for weird old-school animation. People who love Japanese folklore or old bouncy cartoons will have a blast. If you only watch high-def CGI stuff or get annoyed by repetitive scratchy music, you will probably hate this within ten seconds. 🦝

It is basically just about some tanukis—you know, those Japanese raccoon dogs—hanging out near a temple. They sing, they dance, and they drum on their bellies like they just ate a massive dinner.

The animation is super crude but has this amazing, jerky energy. It reminds me a bit of the frantic, restless pacing in Ball Park, where everything on screen is constantly vibrating for no real reason.

The Big Belly Beatdown

There is a priest at the temple who gets annoyed by the noise. But instead of getting mad, he just joins in on the musical madness with his own instruments, which is honestly the best way to handle noisy neighbors.

The way the tanukis move is incredibly hypnotic. They bounce on their heels, and their round little bellies literally look like rubber balls. I love how the faces of the characters change shape from frame to frame, it is very charmingly imperfect. It lacks the slickness of big Hollywood films like Morning Glory from the same year, but it has ten times the raw weirdness.

One of the tanukis has this incredibly wide, blank stare that honestly kind of freaked me out. It looks directly at the camera while slapping its stomach, like it is challenging you to a duel. 😳

"The music is just one simple tune played over and over, but it gets stuck in your head like a bad commercial jingle."

I ended up humming the melody while making coffee this morning, which my roommates did not appreciate. It has that same repetitive, slightly haunting quality you find in other early sound shorts like A Wee Bit o' Scotch.

Odd Little Details I Noticed:

• The priest's eyes seem to drift apart when he gets excited.
• A moon in the background looks like a giant slice of cheese but with no holes.
• One tanuki just falls over in the background and nobody helps him up. He just stays there.
• The sound quality is so scratchy it sounds like someone is frying bacon next to the microphone.

Is it a masterpiece of storytelling? Absolutely not, there is literally no plot other than "let us make noise tonight." But it has so much more soul than most modern stuff. It is just a bunch of joyful, round creatures vibing in the dark.

Definitely give it a quick look if you want a dose of 1930s bizarre. It is much more fun than sitting through a stuffy drama like The Thirteenth Chair, that is for sure.