American wartime cartoons were made for family audiences with much adult-oriented political satire. But Momotaro Umi no Shimpei was clearly designed primarily for young children. The characters are cute animals with the look of plush nursery toys. They play their roles with a minimum of dialogue, almost pantomime, to a choral accompaniment of lullaby-like songs and simple martial melodies.

Momotaro's Sea Eagles. Courtesy of Fred Patten.

The opening sequence (16 minutes) shows four young animals (a bear cub, a monkey, a puppy and a pheasant) in sailor dress uniforms walking along a country road into a forest, where they meet their friends and families. They have just completed their training and are saying their farewells before shipping out. There are tearful partings and a happy send-off party. The monkey's little brother plays with his sailor's cap, which is blown into a swift river. The infant falls in while trying to retrieve it, and is rescued by all the animal children acting cooperatively just before he is swept over a waterfall.

The continuity jumps abruptly to a large South Pacific island which is a composite of Borneo, Indonesia and New Guinea. Rabbit sailors of the Imperial Navy are clearing the jungle to construct a base and airstrip. (Aside from the four animal buddies who are meant to stand out as individuals, the mass of the Japanese Navy is portrayed as bunnies or monkeys.) They are watched in wonderment by the native jungle animals, who come out and help. The scenes are brief but detailed enough that they could almost serve as a training film on how to build a tropical base. The airstrip is barely completed when transport planes arrive bringing troops (which include the four buddies). Finally a VIP plane lands and Commander Momotaro (the only human, a young boy in officer's uniform) steps out.

The next few scenes depict the joys of naval life. The puppy begins a language class to teach Japanese to the friendly natives; everybody sings a peppy nursery-school A-E-I-O-U jingle to teach A-Sa-Hi ("Rising Sun"). We see wash day, getting mail from home, athletic military exercises, and the Japanese sailors marvelling at the Equatorial tropical climate.