Tadahito Mochinaga

• 1. Propaganda And Regret

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  Tadahito Mochinaga began his animation career in the middle of World War II Japan. He served as an assistant to Seo Mitsuyo on Momotarō's Sea Eagles, an animated propaganda film depicting the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Mochinaga was officially in charge of backgrounds and visual effects for this project. Most Japanese children at that time were taken on official school trips to watch the film. Mochinaga was not particularly happy about this work. He wrote in his memoirs that he heard many youths volunteered for the flying corps and died on air raids. He wondered whether the film they made influenced their decision to volunteer. He thought in the future he only wished to make a film that would benefit the young. Shortly after the release of Momotarō's Sea Eagles, Mochinaga was put in charge of Fuku-Chan's Submarine despite his own protests. He claimed he was too inexperienced for such a role. Much of his staff was drafted to the military during production. Lack of supplies and funds meant Fuku-Chan's Submarine was barely finished. The film released in 1944 under these difficult conditions.

• 2. Exile In Occupied China

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  Exhausted, Mochinaga returned home to find it destroyed in a bombing raid. Foreseeing the end of the war, he feared the inevitable American occupation of Japan might involve purging propagandists as well as food shortages. Mochinaga fled with his pregnant wife to Japan-occupied Manchuria where they both had family. There, he got a job at Man-Ei as a graphic artist. Less than a month after moving to Manchuria, Japan surrendered. Fearing what would happen now that the Japanese army had fled, other Japanese workers attempted to flee but were captured by the Soviet army. Fortunately for Mochinaga, he was rehired at the now rebranded Northeast Film Studio. While there, he was given papers identifying him as a Chinese film worker. The Soviets did not seem to consider that a Japanese national could be a film worker in China. He was then given the job of subtitling Soviet films for Chinese, Korean, and Japanese markets. While there, he was able to pull other Japanese refugees into the company and get them work, including Oshiro Noboru. Mochinaga soon found himself in another war zone as the Chinese National and Communist armies battled for dominance over Manchuria. After he and his staff were captured trying to flee to Hao Gang, he had to confess to being Japanese. However, lucky for him, he happened to be captured by the Eighth Route Army, a Prisoner of War-friendly organization.

• 3. Scarcity And Stop Motion

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  In 1946, the frontline of China's Civil War moved further south, allowing Japanese nationals to finally return home. However, Mochinaga chose to stay. There, he avoided censorship by concentrating on map graphics and subtitles. During this time, there was only an estimated 20,000 feet of unexposed film left in China. Mochinaga and all Chinese filmmakers at the time had to be very careful with the amount of film they used. Mochinaga was forced to mix his own homemade paints from what he could scavenge. Mochinaga was assigned the task of animating a propaganda comic drawn by Hua Junwu. In order to save the paints, he built puppets and to save film, he shot it frame-by-frame instead of live. This was a resounding success as many in the region fondly remembered going to puppet shows. Thus, Mochinaga accidentally popularized stop motion in China. He continued to work as a successful animator and filmmaker in China for the next decade. He finally returned to his home country in 1954, four years before the massive famines in 1958.

• 4. MOM Studio Founding

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  Mochinaga is best known as the animator for Rankin/Bass' Animagic productions at his MOM Production Studio in Tokyo throughout the 1960s. He did this work in association with American director Arthur Rankin, Jr. who wrote and designed the productions before sending them to Japan for animation. The partnership produced several classic holiday specials including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer released in 1964. Willy McBean and his Magic Machine followed in 1965 as another major project. The Daydreamer appeared in 1966 with Mochinaga serving as an Animagic Technician. Ballad of Smokey the Bear also utilized his specialized techniques in 1966. Mad Monster Party? marked another significant collaboration in 1967. These projects required precise manipulation of puppets frame by frame. The resulting animations became

• 5. Animagic Partnership

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  iconic examples of the medium during that era. American audiences viewed these films while Japanese technicians executed the physical movement sequences.