Momotaro - Sacred Sailors (1945)

Japanese fairy tale hero Momotaro leads a squad of heroic animal soldiers against evil British demons. Believed destroyed after Japan’s surrender, rediscovered in a warehouse in 1983 and digitally restored from the sole surviving negative. This infamous 1945 black-and-white propaganda film was funded by the Navy Ministry to promote recruitment and Japan’s military agenda in the South Seas. The film was a landmark event in anime history, and a seminal influence on the generation of animators that followed.