Beer Mukashi Mukashi

This was a series of advertisements made for Asahi Brewery by Tadahito Mochinaga's group that he formed after he returned to Japan in 1953. Amongst those who worked on these ads are Kihachirō Kawamoto (very early in his career), Tadasu Iizawa (the writer of the ads), and Ōfuji Noburō.

These ads give us a glimpse into the stepping stones of Mochinaga's career between Shanghai and Rankin-Bass, as well as a peek at Kawamoto & Iizawa before they founded Shiba Productions. Furthermore, this series of ads is particularly notable as it is the first known example of 2-D animation and stop-motion being used to advertise an adult ... product (whereas previously they were only being used to market to kids).

Reviewing or rating this kind of work is irrelevant, especially without much comparable context from other similar works of the surrounding years. But it is certainly worth highlighting the improved smoothness of motion, greater variety in puppet faces, the use of sound/foley effects, and the greater detail in the diaramas compared to known earlier works of this group like Uriko-hime to Amanojaku. I continually find it impressive how detailed Kawamoto's figures end up being and how much life Mochinaga can coax out of them from such fixed attributes, both of them still being quite early in their careers at this stage.