Fuku-chan no Sensuikan

Fuku-chan's submarine has surprisingly turned out to be the better one of the various Japanese war propaganda films I've come to watch so far. The amount of detail in every frame is quite a sight to behold. From the backgrounds in nature to the inner walls of the submarine, I never felt the quality of the art direction drop from its stellar heights. As far as pacing goes, the movie is a slow crawl. It's goal is propaganda and it works on that with a hammer instead of a precision tool. Patriotism and fervor are a constant refrain throughout the film, but the plot dragsalong at a snail's pace leaving me impatient. The sound design was poor here. I'm unsure if this was an artifact of the archival process of a lack of budget during production. Sound effects didn't fit the context of the visuals more often than I would like. I found it eery how similar the movie feels to the German feature Das Boot, also about a submarine's escapades during the World War.