Horst_In_Translation Review of Cannon Fodder

Cannon Fodder (1995)

Never tries to make a statement on (anti-)war, but the storytelling perspective is fairly mediocre

[4/10 · 27 January 2018]

"Taiho no Machi" or "Cannon Fodder" is a Japanese animated short film from 1995, so this one is also already over 20 years old. At slightly over 20 minutes, it is the shortest by far from the trilogy of films included on Memorîzu and Katsuhiro Ôtomo is not just the writer as usual this time, but also the director. At the beginning and end, the focus is on a boy and his family and how they deal with life in a place that is vastly influenced by the military. In-between there are tons of war action and army references and we even see a character on one occasion who through his beard may have a bit too much resemblance with Adolf Hitler. Anyway, it's not a Nazi film or anything, but it is much more about the mystery who they are fighting and why, which is an idea I like. Still the exact execution here did not seem too memorable to me and the animation style wasn't really to m,y liking either I must admit, but that's just personal preference and not really because it looks older than mid-1990s. The exact plot and attention to detail, especially about the story rather than the animation could have been a bit better too and as a consequence I found most characters really forgettable, even the key players. About the voice acting I cannot say too much as I focused on the English subtitles, but I guess it wasn't too bad. Still all in all, this is not my favorite from the Ôtomo trilogy. But it's also definitely not bad enough to be a negative deal-breaker that may keep you from watching the entire thing. Nonetheless I give it a thumbs-down as a whole, this one here at least. Not recommended.