"Ahiru Rikusentai" is a most unusual Japanese cartoon. I found it on the website for Japanese Animated Film Classics and it was in the section reserved for Japanese propaganda shorts. However, after seeing it, I was shocked that it really wasn't a propaganda film at all and actually had an anti-war message...something quite surprising since it came out only a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor AND it was made in a country where there was strict control over the media. Someone obviously thought the message was okay and the film was financed by the Japanese government, which was already fighting a decade-long war in China by this point.
The animation for this cartoon is really good compared to other older Japanese cartoons...with a nice 3D look and wonderful backgrounds. The story that follows is about a minor argument between the ducks and frogs that escalates to all-out war...with battleships and cannons and the like! But, in the end, both sides come to realize just how stupid all this is.
The anti-war message was odd but makes this more than just an odd curio. Well worth seeing and very well made.