[Mesnick]

Well, this is not tokusatsu at all, but it’s still related, so I’ll share my impressions here. I watched "The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaysia" from 1942. That is, the same propaganda film for which Eiji Tsuburaya made miniatures long before Godzilla and Ultraman.
If we talk about impressions, now this film is interesting precisely as a piece of the era. Thanks to him, you can find out what people thought at a critical historical moment, because neither before nor after they would have ever filmed something like this.
Viewers, along with young Tomoda, go from a cadet to a military pilot participating in the attack on Pearl Harbor and the battles near the Malay Archipelago. The scenes with the military are very massive and impressive in scale. It is clear that no expense was spared on the film. Propaganda for the most part manifests itself in the absence of any conflicts. Tomoda gets along well with his peers and with his elders, and his family also fully supports him. Although some of his mother’s phrases and actions can be interpreted in two ways, and it is quite possible that the director dared to put a secret meaning into the film, unnoticed by the censors. Also slightly surprising is the almost complete lack of justification for the war.
Typically, in propaganda films this is the main emphasis: to explain the need for bloodshed as eloquently and as accessiblely as possible. Here it is presented simply as a given. Apparently, by that time the Japanese were already in the mood to conquer the world and they had no need for additional explanations. The enemy in the film is faceless. Only technology and an English-speaking voice on the radio. Most likely this is explained by the lack of European actors, but in the end this only benefited.
If we talk about the technical side, the miniatures are excellent. I understand why they were mistaken for real filming at the time.
Planes fly and drop bombs on ships and buildings. Of course, in my situation, when there is no electricity for 15 hours a day due to the bombing, it doesn’t look very nice, but it’s still worth appreciating good work.
As a result, I can recommend watching this film to those who want to know the origins of Godzilla, as well as those interested in that period. But both as a work of art and as propaganda, the movie is frankly weak. I think that the director and screenwriter clearly did not believe what they were filming.