Sazae-san no seishun / サザエさんの青春 (‘Sazae-san’s Youth’, 1957) by Martin Dowsing / Anime Blog Tracker

Sazae-san no seishun / サザエさんの青春 (‘Sazae-san’s Youth’, 1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #246Chiemi Eri This third film in the Toho series kicked off by the previously-reviewed Sazae-san was the first to be shot in colour, but otherwise director Nobuo Aoyagi repeats much the same recipe, even down to Chiemi Eri dancing along the street singing ‘Bippidi-Boppidi-Boo’, as she had also done in the first film, although there are fewer songs this time around. Here Sazae-san becomes engaged to her long-term sweetheart, Fuguta (Hiroshi Koizumi), and tries to prepare herself for married life by taking on the household chores, helping to look after her cousin’s new baby and getting a job in a department store to contribute to the household income. Of course, she makes a mess of all three, and disaster is only narrowly averted when a female customer at the store takes a liking to Sazae and invites her round for tea – it turns out that she’s the wife of Sazae’s father’s boss and sees Sazae as a possible future wife for her son… Released just in time for New Year, this would have been intended as a film that the whole family could enjoy together, and it retains an old-fashioned innocence and charm, while the new colour photography suits the material well, making it look appropriately more cartoonish than it did in black and white. After skipping the second film, Tatsuya Nakadai reappears here as Sazae-san’s cousin, but has only one brief scene around 35 minutes in, in which he’s at a hospital waiting to see his newborn child for the first time (typically, Sazae-san manages to mix it up with someone else’s baby to comic effect). Incidentally, Nakadai is not the only Kurosawa favourite to pop up in these films – also present is Kamatari Fujiwara, who appeared in no fewer than 12 Kurosawa pictures, and even made it to Hollywood on one occasion, appearing in Arthur Penn’s underrated Mickey One (1965). Also deserving a mention is Tomoko Matsushima, who plays Sazae-san’s big-eyed younger sister and is pretty funny in these films. Everyone knows about Johnny Cash’s famous prison gig, but Matsushima performed at Sugamo Prison in 1950 at the age of 5 and apparently reduced around 1,000 war criminals to tears with her rendition of a Japanese song entitled ‘The Cute Fishmonger’. Later in life, she became a TV presenter and was attacked twice by big cats – once by a lion, another time by a leopard, luckily surviving both incidents without major harm. It has been speculated that her large eyes may have been a reason for the attacks as it’s inadvisable to look a dangerous predator in the eye and presumably, therefore, even less of a good idea if you have big eyes... Watched without subtitles. DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles). If you enjoy this blog, feel free to Buy Me a Coffee!

Martin Dowsing

Feb 13, 2026 • Subscribe

Sazae-san

The Gate of Youth / 青春の門 / Seishun no mon (1975)

Obscure Japanese Film #165 Tomohiro Tanabe and Sayuri Yoshinaga Based on the first part of a bestselling doorstop novel by Hiroyuki Itsu...

Martin Dowsing

Feb 9, 2025 • Subscribe

Colorful

Youth (Spring) (青春, Wang Bing, 2023)

Wang Bing turns his camera on the mostly young workers in the textile factories of Zhili.

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