Many's the time the tale of The 47 Ronin has been told. In 1963, it was told with dogs in the animated film Doggie March (Wanwan chushingura, わんわん忠臣蔵). Chushingura is the name of the 47 Ronin tale in Japanese but I'm not surprised it was left out of the English title. The story bears little resemblance to the legend or historical incident and lacks the fundamental problem of loyalty and honour that makes the original so interesting.
In this version, a dog who leads a local community of forest animals is killed by a Bengal tiger. The dog's son, Rokku, travels to the city where he meets a gang of dogs as well as an attractive female dog.
The tiger and his fox henchman are both captured and put in the city zoo so Rokku must confront his old enemy. Now he has an army of city dogs and one resourceful tanuki to help him.
There's nothing about political betrayal or obligatory suicide. What's left is a cut and dry good guys versus bad guys tale with slapstick thrown in.
Apparently Hayao Miyazaki worked on some of the animation as one of his first jobs as an animator. The animation is good, very fluid and Disney-ish, almost like Chuck Jones. Both this and Anju and Zushio felt distinctly like American animations of the 1960s so one can see how deliberately the distinctive style of Japanese anime was developed.
X Sonnet #1851
A training dream has left the class to jump.
The answers lie in strange De Palma flicks.
A million voices cry they see the chump.
But rapture's swapped for sleepy, careless clicks.
The nose of love was right between its eyes.
A canny thought departs between the ears.
To-morrow brings a basket full of pies.
Angelic groups create the sound of beers.
Reactions bind the action piece to blades.
A fancy fighter fenced his way to Earth.
No planet sates the spoiled sun for raids.
The pirates learned a thing or two of worth.
The fall of scratchy sound disposed of clear.
Another day dissolves in bottled beer.
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