Ken'ichi Enomoto is studying to be a great warrior, but he is a hasty youth. When he continues through with an attack when ordered to stop -- because there is no pausing in a real battle -- he is told that he will not be in the team at the fair the next day. He doesn't know what to tell his mother, but mothers know everything, don't they? So he is given a letter to carry to a priest. However, the path is haunted by ghosts and giants and fox spirits (the last played by a mischievous Hideko Takamine) and he gets into a lot of trouble.
It's at once a children's fantasy, a comedy, and a polemic against military hastiness, with a lot of clear references the the World War raging when it was produced. Like many fantasies made for children, it seems to be assembled and edited in a mildly slapdash fashion, and the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya are clearly added by optical printing.
I often have a lot of trouble looking at these children movies. The joins are so clear to me that it seems contemptuous of its audience. I noticed these as a child, which is why I was never as emotionally affected by them; they were obvious fakes. Yet I don't think I was a particularly observant child.
