Just like the Germans and most other war-waging nations of WWII, the Japanese used the concept of a weekly newsreel as an important propaganda tool.
Under the premise of "news", the images and reports shown were carefully select to convince the common people that Japan was winning the war. In 1939, the Motion Picture Law was introduced, requiring the showing of newsreels before and after all cinema movies.
In April 1940, the newsreel production was centralised in Japan, with the forced merger of all big publishing companies newsreel departments into the Japan News Film Corporation, which, from that point on, would produce Japans only newsreel- the "Japan News". These newsreels were produced untill the end of the war.
This is issue No. 230 from late October 1944.
It focuses on a series of American air raids on Taiwan, commonly known as the "Formosa Air Battle" from October 12th to October 16th.
While in reality, the Americans damaged a lot of Japanese military installations on Taiwan and succesfully lured out Japanese planes to their fleet to destroy them, resulting in 312 Japanese planes lost, the Japanese only shot down 89 American air craft and managed to damage a few American ships.
But, the Japanese pilots claimed dozens of American ships destroyed, including several aircraft carriers and battleships, and despite some concerns and questions from Japanese officers over these numbers, they were eventually published and it was publicly announced and celebrated that the Japanese had achieved a great victory, while in reality, they lost hundreds of planes and didnt manage to sink a single American ship.
This newsreel focuses on that event, by showing footage of destroyed American planes, a declaration by the Japanese grand headquarters about the alledged success against American ships, and a rally in Tokyo, including a speech of Japanese Prime Minister Koiso.
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Subtitles made by me.
