Toshi wo Totta Wani / The Old Crocodile

年をとった鰐

The Old Crocodile, sleeping on a riverbank.

Synopsis

The Old Crocodile is an underrated fairy tale about a greedy crocodile and his friend, a caring octopus. This story tells you about how desperate one crocodile (or person) can be to get food.

Story and Characters

There are two characters; The Octopus who is a caring soul who wants to help the crocodile to find food, while sacrificing her own food at the same time. The Crocodile however finds himself in a situation he can't control, since being an crocodile he finds the urge to eat whatever is in front of him, regardless of what it is, and isn't aware of the octopus's generosity. I should say here that both characters are metaphors for human kindness and human greed.. One of them goes out of her way to provide food for another being, completely ignoring her own hunger. The other one only cares for food, and doesn't care about anything else. The story is very simple and as stated above, the crocodile wants food and the octopus has food to give. But the crocodile gets too hungry, and tries to eat the octopus's legs. The octopus does not realize why she is giving food to such a selfish creature until it is too late... But I really don't want to ruin the story for you, so I will say no more.
The Old Crocodile, with Octopus who is offering food to Crocodile.

The Old Crocodile, with Octopus who is offering food to Crocodile.

Art and Animation

The artwork is hand-drawn in an ink-blotch style, and the backgrounds are always in sepia tone - this brown, white and black colour scheme does work though, since the story makes you forget about those colours as the anime goes on. I find the animation to be cute, since it's hand-drawn so you can say it's almost personal? I like that about this anime. I am certain the artist had to draw lots of frames just for this anime, please remember that when you watch this.

Sound, Music and Voice Acting

The sounds effects are little to note, except the sound of the waves. The music is based off Sudanese traditional music, appearing more towards the end of the anime. The voices are original in English, and the narration by Peter Narakan is perfect with his calming voice. He manages to put such much emotion into a short monologue. His voice reminds me a little bit of Arthur Lowe from the 'Mr. Men' animated series from my childhood (or at least, what I remember of it). I believe you can also find a French dub and a German dub if you look in the right places, but I haven't watched those versions so I can't judge on their quality. As far as I know, there is no Japanese voice option despite being a Japanese anime. I can't find a Japanese dub, just a version with Japanese subtitles with English voices.

The Old Crocodile, with Octopus feeling sorry for Crocodile. (Notice one leg is missing from Octopus...)

Final Thoughts

A short story you do not want to miss if you like to think about philosophical things in nature. The only thing is that a lot of people assume this is a children's anime because it's a fairy tale and the anime is rated 'G for all ages'. I personally don't think this is a problem. If you want a nice short story to watch, then please watch this. It's only 13 minutes long and it's not a bad animation.

Thank you for reading my review! If you see any mistakes then please let me know. I would greatly appreciate any advice you can give me.