KOBU TORI 瘤取り爺さん - The Origins of Japanese Anime

The early animated Japanese film based on one of Japan’s age-old children’s folktales called “The Old Man & The Devils“, directed by Chûzô Aochi (as Chuzo Aoji) and Yasuji Murata. An old man has a lump or tumor on his face. In the mountains he encounters a band of ’tengu’ making merry and joins their dancing. He pleases them so much that they want him to join them the next night, and offer a gift for him. In addition, they take the lump off his face, thinking that he will want it back and therefore have to join them the next night. An unpleasant neighbor, who also has a lump, hears of the old man’s good fortune and attempts to repeat it, and steal the gift. The ’tengu’, however, simply give him the first lump in addition to his own, because they are disgusted by his bad dancing, and because he tried to steal the gift.