Yech. This is a fairly old animated film, and you gotta give 'em a bit of lenience simply because of that, but I'm afraid this movie still snaps its leash. From the looks of it, this movie is a Japanese children's movie, but it gets as bleak as a Shakespeare act.

We open at some sort of frog pond. A little boy tree frog named somethingorother befriends a little girl leopard frog named Pooky. Her father, for some reason, isn't happy with this, because, "Tree frogs and leopard frogs don't mix." The movie just sort of takes off from here, and it becomes pretty sickeningly bleak. There's one scene where this lobster (who works for Pooky's father), for some reason, bludgeons a mother turtle to death and breaks her eggs. She asks the two frog protaganists to take care of her last remaining egg and dies. After struggling to protect the egg for a while, they discover that it is in fact actually a ping-pong ball. If THAT isn't a bit bleak, I don't know what is.

To worsen this, the movie ends with the worst deus ex machina I have EVER seen. Things have fallen apart. Our two little froggy friends are crestfallen. With absolutely no reason to do so, Pooky's father bursts onto the scene, tells her he's been a terrible father and repents with all his soul, and that's that. Everyone's happy again, completely forgetting about the two characters killed by the lobster/crayfish/whatever during the course of the movie, and it's all utopia-like. The most stinging part about this movie is that I LOVE frogs. I'm afraid this film was a horrible stain upon the reputations of our little slippery friends.

Scene to watch for: The flute playing.

Best line: "It's a ping-pong ball."

Things that make you go "Huh?": Pooky's father is stricken with remorse.

Response From RinkWorks:

Oh my. That's *terrible*.