鶴の恩返し The Grateful Crane (1966)

The Grateful Crane is a stop motion puppet film by Kazuhiko Watanabe. It was released on July 31, 1966, on the same bill as Kimba the White Lion (upon which Disney's The Lion King was based). It is mentioned in Isao Takahata's 1991 Studio Ghibli film Only Yesterday.

The story is one of the most famous Japanese folk tales. An old farmer rescues a crane and is soon visited by a beautiful young woman who weaves beautiful cloth which earns the farmer sells for a large sum of money in town. In return the young woman asks only that she is undisturbed while weaving. The third time, however, the farmer is overcome with curiosity and peeks. The young woman is really the crane who is weaving her feathers into the cloth. She can no longer stay now that her identity is revealed and she flies away.