First Generation Of Anime Information

First generation[edit]

See also: List of anime by release date (pre-1939) and Kamishibai

Few complete animations made during the beginnings of Japanese animation have survived. The reasons vary, but many are of commercial nature. After the clips had their run,reels (being property of the cinemas) were sold to smaller cinemas in the country and then disassembled and sold as strips or single frames.

A 3-second film loop tentatively titled Katsudō Shashin (活動写真, Moving Picture) was likely produced between 1907 and 1911 and discovered in Kyoto in July 2005. It consists of fifty frames stencilled directly onto a strip of celluloid^[2] depicting a young boy in a sailor suit who writes the kanji "活動写真", turns, removes his hat, and offers a salute. The creator's identity is unknown, and it was made for private viewing rather than public release.

Ōten Shimokawa was a political caricaturist and cartoonist who worked for the magazine Tokyo Puck. He was hired by Tenkatsu to do an animation for them. Due to medical reasons, he was only able to do five movies, including Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki (1917), before he returned to his previous work as a cartoonist.

Another prominent animator in this period was Jun'ichi Kōuchi. He was a caricaturist and painter, who also had studied watercolor painting. In 1912, he also entered the cartoonist sector and was hired for an animation by Kobayashi Shokai later in 1916. He is viewed as the most technically advanced Japanese animator of the 1910s. His works include around 15 movies.

Seitaro Kitayama was an early animator who made animations on his own, not hired by larger corporations. He even founded his own animation studio, the Kitayama Eiga Seisakujo, which was later closed due to lack of commercial success. He utilized the chalkboard technique, and later paper animation, with and without pre-printed backgrounds.

The works of these two pioneers include Namakura Gatana (An Obtuse Sword, 1917) and a 1918 film Urashima Tarō which were discovered together at an antique market in 2007.^[3]