<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: 16px; ">From Reuters (<a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20080327/120660518600.html)">http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20080327/120660518600.html)</a>, with quotes from our Film Center friend Irie Yoshiro: <br><br><table border="0" width="750" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="position: static; z-index: auto; "><tbody><tr><td width="10"><br> </td><td width="560" valign="top"><table><tbody><tr><td></td></tr></tbody></table><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td align="right" valign="bottom"><a href="http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/"><font size="-1" face="arial,helvetica"><b>All Reuters Movie News</b></font></a></td></tr></tbody></table><hr noshade="" size="1"><font face="arial,helvetica" size="+1"><b>Japan finds films by early "anime" pioneers</b></font><br><font face="arial,helvetica" size="-1">Thursday March 27 1:06 AM ET</font><br><div><font face="arial,helvetica" size="-1"></font><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><font face="arial,helvetica" size="-1"><p>Two early 20th century Japanese animated movies, crafted by pioneers of the "anime" that has since swept the world, have been found in good condition, a researcher at <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1206594548_0">Tokyo</span>'s <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1206594548_1">National Film Center</span> said on Thursday.</p><p>U.S. and European animated cartoons were introduced in <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1206594548_2">Japan</span> around 1914 and soon inspired works by Japanese cartoonists and artists, including Junichi Kouchi and Seitaro Kitayama, two of whose works were found in an <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1206594548_3">Osaka</span> antique store.</p><p>"Nakamura Katana," Kouichi's two-minute silent movie that tells the story of a samurai tricked into buying a dull-edged sword, was first released in 1917. <br><br clear="all">Kitayama's "Urashima Taro," based on a folk tale in which a fisherman is transported to a fantastic underwater world on the back of a turtle, came out the following year.</p><p>Together with Oten Shimokawa, whose 1917 "Imokawa Mukuzo, The Janitor" is thought to be the first commercial Japanese animated film, Kouichi and Kitayama are considered "fathers of Japanese anime," said <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1206594548_4">National Film Center researcher</span> Yoshiro Irie.</p><p>"Now everything is digitalized, but these early animated films were made on the same principles used now," Irie said.</p><p>But while modern anime is often used to tell complex, dark stories, the brief early Japanese animated films mainly surprised viewers with the simple fact the pictures moved, Irie said.</p><p>They also made people laugh.</p><p>"It was an era when people were surprised just to see that the pictures moved," he said. "The films are also full of gags."</p><p>(Reporting by Linda Sieg)</p></font></td></tr></tbody></table><br></span><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Times" size="4"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></div></body></html>