Oldest Japanese Animation Found

[M Arnold]

From: "Michael McCaskey" <mccaskem at georgetown.edu>
> I believe there's an old one of a cartoon animal engaged in outdoor
> sports. Is that the one previously regarded as the earliest?

This description makes me think of Murata Yasuji's "Dobutsu orinpikku
taikai" ("Animal Olympics") from 1928, which I remember from the screening
at the University of Michigan a couple of years ago during the Center for
Japanese Studies film series. If that is what you're thinking of, it's not
the first. As the Asahi article states, Shimokawa Oten's 1917 film "Imokawa
Mukuzo: genkanban no maki" is usually credited as the earliest Japanese
animated film, but it no longer exists. The earliest extant Japanese
animated film is apparently a portion of Kitayama Seitaro's 1918 "Taro no
banhei: senkotei no maki."

In the article, Matsumoto distinguishes between "doga" and the newly
discovered film's technique of drawing directly on a strip of gento
film--known as "kappaban." Tsugata also raises the question of if this newly
discovered film qualifies as animation [anime] in the current sense, since
it wasn't made by photographing one drawn image at a time.

From: "J.sharp" <j.sharp at hpo.net>
> primitive looking Humorous Phases of a Funny Face, a series of chalk
> drawings, was only made in 1906? (this film can actually be viewed online,
> though I can't seem to find the link offhand).

I think you can get it at the U.S. Library of Congress website:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?papr:17:./temp/~ammem_KzZd::@@@mdb=cola,coolbib,papr,pin,ncr,varstg

Here's a direct link to download the file as MPEG:
http://memory.loc.gov/mbrs/animp/4064.mpg

Michael Arnold