Early anime discovered

[wgardne1 at swarthmore.edu]

More good news film news-- for those in Tokyo at least-- according to an
article in today's Asahi Shinbun, at the end of April, the National Film
Center will be presenting a special program of the two "anime" that Markus
reports on, together with 94 other recently "unearthed" and restored
films. These include a documentary from 1928 of politician Tanaka Giishi
delivering a speech, which the article claims is the oldest surviving
domestically-produced "talkie."


On Thu, March 27, 2008 02:17, Mark Nornes wrote:
>  From Reuters
> (http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/20080327/120660518600.html
> ), with quotes from our Film Center friend Irie Yoshiro:
>
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> All Reuters Movie News
> Japan finds films by early "anime" pioneers
> Thursday March 27 1:06 AM ET
>
> 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 Tokyo's National Film Center said on
> Thursday.
>
> U.S. and European animated cartoons were introduced in Japan 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 Osaka antique store.
>
> "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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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 National
> Film Center researcher Yoshiro Irie.
>
> "Now everything is digitalized, but these early animated films were
> made on the same principles used now," Irie said.
>
> 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.
>
> They also made people laugh.
>
> "It was an era when people were surprised just to see that the
> pictures moved," he said. "The films are also full of gags."
>
> (Reporting by Linda Sieg)
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