Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki

The Story of the Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa
Directed byŌten Shimokawa
Production
company
Release date
  • April 1917 (1917-04)
Running time
5 minutes
CountryJapan

The Story of the Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa (芋川椋三玄関番の巻 or 芋川椋三玄関番之巻, Imokawa Mukuzō Genkanban no Maki) was once considered to be the first professional Japanese animated film ever made.[1][2] It was made by Ōten Shimokawa in 1917[3] to be shown in a cinema, in this case, in the Asakusa Kinema Kurabu, a theater in Tokyo managed directly by the film company Tenkatsu. It was preceded by Shimokawa's early work, 凸坊新画帳・名案の失敗 (Dekobō shingachō – Meian no shippai, Bumpy new picture book – Failure of a great plan) and New Art Book of Tokobo: Imosuke's Boar Hunt ( 凸坊新畫帖 芋助猪狩の巻) from January 1917.[4]

Production

In 1916, Tenkatsu, or Tennenshoku Katsudō Shashin Kabushiki Gaisha ("Natural Color Moving Picture Company"), began experimenting with animation with the manga artist Hekoten/Oten Shimokawa. Shimokawa produced the animation by drawing with a chalk on a blackboard, redrawing as necessary to create the animation effect.[4] Mukuzo Imokawa was a manga character that Shimokawa used in his manga.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Historic 91-year-old anime discovered in Osaka". Archived from the original on April 2, 2008. Retrieved May 12, 2008.
  2. ^ "Two Nine-Decade-Old Anime Films Discovered (Updated)". Anime News Network. Retrieved 5 July 2013.
  3. ^ "Japan finds films by early "anime" pioneers". Reuters. Retrieved 6 July 2013.
  4. ^ a b "Some remarks on the first Japanese animation films in 1917" (PDF). Litten, Frederick S. Retrieved 11 July 2013.


Stub icon

This anime film–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.