Katsudō Shashin
Katsudō Shashin (活動写真, "motion picture"), sometimes called the Matsumoto fragment, is a Japanese animated filmstrip from the Meiji era that is the oldest known work of animation from Japan. Its creator is unknown. Evidence suggests it was made somewhere between 1907 and 1912, so it may predate the earliest displays of Western animated films in Japan. It was discovered in a collection of films and projectors in Kyoto in 2005.
The three-second filmstrip depicts a boy who writes "活動写真", removes his hat, and bows. The frames were stencilled in red and black using a device for making magic lantern slides, and the filmstrip was fastened in a loop for continuous play.
Description
Katsudō Shashin consists of a series of cartoon images on fifty frames of a celluloid strip and lasts three seconds at sixteen frames per second.[1] It depicts a young boy in a sailor suit who writes the kanji characters "活動写真" (katsudō shashin, "moving picture" or "Activity photo") from right to left, then turns to the viewer, removes his hat, and bows.[1] Katsudō Shashin is a provisional title for the film, whose actual title is unknown.[2]
Unlike in
Background
Imported animation projectors
Early printed animation films for optical toys such as the zoetrope predate projected film animation. German toy manufacturer Gebrüder Bing presented a cinematograph at a toy festival in Nuremberg in 1898; soon other toy manufacturers sold similar devices.[6] Live-action films for these devices were expensive to make; possibly as early as 1898 animated films for these devices were on sale, and could be fastened in loops for continuous viewing.[7] Imports of these German devices appeared in Japan at least as early as 1904;[8] films for them likely included animation loops.[9]
Projected film technology arrived in Japan from the West in 1896–97.
Rediscovery
In December 2004, a secondhand dealer in Kyoto contacted Natsuki Matsumoto,[f][3] an expert in iconography at the Osaka University of Arts.[13] The dealer had obtained a collection of films and projectors from an old Kyoto family, and Matsumoto arrived the next month to fetch them.[3] The collection included three projectors, eleven 35 mm films, and thirteen glass magic lantern slides.[3]
When Matsumoto found Katsudō Shashin in the collection,
The discovery was widely covered in Japanese media.
See also
Notes
- ^ 合羽版 kappa-ban; the printing process was called kappa-zuri (合羽刷り)
- ^ The filmstrip has since shrunk to 33.5 mm.[2]
- ^ French: Les Exploits de Feu Follet; Japanese: ニッパルの変形 Nipparu no Henkei
- ^ 玩具 gangu
- ^ 塙凹内名刀之巻 Hanawa Hekonai meitō no maki, "Filmreel of Hanawa Hekonai's famous sword"
- ^ 松本 夏樹 Matsumoto Natsuki, b. 1952
- ^ 津堅 信之 Tsugata Nobuyuki, b. 1968
- Meiji periodlasted from 1868 to 1912.
References
- ^ a b Anime News Network staff 2005.
- ^ a b c Litten 2014, p. 13.
- ^ a b c d e Matsumoto 2011, p. 98.
- ^ Matsumoto 2011, p. 116.
- ^ a b Asahi Shimbun staff 2005.
- ^ Litten 2014, p. 9.
- ^ Litten 2014, p. 10.
- ^ Litten 2014, p. 14.
- ^ a b c Litten 2014, p. 15.
- ^ Matsumoto 2011, p. 112.
- ^ Litten 2013, p. 27.
- ^ Matsumoto 2011, pp. 96–97.
- ^ a b c Clements & McCarthy 2006, p. 169.
- ^ a b López 2012, p. 584.
- ^ a b Litten 2014, p. 12.
- ^ Matsumoto & Tsugata 2006, p. 101; Matsumoto 2011, p. 115.
- ^ Matsumoto 2011, pp. 116–117.
Works cited
- Anime News Network staff (7 August 2005). "Oldest Anime Found". Anime News Network. Archived from the original on 2 February 2007. Retrieved 12 February 2014.
- Asahi Shimbun staff (1 August 2005). "Nihon saiko? Meiji jidai no anime firumu, Kyōto de hakken" 日本最古?明治時代のアニメフィルム、京都で発見 [Oldest in Japan? Meiji-period animated film discovered in Kyoto]. China People's Daily Online (Japanese Edition) (in Japanese). Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
- ISBN 978-1-84576-500-2.
- Litten, Frederick S. (2013). "Shōtai kenkyū nōto: Nihon no eigakan de jōei sareta saisho no (kaigai) animēshon eiga ni tsuite" 招待研究ノート:日本の映画館で上映された最初の(海外)アニメーション映画について [On the Earliest (Foreign) Animation Shown in Japanese Cinemas]. The Japanese Journal of Animation Studies (in Japanese). 15 (1A): 27–32.
- Litten, Frederick S. (17 June 2014). "Japanese color animation from ca. 1907 to 1945" (PDF). litten.de. Archived from the original (PDF) on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 18 June 2014.
- López, Antonio (2012). "A New Perspective on the First Japanese Animation". Published proceedings‚ Confia‚ (International Conference on Illustration and Animation)‚ 29–30 Nov 2012. IPCA. pp. 579–586. ISBN 978-989-97567-6-2.
- Matsumoto, Natsuki; Tsugata, Nobuyuki (2006). "Kokusan saikō to kangaerareru animēshon firumu no hakken ni tsuite" 国産最古と考えられるアニメーションフィルムの発見について [The discovery of supposedly oldest Japanese animation films]. Eizōgaku (in Japanese) (76): 86–105. ISSN 0286-0279.
- Matsumoto, Natsuki (2011). "映画渡来前後の家庭用映像機器" [Home movie equipment from the earliest days of film in Japan]. In Iwamoto, Kenji (ed.). Nihon eiga no tanjō 日本映画の誕生 [Birth of Japanese film] (in Japanese). Shinwa-sha. pp. 95–128. ISBN 978-4-86405-029-6.
External links
- Media related to Katsudō Shashin (1907 film) at Wikimedia Commons
- Katsudō Shashin at IMDb