Japanese Animation

This animation by Katsudo Shashin (1907) is one of the earliest examples of Japanese animation. It has a great attention to detail in that the child takes the time to turn his head towards the audience, and the animation is very smooth, so it is possible that this is partially rotoscoped. It has a nice simple design.

Many of the early Japanese animators were largely influenced by Emile Cohl's Fantasmagorie as it was often set up for viewing in private screenings. A group of young artists who were particularly influenced by Cohl's work set up an animation studio called the Natural Colour Moving Picture Company.

Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki (The Story of the Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa) was driected and drawn by Oten Shimokawa, a member of the Natural Colour Moving Picture Company, in 1917. The animation is very smooth, and gives off a sort of "classic Disney" vibe. It works very well in black and white as it gives it a very "world-war time" look. From the use of the animals as characters it is easy to tell this film is aimed at young children, however I don't like when it close-ups on their faces and they look a bit creepy; scares me a bit.

Namakura Gatana (Dull sword) was made by Seitaro in 1917. This animation has good strong design, and again is very smoothly animated, particularly the bit where the guy on the right gets kicked away by the guy on the right; it is likely that that bit is animated using cut out animation. The only real flaw with this animation is that it isn't very clear exactly what is happening at the beginning.