History of Japanese Animation
Published in
5 min readDec 7, 2023
Animation before and during the war
The first domestically produced animation in Japan was made in 1917. Hekoten Shimokawa creates “Imokawa Mukuzou Kanban no Maki”, Junichi Kouchi creates “Namakura Gatana”, and Seitaro Kitayama creates “Sarukani-Gassen”.
These three artists were originally highly regarded as cartoonists and Western-style artists, and were scouted by the distribution companies that were established under the influence of Disney at that time. Among them, Seitaro Kitayama founded Japan’s first animation studio, Kitayama Film Studio.
Among the first Japanese animators to take off on the world stage was Noburō Ōfuji, a disciple of Junichi Kouchi. He made full use of origami to create groundbreaking animations, taking full advantage of the Japanese atmosphere.
