Forum - View topicNEWS: Astro Boy not the First Anime
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Lothar
 Posts: 67 |
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The honor of first anime goes to an experimental short called "Mukuzo Imokawa the Doorman", one of five made in a six-month period in 1917 by Oten Shimokawa, after which he went back to Illustrating for Tokyo Puck. Source: The Anime Encyclopedia by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10463 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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animenewsnetwork.com/article.php?id=7164
Several frames from the animation, and an article (in Japanese) about the discovery and the history of Japanese animation, can be found here. |
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alice20th
Posts: 74 |
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I doubt that anybody with an interest in anime's history would say that Tetsuwan Atom was the first thing animated in Japan. There are plenty of pre-Atom animated movies.
But even if there were other Japanese animated movies or TV programs, I'd still say that Atom was the very first anime. Tezuka set up his studio and started from scratch. And the process he and his people built set the stage for all other anime to follow. Nearly every successful anime director for the next twenty years came out of working on Atom. The industry today isn't patterned on early animated classics like Cleopatra, but on the system designed by Tezuka's studio. What defines an entertainment medium isn't just content but also production process. Most people think of Hollywood movies as blockbuster action pictures, but what really defines a Hollywood movie is the system it's made under. If it's made by a Hollywood studio with all its rules, restrictions and oversight, then it's a Hollywood movie. All other American movies are indies. Although anime doesn't have that definition as established as Hollywood, what we think of as anime came out of the Japanese anime production system. If it came out of a different system, we don't consider it anime. Like the 80s TV shows GI Joe and Transformers -- although they were animated in Japan, we don't consider them anime (do we?). |
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10463 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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You bring up some extremely good points here, and I have to agree with you on your points, but not your conclusion. There are several movies that predate Astro Boy that I would lump in with "modern anime" along with Astro Boy. This was why I specifically mentionned Alakazam the Great / Journey to the West in the news article, and not the 1907 / 1917 animations. Doing the news is a bit hard because I'm limited to reporting the facts. I would have loved to have added, "Regardless of this, Astro Boy's Importance as the first Major Anime TV series outweighs all those that came before it" but that's purely subjective editorial content and has no place in the news. -t |
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Shi-ne
 Posts: 77 Location: Uh? |
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I didn't see anything there, but I found this. I'm not sure if these are frames from 'Imokawa Mukozo the Doorman'. Does anyone here know japanese? |
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Cowpunk
Posts: 168 Location: Oakland - near the Newtype Lab |
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Even if we limit ourselves to TV anime Tetsuwan Atom was the first 1/2 hours TV series but not the first anime series on TV. It was preceded by the short, just a few minutes foe each episode, Otogi Manga Calendar in 1962 and in 1960 by Mitsu no Hanashi. 3 famous stories adapted to the small screen.
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Ghost«OF»Snake
 Posts: 16 Location: Massadora, Greed Island. |
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Not many complete animations made during the beginnings of Japanese animation have survived until now. The reasons vary, but many are of commercial nature. After the clips had their run, reels (being property of the cinemas) were sold to smaller cinemas in the country and then disassembled and sold as strips or single frames.
Inspired by French animation Fantasmagorie by ÉmileCohl, Japanese movie productions started studying animation techniques. In 1915, Nikkatsu production started studying animation with Seitaro Kitayama, a painter. In the next year, Tenkatsu started studying with a manga artist Hekoten/Oten Shimokawa. Kobayashi Shōkai started their production with a manga artist Junichi Kouchi. Among these three productions, Tenkatsu film The Story of the Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa, directed by Shimokawa,came out first, completed in January 1917. It was screened a few times on movie theaters by the production. However, itis said the animation quality of the film was so poor that even Shimokawa himself was disappointed. Four months later, in May, 1917, Nikkatsu's Battle of a Monkey anda Crab, directed by Kitayama, was released. In the next month, Kobayashi Shōkai's Hekonai Hanawa's Great Sword, directed by Kōuchi was also screened. "The oldest anime" title challenged In July 2005, an old animation film was found in Kyoto. This undated 3 seconds film,plainly titled Moving Picture, has been speculated to be as much as 10 years older than Mukuzo Imokawa.This supposedly older anime is assumed to have been made for private viewing. Therefore, as a professional commercial anime, Mukuzo Imokawa still seems to hold the title of "the first". Astro Boy is the first Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that laterbecame familiar worldwide as anime. It originated as a manga in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka. |
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