A Look Through the Beginnings of Japanese Animation (original) (raw)

You might think that "anime" started with the first serialized TV shows in the 1960s, but Japan had been making animation long before this, in the form of short films. This article aims to give a tour through the history and evolution of early Japanese animation that led to the serialized shows of the 1960s that eventually led to where we are today. At present, there are over 200 early Japanese animations that have survived and are easily viewable. Here, 44 stand-out works in the chronological evolution of early animation are highlighted for you to check out. All animations listed here can be found online, with English subtitles when needed!

Movie, -, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1900s, 00:03, colour, silent)
This very short animation was made by stamping red and black ink directly onto a film strip. The stamps used in this animation were used to make short looping moving images for the magic lantern, a projector device and a precursor to animation on film.

Movie, 1917, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1917, 04:26, tinted film, silent)
The earliest true animation surviving today. Early animations did not use animation cels – instead, drawings were done on paper. Moving parts of drawings were cut out and placed to form full characters or moving objects. This film is also tinted, meaning that the black-and-white film was soaked in dye to give the whole film a uniform colour.

Movie, 1918, 1 epMe:- Author:2

(1918, 01:41, tinted film, silent)
A take on the classic Japanese folktale. Many early Japanese animations are folktales or fables such as this. A stand-out scene in this one has the fisherman float over an animated background.

Movie, 1924, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1924, 09:15, black and white, recreated audio)
If the previous animations were too confusing to follow, this one might be more your speed. The fable here is the classic story of the tortoise and the hare, a popular story worldwide. A version of this film is available with recreated music and singing, and it’s recommended to check out this version, since the original certainly would have been accompanied by music since the characters sing. A live musical performance was common for film screenings before sound in cinema became widespread.

Movie, 1925, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1925, 18:00, black and white, silent)
A moral tale about respecting your elders. This work stands out for its very detailed art style, particularly in the backgrounds, for the time. It explores various scene transition techniques as well.

Movie, 1925, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1925, 17:00, black and white, silent)
A similar work to Ubasuteyama, but this time it is a story within a story. This moral tale is about not forgetting the help others give you. This film has pretty fluid animation for the time, and uses speech bubbles instead of intertitles to convey dialogue.

Movie, 1926, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1926, 08:00, black and white, silent)
The earliest version of the classic story Journey to the West that you can watch in anime. One of the early works of Noburou Oofuji, one of the early pioneers of Japanese animation. His distinct pre-cel-era style uses paper cut-outs with minimal line art and many patterns. There is an anime film award named after him, which has been presented to one innovative Japanese film every year since 1962.

Movie, 1926, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1926, 03:22, tinted, silent)
The earliest anime you can watch that mixes real-life footage with animation. A small animated man teases a real woman with the smoke from his cigarette. This film is missing its ending, but is still worth checking out!

Movie, 1926, 1 epMe:- Author:2

(1926, 14:25, black and white, silent)
If you’re checking out this article, you’re probably interested in history. This is an informational animation for people of the time about how to prevent the spread of germs. Take a peek at how people actually lived.

Movie, 1928, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1928, 13:25, black and white, silent)
Apart from folktales and fables, a surprising amount of old animation feature animals competing in the Olympics. This is the earliest example and is full of small gag segments for various sports.

This and the next entry are both earlier works from Yasuji Murata, who was one of the early pros. The fluidity of his animations stands out for its time. My favourites of his are not on this list, so please check his works out separately if you want to see more!

Movie, 1929, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1929, 16:42, tinted, silent)
Another fable, this time based on the Ant and the Grasshopper. This film is tinted in two colours – most of the film is in orange, but some parts are tinted blue to hammer home how cold and uninviting the winter night is. At this point, early animators have gotten better at their craft and motions are pretty fluid. You can barely tell that they are still using paper cut-outs, but Japan is still a few years away from adapting animation cels as the standard. Despite the technology existing, it is too expensive to be practical at this time.

Movie, 1930, 1 epMe:- Author:2

(1930, 02:33, tinted, original sound)
A song about the harvest festival. This film has the original sound, recorded on disc. While not the earliest animation made with sound, this is the earliest surviving one available with English subtitles for you to get the most enjoyment out of the meaning of the words.

Movie, 1931, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1931, 08:36, black and white, original sound)
With the success of Steamboat Willie in the west, many sought to emulate the exaggerated motions of popular American cartoons. This influence can be seen in this animation of a story between a mouse and a butterfly. This is also the earliest surviving Japanese animation with preserved dialogue.

Movie, 1931, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1931, 03:13, black and white, original sound)
A charming and catchy song and dance about the origins of cats.

Movie, 1932, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1932, 10:33, black and white, silent)
This is the earliest stop-motion animation surviving today. All the characters in this film are toys, including a Felix the Cat action figure. Felix the Cat is the oldest animated cartoon character, and his popularity spawned many imitators. This film uses his likeness in the form of a toy, and has him act as a detective for a doll whose shoes were stolen.

Movie, 1932, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1932, 04:40, black and white, silent)
A deviation from the norm, this art film explores animation through shapes.

Movie, 1933, 1 epMe:- Author:5

(1933, 11:32, black and white, silent)
It’s always fun to look back on what people predicted the future would look like in the past. This film predicts WWII’s timing accurately, and explores what the author thinks the world would look like 100 years in the future, in 2032. This is an early example of sci-fi in anime, and the film also uses a stylized silhouette art style.

Movie, 1933, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1933, 06:38, black and white, silent)
The earliest example of Japanese animation using cels available. The influence of American cartoons is very clear in this work as well.

Movie, 1933, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1933, 14:12, black and white, silent)
Another work directed by Yasuji Murata, this one being the earliest Norakuro short (that we know of). The MAL entry here is the first part, the second part being "Norakuro Nitouhei: Enshuu no Maki". Both parts came out together. You can also watch this one with recreated audio and a shorter runtime, since they cut out the on-screen text dialogues.

Norakuro was one of the first manga series, and one of the first big Japanese characters in media. The story focuses on a black dog character named Norakuro being a soldier in war. The character was based off similar characters at the time such as Felix the Cat, and the story is based on the creator's experience as part of the army himself. The manga was drawn by the creator for 50 years, from 1931 to 1981, and has many anime adaptations including TV series in the 70s and 80s, but is pretty unknown and inaccessible outside of Japan.

Movie, 1933, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1933, 11:42, black and white, original sound)
This is the earliest Japanese cartoon that completely manages to emulate the American style of the time. The movement is incredibly fluid and thought is put into each of the characters’ movements. The backgrounds are also incredibly illustrated, making full use of greyscale. There are no English subs for this work, but the story is simple enough that it is still worth checking out.

Movie, 1934, 1 epMe:- Author:2

(1934, 07:53, black and white, original sound)
A pre-WWII propaganda film, predicting a future (in 1936) where America and Japan would be at war. Tensions were rising at the time because Japan was facing backlash for its invasion of Manchuria, which began in 1931, with America playing a leading role in a campaign against them. Mickey Mouse represents the Americans in this animation and is portrayed as the bad guy. Meanwhile, Japanese folktale characters such as Momotaro fight against Mickey’s bat army. Amusingly, Felix the Cat is on Japan’s side in this animation.

Movie, 1935, 1 epMe:- Author:2

(1935, 03:28, Kinemacolor, silent)
This is another abstract art film, and the earliest colour anime available today. This animation uses Kinemacolor, the first colour film technique, in which black-and-white film is photographed using green and red filters.
Warning: Every frame of this film flashes between red and green to create the illusion of a rainbow of colours. The flashing is very apparent and makes this film hard to watch.

Movie, 1936, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1936, 11:23, black and white, silent)
Another war propaganda film, a sign of the rising tensions with China at the time. The enemy cat-devils bomb the Japanese frogs using sea-planes, and the frogs must retaliate. At odds with the propagandist nature of this work, the waves of the sea are animated beautifully here.

Movie, 1937, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1937, 2:00, two-strip colour, original sound?)
The first colour animation using multicoloured film, allowing for each frame to be multiple colours. This short uses two-strip colour, meaning that only red and green film strips were used, so the colour range is limited. A longer version of this film exists with a 3 minute segment in the beginning showing the steps that went into actually creating the final animation, including painting each cel, creating backgrounds, and photography of each frame. The final animation is very well-preserved and crisp.

Movie, 1940, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1940, 12:04, black and white, original sound)
During the war, it was all hands on deck, and animation became less popular in Japan as everyone focussed on the war effort. Less animation films were made during this time, and a lot of them were either directly or indirectly about the war. This work uses shadow puppets to tell an adaptation of Madama Butterfly, a story about a Japanese woman marrying an American soldier who is just with her out of convenience. This tragic story was adapted during the war and serves as light propaganda, demonstrating how heartless the Americans are.

Movie, 1941, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1941, 01:13:00, black and white, original sound)
As you may be able to guess from the title, this is not a Japanese animation, but a Chinese one. Still, it is included in this list due to its importance and later influence on the Japanese animation industry. Another adaptation of Journey to the West with a focus on a certain part of the story, this film is the first Asian animated feature film. On top of that, this film uses rotoscoping, a technique in which actors wearing costumes are filmed, and the film is then traced to create an animation with life-like movement.

Movie, 1943, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1943, 36:47, black and white, original sound)
War propaganda depicting a real military battle. From the MAL summary, you might wonder what “Demon Island” is. It’s Hawaii, and more specifically, this animation depicts the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In this animation, the Japanese army is led by Momotaro. The army itself consists of the animals from the original Momotaro story – monkeys, pheasants, and dogs – as well as rabbits. The Americans are portrayed as bumbling humans with a resemblance to Popeye that are completely disorganized.

Movie, 1945, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1945, 01:15:00, black and white, original sound)
A sequel to the previous Momotaro propaganda film, and Japan’s first feature-length animation. The real event featured in this film is Japan’s occupation of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during WWII. During the war, Japan liberated these people from Dutch colonial rule, but then displaced many of them to labour camps, where a large majority of workers died. In this animation, the island people are represented by cute animals as well. This movie has battle with the Americans, as well as a look at the idealized daily lives of the animals on the islands. The islanders are portrayed as naïve and needing to be taught things the Japanese way. The Japanese animals teach the native animals to speak Japanese using a song, AIUEO no Uta, which resurfaced in anime 20 years later in Jungle Taitei.

Movie, 1946, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1946, 10:36, black and white, original sound)
Following WWII, Japan was occupied by America, and American culture began to permeate society. This post-war animation stars a boy who gets a pen that allows him to rebuild his destroyed city with skyscrapers and modern houses. The boy is also shown to be learning English and the style of the clothing and cars are all evidence for the American influence present at the time.

Movie, 1947, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1947, 20:50, black and white, original sound)
Another animation of the rebuilding era. An orphaned kitten is adopted by a cat mother of three living in a makeshift home, but can the kids learn to get along? This film features beautiful animation, detailed animating backgrounds, and even a 180 rotation pan shot 19 minutes in, in which the background rotates around the characters – an artistically intense shot to pull off, even now.

Movie, 1947, 1 epMe:- Author:5

(1947, 20:30, black and white, original sound)
A Fantasia-like animation with orchestral music soundtrack. The plot revolves around a tree in which animals happily live until winter arrives. With it comes imagery of war, including Nazi imagery. The sun comes out to battle winter, taking on the form of Lady Liberty or Gaia. This film stands out for its mixed-media animation. Traditional cel animation, real footage, a combination of the two, claymation stop-motion, and paint stop-motion are all used in this work.

Movie, 1948, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1948, 09:20, black and white, original sound with English narration)
Not many of these early Japanese animation shorts were dubbed in English, but some from this series were. The original had no dialogue, but for the American audience, this short later had a narration added on top of the original audio, which is the version you can find today.

Movie, 1954, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1954, 09:15, colour, original sound)
One of the earlier full three-strip animations from Japan. The full extent of the colour spectrum is used, as this short stars three butterfly girls, each with a different colour scheme.

Movie, 1956, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1956, 11:00, colour, original sound)
An ambient piece featuring characters as silhouettes on vibrant backgrounds. At the beginning of this short, the technique used to accomplish these backgrounds is shown – full sheets of coloured cellophane were cut into shapes and placed on top of one another. This short tells the story of a ghost ship, and the haunting soundtrack matches it perfectly. Many of Noburou Oofuji’s post-war works are done in this style. Various editing techniques are used on the film to add special effects as well.

Movie, 1957, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1957, 13:00, black and white, original sound)
One of the nicest-looking animations of the era, featuring a rebellious kitten who draws on the walls with a magic pencil, bringing his drawings to life. The animation in this short is reminiscent of early Disney movies, with slow yet detailed and planned movements. If you’ve been watching chronologically through this article, you may have noticed that a lot of early animated characters can look off-putting or scary, but all of the characters in this short are very cute and appealing.

Movie, 1957, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1957, 18:00, colour, original sound)
An engaging tale about a frog boy who lives upside-down, and eventually ends up floating like a balloon, causing all sorts of problems in his life.

TV Special, 1958, 1 epMe:- Author:2

(1958, 08:53, colour, original sound)
The first Japanese animation broadcast on television – everything else on this list was only viewable at the time in theatres. This short anime for children has vibrant colours, though is lacking in the animation department.

Movie, 1958, 1 epMe:- Author:3

(1958, 01🔞00, colour, original sound)
Toei’s first feature-length animation, and the first feature-length anime in colour. Throughout the late 1950s all the way into the 1970s, Toei released movies rapidly, aiming to be known as the Disney of Japan. These movies were most often based on folktales or fairy tales, and played a part in the childhoods of many children. Toei’s mascot Pero comes from one of these movies, and the art style from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is directly inspired by some of these early films.

Movie, 1959, 1 epMe:- Author:5

(1959, 16:00, colour, original sound)
A sequel to Koneko no Rakugaki, this time the kitten decides to use a futuristic movie studio to create a movie, but things go wrong when the robots go out of control.

Movie, 1960, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1960, 01:28:00, colour, original sound)
Yet another version of Journey to the West, this time loosely based on Osamu Tezuka’s manga. Tezuka was inspired to write his own version of the tale after seeing Tie Shan Gongzhu. This manga became one of his first works in a long career that soon led to the creation of Astro Boy, which launched the beginning of serialized TV anime. This version is animated by Toei, and focusses more on Son Goku’s story.

Movie, 1961, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1961, 09:09, colour, original sound)
A look into how a narrator predicts humanity will evolve in the future, becoming psychic, losing all limbs, and not needing to be fed by food anymore. People will also be able to live 50,000 years. A more silly take on predicting the future. The art style in this short is a more simplified cartoon style that was coming into fashion at the time, with the rise of Hanna-Barbera.

Movie, 1962, 1 epMe:- Author:1

(1962, 02:13, colour, original sound)
The start of the 1960s marks the beginning of a big boom of art films. This work is one of the earlier works of one of the prominent avant-garde artists who began their careers in this era, Yoji Kuri. These types of works have a simplified modern style, are typically independently-made, and often adult-aimed. This one is no exception, featuring humans being treated like animals in cages.

Movie, 1962, 1 epMe:- Author:4

(1962, 03:10, colour, original sound)
Dissatisfied with his collaboration on Saiyuki in 1960, Osamu Tezuka started his own animation company. This studio produced two art films while simultaneously working on the first Astro Boy series, which started broadcast in 1963. The art style in this short film is again a simplified cartoon look, and the story is a bit of dark humour.

Movie, 1962, 1 epMe:- Author:6

(1962, 39:06, colour, original sound)
The second art early art film produced by Osamu Tezuka’s studio. Another stylized artistic piece, but this one has a mature tone, in contrast to the previous more tongue-in-cheek examples. Due to his experiences helping the war effort during WWII, Tezuka had strong anti-war ideologies, which come through in a large number of his works, including this one. The style and message of this film mean that it feels pretty timeless and can still be greatly enjoyed to this day.

That’s the end of this article’s highlighted works! In 1963, Asto Boy began airing, and its success led to a big anime TV series boom in the 1960s that eventually led to where we are today.

I hope that if you made it to the bottom of this article, you learned a bit about animation history, and maybe even checked out some of the films listed. Feel free to send me a message if you’d like to discuss anything from this article, I am always eager to talk about this sort of thing with anyone who is interested!