Japan Animation is a very old form of animation that dates as far back as the cartoon. Japan Animation may have even predated american cartoon animation. In July 2005, several Japanese papers reported the discovery of an animation film at a Kyoto private residence.

This film is about fifty frames in length, which is a bit more than three second of screentime. A boy dressed in a navy uniform draws characters on a chalkboard for a film picture kissanime.

Unfortunately, this wonderful Japanese Animation is not well-known. The artist who created this amazing film is unknown. They are unable date it accurately. It is believed that this film dates from around 1907 and predates the first Japanese cartoon by 10 years, as well as the first American cartoon by 7 years.

The jury has yet to decide whether the tiny Kyoto animation is the first ever animated film in the world.
Even without this discovery, Japanese animation has had a long and rich history. The first 5-minute animated short, Mukuzo Imokawa - the Doorman was created and screened in public by Oten Shimokawa.

Oten Shimokawa, who produced the Japanese animated Mukuzo Imokawa, the Doorman in 2006, used a technique similar to that used by J. Stuart Blackton for his first animation short, Funny Phases of Funny Faces.
Both artists employed stop-motion animation techniques to produce this animation. These are the principles used to make static images appear to be moving in flip books. It was essential to draw separate chalk images on the blackboard, then film for one or two frames and change them slightly before filming again.

In the 1920s Japan Animation produced many short films. Some of the first and most popular are still available today: The Mountain Where Old Women Are Abandoned, Obasuteyama and The Tortoise and the Hare and The Tortoise and the Hare.

The Whale (1927) ( Kujira ), the first animated film to include sound, is one of the greatest animes in the 20s. It was a silhouette that moved in sync with William Tell Overture.

Japanese animation is a rich tradition that dates back to the beginning of the animation industry. While many anime animations have been forgotten by now, Japanese animation continues to create and reinvent new animation styles for the global audience.