Japan and the West

Manga - Anime - TV

Outline

• History of Cartoons
• Development of 'Comics'
• Animated Films
• Development of TV
• Japan's TV Exports

Da Vinci's 'Cartoon'

The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist, or,

The Burlington House Cartoon

Leonardo da Vinci, c1500?

Charcoal and, black and white chalk drawing on paper.

Cartoons

"Punch has the benevolence to announce, that in an early number of his ensuing Volume he will astonish the Parliamentary Committee by the publication of several exquisite designs, to be called Punch's Cartoons!"

(Punch, June 24, 1843)

Cartoon: originally meaning an artist's preparatory drawing done on stiff paper (carton='card')

Kitazawa Rakuten (1876-1955)

• Japan's first professional cartoonist/manga-ka

• Worked on "Box of Curious", "Jiji Manga", "Tokyo Puck".

• Influenced by other foreign cartoonists such as Australian, Frank Nankivell.

• Cartoons with political and social comment.

Kitazawa Rakuten

1928 Tonda Haneko Jo

「とんだはね子嬢」

Okamoto Ippei

Initially employed (1912) as a 'manga kisha' (cartoon reporter) at Asahi Shimbun, recommended by Natsume Soseki.

1929: Collection of his cartoons sold more than 50,000 copies

1932: European trip

Established 'Ippei-juku' to train manga artists.

Early Comics

1897: The Katzenjammer Kids

First use of 'speechbubbles"

Longest running comic series

• Created by Rudolph Dirks, drawn by Harold H. Knerr 

• American Humorist, Sunday supplement of New York Journal newspaper

Early Comic Books

Paris, 1929

Tokyo, 1931

Norakuro

US, 1934

Manga & Comics

Tanku Tankuro (1934)

Action Comics

Superman (1938)

(Very) Early animation

http://video.mit.edu/watch/history-of-animation-3391/

1900: J. Stuart Blackton directs and stars in...

The Enchanted Drawing

...assisted and encouraged by Thomas Edison

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

Meanwhile, in Japan...

Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no maki

「芋川椋三玄関番の巻」

• Released(?) early 1917, this may have been Japan's first 'anime'. 

Produced by the Tenkatsu Studio who employed well-known manga artists Shimokawa Hekoten(Sadanori) to develop animated films which could compete with foreign imports.

Historical materials have been lost so this is controversial.

Namakura-katana

Released in June 1917

Again drawn by Shimokawa, a pupil of Kitazawa Rakuten.

Walt Disney

1922: Working at Laugh-o-grams animation studio 

1923: Founds Disney Studio

1928: Steamboat Willie (3rd Mickey Mouse feature becomes a commercial success)

This was the first real animated 'talkie', it had a 'fully produced' soundtrack with music and speech. 

Around the World

Animated feature films were produced worldwide from 1917...

1917: Quirino Cristiani, Argentina

1926: Lotte Reininger, Germany

1930: Ladislas Starevich, France (rel.1937)

1935: Aleksandr Ptushko, USSR

1936: Umberto Spano, Italy

1937: Walt Disney, US - Snow White

Many different techniques tried, stop-motion (puppet), cut-outs, silhouette, 'traditional' cel animation...

Television

Mechanical television: in development in various countries (Germany, US, UK, Japan, Russia etc) from late c19.

Demonstrated publicly in 1925.

Electronic television: various experiments with CRTs and image formation from late c19. Experiments and research worldwide.

First CRT display: 25 Dec, 1926. Takayanagi Kenjiro of Hamamatsu  Industrial High School

Broadcasting

"Do you remember me?"

1 Sep 1939: WW2 interrupts BBC television broadcasts...

7 Jun 1946: announcer Jasmine Bligh greets viewers and programming continues...

TV in the US

General Electric (GE) and RCA involved in various television broadcasting experiments through 1930s.

RCA subsidiary NBC officially started regular broadcasting to NY are on 30 April 1939. LA by June.

Estimated TV audience at end of 1939: 5-8000 (2000 sets)

End of 1947: 44,000 TV sets in the US (production was suspended 1942-5)

Japan

NHK: established state broadcaster, repositioned as 'independent' by 1950 Broadcast Law

NTV: first commercial broadcaster to be granted a licence under new law.

Regular TV broadcasts in 1953: Feb, NHK; Aug, NTV

High price of receivers (imported) impedes uptake.

Shoriki Matsutaro (正力松太郎)

The Father of ...

Baseball

Television

Nuclear Power

CIA connection: Operation Podalton

May have included funding (US$10m) for setting up of NTV.

Early programming

Plenty of imported feature films

News

Live drama

Rakugo

Music: Classical and Jazz

Early animation

Popeye from 1959

High audience ratings  for an animated series: 33.7%

Exporting

NBC: 1963-197?

TV Exports Business

Japan's TV export business is worth apx. JPY10bn/year (US$81.6m)

%

anime

drama

'variety'

Overseas Markets

%

Asia

N.America

Europe

Regional Variations

http://www.soumu.go.jp/iicp/chousakenkyu/data/research/survey/telecom/2014/2014broadcasting-contents-exp-1summary.pdf

Next time...

Philosophy and Thought