Namakura Gatana

Well, I have never reviewed before, I don't even rate shows to often, but the score this piece has is ridiculous.

We are talking about history, Nakamura Gatana's quality can't be judged by todays standards, this standards didn't even exist at the time. I wish this short had a 10 score and to see it's a 4 is depressing, and tells a lot about the anime community in general. One would never find a review of a Chaplin movie with a 4 because "it looks ugly and has no sound".

Hopefully trough this year, being the 100 anniversary, more people will find it's historical beauty.

Considering this was made in 1917 before television existed and in the very early days of film, eleven years before Steam Boat Willy came out and is considered by many to be the very first anime ever created, I feel that it deserves at least an average score of 7.

The animator literally drew every single frame by himself and put them together. It has elements of comedy and action and that is why I am giving this anime a 10/10.

I found the comedy to be particularly delightful. In the anime we see the 'hero' go to a swordsmith called "The Dull Sword" and ... it is implied that both the sword and it's owner are very dull.

Man! This should be a 10! The animation looks like it still holds up to this day. The plot is simple and fun. This is one of the oldest anime ever and people should watch this at least once just to realize how far anime has come! Not even Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan, Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece could touch this!!!! They should make more of this anime or matter of fact, remake it.

I think others will like the anime because it is short and simple and light-hearted. Because of its time, the art style is fitting because it shows the history of how ... anime animation has changed over time.

First, a disclaimer: Make sure you watch the complete 4-minute version of this film. Otherwise you're really not doing it justice.

With that aside, I thought The Dull Sword was a riot. This little film has some excellent comedic timing, taking the time to set a scene and build audience expectations before subverting them with the gag in each of its scenes.

The visual animation is strong for this era, with lots of detail in the character designs. The weapon shop scene' backgrounds were also especially nice. I would have liked to see a more consistent aesthetic between scenes (e.g. why does only the first scene ... have no background?), though.

All in all, I wouldn't say that Namakura Gatana matches the best western animation of this era, but it's not far behind.

I am baffled at the score this animation has received.

Yes, it may not have the most grabbing story. But this is practically the first ever anime- and one of the first ever animations in general! The amount of effort this must have taken is incredible, and not a single frame is lacking in movement. Not to mention that there was literally nothing that came before it of its kind, you cannot judge something like that on the standards of today. It is like saying that cave paintings all suck because they aren't as good as something like the Renaissance artists. Without cave paintings and other ... forms of art in that age, it is doubtful that the renaissance artwork would have developed, as it is back then where art began to emerge! It is a similar situation here.

This was an animation that helped spur on this beautiful era of cartoons and anime.

This is a piece of history.

This anime was a literal masterpiece of its time. It is a century old but it is still beautiful.

Story: The story started off great. The MC is a stupid samurai, something not really done, and overall the character progression of this MC was amazing.

Art: The art was absolutely outstanding. The use of a unique art style combined with the nice details of the show was outstanding. The animator exaggerated the character very well suprisingly and they were able to create tropes that have been able to stay today (star on impact).

Sound: Now this is my only problem with this anime. IT HAS NO SOUND! ... For some people it is a deal breaker but if you bare with it and it is well worth it. I cant blame the creator however. You can tell that there was supposed to be some kind of dubbing but it was lost to time.

Character: Character was pretty good. Like I said, in the Story part of this review, the character development was amazing.

Enjoyment: Honestly I surprisingly enjoyed this anime. It was nice and simple and there were no tsunderes.

Overall: Pretty good. I rated it great.

The only surviving film from Anime's first confirmed year as a business venture (rather than a novelty), Namakura Gatana (released as "Hanawa Hekonai Meitou no Maki") is the oldest anime film of one of the three pioneers of professional Japanese animation, Junichi Kouchi.

Junichi is somewhat of an interesting person. He studied under Kitazawa Rakuten (the first professional mangaka and the man who coined the term "manga" as we know it) and worked as a political cartoonist as a socialist. After doing illustrations for Anarchist magazines (and early girls magazines), he was scouted by Kisaburo Kobayashi who desired to produce "Japan's first animated film". He was ... beaten to the punch by Oten Shimokawa (another of the three pioneers) by five months, but the result of that effort was this film! (Added context, his second film, which seemingly intentionally provoked the brand new Japanese film censorship board, bears the distinction of the first "banned anime" for potentially "corrupting the youth". Unfortunately, it remains lost.)

Namakura Gatana was rediscovered in 2007 at a flea market (along with a film by Seitaro Kitayama, the last of the "three pioneers") by a film historian as a "home version" (meaning, this film was sold to the public in some capacity). It was later found that only the second half of the short was uncovered then, when a whole intro sequence was donated to a museum in 2014. Two further shots were found and assembled into the (presumably) complete film by 2017.

The film itself surrounds a rambunctious and dim witted Samurai. It's very interesting to me that Japan's oldest surviving narrative film, from an open socialist, lampoons Japanese heritage in this way, painting the Samurai warrior as a dullard and brute, and the peasants as the Bugs Bunny to his Elmer Fudd. The film was apparently met with positive reception, the oldest anime review known to exist called it "Excellent Worksmanship".

Personally, I found the film to be enjoyable enough with its physical gags and expressions. Namakura Gatana was produced with predominately cut-out animation (though the first shot did have some traditional ink straight ahead animation). You can think of cut-out animation as the way South Park does their animation (in fact, that's how they did their pilot episode "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" {1997} before they switched to digital compositing). Cut-out animation is the analog big brother to the now pervasive (in American/Canadian animation) flash or "puppet rig" animation that you'll see today on cartoons like Rick and Morty. Before computers, it was accomplished by cutting out pieces of characters, and sliding them around frame by frame (think Stop Motion). This method drastically reduces the number of individual drawings and eases the speed and scale of production. While I vastly prefer traditional animation, the context of this particular short is more than forgivable (it was 1917 for God's sake).

As far as "watching a film for historical value" this is one of the better ones, with an enjoyably goofy aesthetic, some decent comedic timing and an interesting subject matter. At a mere 5 minutes, this should be checked out by everyone at least once.

The general response to Nakamura Gatana is... harsh, to say the least, but understandable. It's difficult not to judge something by current standards.

However, I believe one has to keep in mind how groundbreaking this 4-minute piece is considering it's literally 100 years old. Animation was but a newborn in 1917, and in Japan specifically only one other work had been published and it had only three seconds of running time. Nakamura Gatana was one of the first animations in Japan and the first to exceed a restrictive duration of under one minute, and it too was done by a single person.

The plot is ... simple and straightforward: a samurai foolishly purchases a dull blade from a shady swordsmith and immediately proceeds to strike people with it, to very little success. Its simple premise is more than enough to support the duration of the short, which relies entirely on its visual flair to deliver its intended humor.

Animation is incredibly fluid for the time it was made and the experimental nature of the work makes sure to inform you of that. Characters are expressive, objects float in the air, and the characters' eyes don't stop moving for a second, carrying the humor of the short entirely on their own, considering sound had yet to reach visual media at that point.

In summation, there's a lot to love and appreciate in witnessing the history of this medium we've all grown to love. And, even more importantly, understanding just how close we were to our current standards in animation and yet how long we had to wait for it to hit its current potential. And being so short, it's definitely worth a watch if only for morbid curiosity.

Considerando que isso foi feito antes do surgimento da TV em 1917, nos primeiros dias do filme, 11 anos antes do lançamento de Steamboat Willie, e considerado por muitos como o primeiro anime já produzido, acho que deveria obter pelo menos 7 pontos em média.
O animador desenhou literalmente cada imagem e depois as juntou.
Tem elementos de comédia e ação, razão pela qual adicionei 10/10 a este anime.
Eu acho comédia em particular
encantador. Na animação, vemos que o "herói" vai para um ferreiro chamado "Espada Dull", o que implica que a espada e seu dono são muito rígidos.
Tchau Tchau!!

The second oldest not lost anime. It's surprising how well made it is considering that. It has an interesting art style, a somewhat interesting premise, and is very well made.

Even without the fact that it's so old, it's still a well made animation, and would deserve a 6/10 regardless.

I'd suggest watching it if you're reading this and you haven't already. It's around 4 minutes and is rather interesting. The only drawback I can think of is that there's no audio, but obviously that isn't really a fair complaint for the film, considering it's age.

In conclusion, the art style & the historical significance of this film ... is reason enough for a 9/10.

The Dull Sword is one of the three first production house animation works released in Japan in the year 1917 and the only one that still survives to this day in a Digital Restoration font. Just for this reason alone, I find it remiss to try and assign a score to this work. It's value as a historical relic and a time freeze of the past validates its virtue as a must watch regardless of its quality.

However, if we are really going to judge this work, I think it would be appropriate to judge this in comparison to its peers from the same time period ... - primarily in the west, where the animated art form was invented.

Emile Cohl essentially invented the animated art form by sticking together drawings like a film roll and managed to stitch the illusion of movement by still images with "Phantasmagorie" in the late 1910s. Those early works felt like limited frame movements. Max Fleischer patented the rotoscoping technology in 1917, the same year as this particular work and it is unlikely that the technology imported out to Japan at this time.

In terms of technological progress, the Dull Blade involved shooting on frame wise on paper and then shooting it using film. It is why the restorations based on nitrate plates have two distinct colors of blue and yellow. The content itself is pretty dull, and though the source does analyze it to have a four act structure, narratively I do not think it does a great job ( in comparison to works of the same time period). Still, there's a lot of value in giving this a watch, especially for fans of Japanese animation - as it is proof of the long and storied history of the art form and documents the evolution of the field from its nascent stage to the commercial success and widespread mass appeal it celebrates today.

Another good anime, a treat to watch.

Sure the animation is a bit uglier, compared to Katsudou Shashin, specially the eyes movment, but it's still a smooth, fluid animation. Just like for Katsudou Shashin it dosen't give you the feeling of just quick flipping through the the paper. The story is sweet and quit easy to follow. Sadly there is no sound, but a bit undertsandable due to time period. And despite the characters being ugly they are quit likable.

So if you want another blast from the past give it a try.

And can say that the director did do a good job. Although the subs ... are missing despite you seeing the character moving mouth.