Made in the year 1907, that is the estimate. The creator? Unknown.
Found among old films and projectors acquired from an old Kyoto family in 2004 is a short filmstrip animation titled Katsudou Shashin also known as "Matsumoto fragment" is a short anime of two to three seconds of a school boy writing the words "活動写真" on a blackboard which translates roughly to "Moving Pictures", he then proceeds to take his red hat off and bows. And that's it.
I can give you the technical aspects of it, but I don't really care. There's nothing special about it. You can read up on it on Wikip*dia if you want. I want to express my feelings on this work and what I though about it.
I'm awed by it. By the history of it. This marked a great moment in Japan's history of animation.
Anime has become so much more with the imoutos and the power levels. I wonder if the cartoonist for this even imagined of a future where storytelling would be done frequently in this format to this extent with sakugas and whatnot. What a time to be alive.
This is where it all began. A pure and simple flipbook level anime of a boy writing the words moving pictures.
Check it out.
..or not. I'm not your mother. But I insist.
