Katsudō Shashin (1907)

Katsudō Shashin (also called the Matsumoto fragment) is the oldest Japanese animation discovered so far. It's director or it's original release date are unknown but it's assumed to be dating back to 1907. It's a merely 3 sec celluloid film made up of a series of hand drawn images impressed upon the film with a stencil. The images were painted with red and black colors.

The story in brief:

This very short animation shows a boy in a sailor's uniform writing "活動写真" (i.e. Katsudō Shashin) , then takes off his hat and bows. Katsudō Shashin means "motion picture"in English.

Restored version in 4k:

More info on Katsudō Shashin:

• Reviews and ratings of Katsudō Shashin - IMDb
• Detailed info of the short film - Wikipedia