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Chronology of Japanese Cinema
1897

January 9

After spending almost ten years in France, businessman Katsutaro Inabata returns to Japan as Lumiere Company's representative bringing with him French cameraman and projectionist Francois-Constant Girel, several Cinematographe (the Cinematographe was a combination of camera, projector, and printer all in one device) and 50 reels of film. Girel will remain in Japan until December shooting scenes throughout the country.

First thought to be the work of another French cameraman, Gabriel Veyre (Veyre, also from the Lumiere Company, filmed in Tokyo in December 1898), Girel's actualities along with the ones shot by Tsunekichi Shibata, considered to be Japan's first movie cameraman, Katsutaro Inabata and Gabriel Veyre himself are part of a catalogue of the first short films, 33 in total, shot in Japan. Among these there are some of remarkable ethnographic interest such as the two films of dances of Ainu people. As Abé Mark Nornes points out these images are just some of the few pre-war documentaries of the Ainu at a time when their culture was under attack. However, the films shot by Girel were rarely shown in Japan as they were sent to France to be exhibited in Europe and the United States. According to Peter B. High some of the films offered by Inahata included BAIGNARDES EN MER (1895), shots of the North Atlantic and street scenes of New York.

Sources:
Peter B. High, The Dawn of Cinema in Japan, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 19, 1984, p. 27.
Abé Mark Nornes, Japanese Documentary Film: The Meiji Era Through Hiroshima, University of Minnesota Press, 2003, p. 2-3.
Jeffrey A. Dym Benshi and the Introduction of Motion Pictures to Japan, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 55, No. 4. (Winter, 2000), p. 512, 515.
Hiroshi Komatsu, Some Characteristics of Japanese Cinema before World War I, in Reframing Japanese Cinema, Ed. Arthur Nolletti and David Desser, Indiana UP, 1992, p. 233.
Hiroshi Komatsu, The Lumiere Cinematographe and the Production of the Cinema in Japan in the Earliest Period, Film History Vol. 8, No. 4, International Trends in Film Studies (1996), p. 433.
Joaquín da Silva, El National Film Center de Tokio: Un Pequeño Recorrido por la Historia del Cine Japonés.

February 15

First public showing of the Cinematograph organized by businessmen Katsutaro Inabata, Fukusuke Miki and Benjiro Okuda held at the Nanchi Enbujo theatre in Osaka. Inahata hired the billboard painter Yoshikuni Nomura to advertise his Cinematograph exhibition and benshi Senkichi Takahashi to provide a running commentary during the projection. Operating the Cinematograph was Francois-Constant Girel. It is believed that a preview showing might have been held sometime between 11-14 February in the garden of a Kyoto electric company called Kyoto Dento Co. (now Kansai Electric Company and Keihuku Railroad Company). Einosuke Yokota had received a Cinematopraph from Inabata, his elder brother's friend, and 8 March presents the Lumiere's machine for the first time in Tokyo, at the Kawakamiza theatre. The next day Kenichi Kawaura, owner of Yoshizawa company who had obtained the machine in February through the Italian resident in Japan Giovanni Braccialini (Peter B. High calls him Cipione Braccialini, p. 28), holds the first Cinematographe's exhibition in Yokohama, at the Minato-za theatre.

Sources:
Akihiro Toki and Kaoru Mizuguchi A History of Early Cinema in Kyoto, Japan (1896-1912) - Cinematographe and Inabata Katsutaro.
Peter B. High, The Dawn of Cinema in Japan, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 19, 1984, p. 28.
Jeffrey A. Dym Benshi and the Introduction of Motion Pictures to Japan, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 55, No. 4. (Winter, 2000), pp. 511-515.
Akihiro Toki and Kaoru Mizuguchi The Birthplace of Japanese Movies.
Hiroshi Komatsu, The Lumiere Cinematographe and the Production of the Cinema in Japan in the Earliest Period, Film History Vol. 8, No. 4, International Trends in Film Studies (1996), p. 433-4.

February 22

Just a few days after Katsutaro Inabata had introduced the first Cinematographe in Japan, Waichi Araki imported the first Vitascope. Though an improved version of the Kinetoscope, the Vitascope was only a projector whereas the Cinematographe was both a camera and a projector.

Waichi Araki organized the first official showing of the Vitascope in Japan at the Shinmachi Enbujo theater in Osaka. He was able to convince reknown benshi Hoteiken Ueda to liven up the projection of films with a live commentary. The programme included works such as THE EXECUTION OF MARY STUART, also known as THE EXECUTION OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. On 6 March, Saburo Arai conducted the Vitascope's first exhibition in Tokyo, at the Kinki-kan theater, while Daigen Jumonji explained the operation of the machine and the contents of the images.

Sources:
Peter B. High, The Dawn of Cinema in Japan, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 19, 1984, p. 27.
Akihiro Toki and Kaoru Mizuguchi A History of Early Cinema in Kyoto, Japan (1896-1912) - Cinematographe and Inabata Katsutaro .
Jeffrey A. Dym Benshi and the Introduction of Motion Pictures to Japan, Monumenta Nipponica, Vol. 55, No. 4. (Winter, 2000), p. 513, 519 and 523.

October

The Konishi Honten photography shop (later known as Konishiya Rokubeiten and now Konica Minolta) located in Nihonhashi ward, Tokyo, imports the first film camera, a British Baxter & Wray Cinematograph. Peter B. High writes it had been a French Gaumont and that had been imported in June. The Nihon Eiga Terebi Gijutsu Kyokai's (Motion Picture and Television Engineering Society of Japan, Inc.) publication sets the date in September. Meanwhile, Yoshiro Irie quotes an advertisement appearing in the October's issue of Konishi's own magazine, Shashin Geppo (Photography Monthly), in which it is announced the arrival of a film camera. Shiro Asano, an employee at the head office of Konishi, used this camera to shoot street scenes in Nihonbashi, Asakusa and Ginza, so it is believed that he was the first Japanese to successfully complete the whole process of shooting, developing and printing film.

Though the standard works on Japanese film history set Nihonbashi as the first scenery filmed by Asano with the new camera, Asano, in several interviews, contradicts himself with regards to his filming chronology. Hiroshi Komatsu argues that the first film was shot from the rooftop of a building in Nihonbashi, near the Konishi shop, and then he filmed KAKUBEIJISHI (The Lion Dance), a street performance of the dance that took place at the front of the shop. This claim is backed by Asano's and the then executives of Konishi Honten's recollections of the event during a symposium (Yonju-nen Mae no Satsueiki to Satsuei o Kiku) later reproduced in an article published by Kinema Junpo in January 1940, perhaps the most famous source related to this period in Japanese cinema history.

However, in this meeting Asano declared that before filming at Nihonbashi and Asakusa he shot at least two couple of reels of film to test the camera and check the result. In an earlier publication by Jouji Tamaichi titled Katsudosashi no Shishiki (1927), Asano stated that his first films had been KAKUBEIJISHI and then ISHIHARA MASATOSHI TO IU HITO GA GOSHAKU NO TAKAI GETA O HAITE ARUKU NO, about actor Ishihara walking along the street in high geta. In this article, first detailed account of Asano, there is no mention of any filming in Nihonbashi. More than three decades later, in a conversation with Genjiro Kobayashi, Asano told how that he shot a passing performance of the dance Kabubeijishi from the front of the shop to test the camera, and later he filmed in Nihonbashi. Asano maintained in the 1927's article and later in a conversation published in 1962 that during the dance performance he only managed to film the dancers' feet. On the other hand, according to Sugiura Sennosuke, at that time Konishi's managing director, in a conversation published in 1953, the first film shot was NIHONBASHI UE NO TETSUDOUBASHA (Horsecar at Nihonbashi), followed by KAKUBEIJISHI and ASAKUSA KANNON NO HATO (Pigeon at Asakusa Kannon).

Except for a reproduction of a film frame believed to belong to the Nihonbashi actuality, there is not any other visual evidence of any of these films. Interestingly enough, this film frame has not even escaped controversy. As Yoshiro Irie clearly demonstrates in his extremely revealing article Saiko no Nihon Eiga ni Tsuite - Konishi Honten Seisaku no Katsudoshashin, several film historians have given different titles (for example NIHONBASHI, NIHONBASHI KYOUHAN, or the above mentioned NIHONBASHI UE NO TETSUDOUBASHA) to the actuality film to which this frame belongs and even locations (either Nihonbashi or Ginza) where it was filmed. Juxtaposition with photographs from the same period have nevertheless confirmed the spot as Nihonbashi. It is also quite possible that NIHONBASHI could have been included in the first public shows of Japanese-made films. Though not the first projection of Japanese films recorded, the exhibition held at the Meiji-za theatre between 14-31 July 1899, featured a film titled NIHONBASHI KUBIMACHI. A movie listing had been advertised in the Houchi newspaper on 13 July, and although it is the oldest document giving a relatively good account of each Japanese film projected, their contents and creators' names are sadly omitted. Thus far there is not conclusive proof to confirm that the film presented as NIHONBASHI KUBIMACHI was the same one filmed by Asano.

Sources:
Yoshiro Irie Saiko no Nihon Eiga ni Tsuite - Konishi Honten Seisaku no Katsudoshashin (The Earliest Japanese Movie �\ Motion Pictures Produced by Konishi Honten), MOMAT Research, 2009, Vol 13, pp.65-91.
Usui, Michiko The Roots of Japanese Movies as Seen in the Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum Collection.
Hiroshi Komatsu, Some Characteristics of Japanese Cinema before World War I, in Reframing Japanese Cinema, Ed. Arthur Nolletti and David Desser, Indiana UP, 1992, p. 232-4.
Hiroshi Komatsu, The Lumiere Cinematographe and the Production of the Cinema in Japan in the Earliest Period, Film History Vol. 8, No. 4, International Trends in Film Studies (1996), p. 436-7.
Peter B. High, The Dawn of Cinema in Japan, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 19, 1984, p. 32.
Nihon Eiga Terebi Gijutsu Kyokai, Nihon Eiga Gijutsu Shi, 1997, p. 21.

November 21

The first recorded case of censorship in the country took place in 21th November, 1897 in the prefecture of Tochigi, when the local police banned the projection of Vitascope's BUTTERFLY DANCE, promoted in Japan as BEIKOKU JOYU FULLER-JO KOCHO NO MAI (Butterfly Dance by the American Actress (Loie) Fuller), as they considered the actress, as she was dancing, lifted her leg too high up. However Aaron Gerow, in his translation of Makino Mamoru's article "On the Conditions of Film Censorship in Japan before Its Systematization", cites ANNABELLE'S (WHITFORD) BUTTERFLY DANCE as the film banned for reasons of public morality. Once this immoral scene had been eliminated the projection was resumed. BUTTERFLY DANCE was part of a short film programme that also included THE EXECUTION OF MARY STUART, QUEEN OF SCOTS and JOAN OF ARC, first exhibited in Osaka on 22 February and later at the Tokyo's Kinki-kan theatre on 6 March.

Sources:
Makino, Mamoru Nihon Eiga Kenetsu Shi, Pandora : Gendai Shokan, Tokyo, 2003, pp. 32-33.
Gerow, Aaron y Nornes, Abe Mark In Praise of Film Studies: Essays in Honor of Mamoru Makino: On the Conditions of Film Censorship in Japan before Its Systematization por Mamoru Makino traducido por Aaron Gerow, p. 48.