How Did Japanese Cinema Begin? From Imported Cameras to Oshima's Boy
How did Japanese cinema begin? Takahiro Mitsui, a Japanese philosopher born in 1991, writing every Friday from inside Japan and outside academia, tells it as film history: Western machines arrived in the 1890s, filming Japan's own streets and kabuki taught the craft, traveling showmen and war footage made an industry, and Oshima's Boy showed a new art needs a place outside the system. A story of how a borrowed tool becomes one's own, for readers in their 20s and 30s.
A borrowed tool pointed at home
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A borrowed tool becomes yours when you point it at home, 2025-01-13): after the Kinetoscope, Vitascope and Cinematographe arrived, a new impulse arose to film Japan's own landscapes and culture.
Japan is one of the great film nations. How did its history begin?
Once they had been brought to Japan along with the machines, a new impulse arose. People wanted not only to screen works shot in the West but to film Japan's own landscapes and culture.
The first films: Ginza, Asakusa and Momijigari
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (A borrowed tool becomes yours when you point it at home, 2025-01-13): the first success of 1898 showed Tokyo sights, and the oldest surviving footage, shot on November 28, 1899, is the kabuki play Momijigari.
The records say the subjects were Tokyo sights such as Ginza and Asakusa. Seeing their own streets on screen for the first time, audiences were delighted, and the showing was a success.
Then, on November 28, 1899, the oldest surviving film footage in Japan was shot: the kabuki play Momijigari (Maple Leaf Viewing).
Yet through filming sumo and kabuki, the Japanese gradually gained the craft of making moving images, and in time film rose in earnest.
Showmen, war and the birth of an industry
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (How spectacle becomes an industry, 2025-02-13): traveling showmen carried moving images from town to town, and war footage turned a novelty into an industry.
Through it all, Komada quietly spent his life carrying moving images from town to town.
Yet four years or so after film technology first arrived in Japan, an unexpected turn of historical events brought signs of a burgeoning industry. That turn was war.
The immense profits generated by this enterprise marked the true beginning of cinema as an industry in Japan.
The studio system, and leaving it
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Art needs a place outside the system, 2025-01-31): roughly 90 percent of studio productions were built around a predetermined star, and Oshima, who first conceived the film and only then searched for actors, resigned from Shochiku in 1961 to found Sozosha.
In those days, roughly 90 percent of Japanese studio productions were conceived around a predetermined star: the company first decided on the lead actor, and only then was the story designed to showcase them.
Because this was impossible within the corporate studio system, he resigned from Shochiku in 1961 to establish his own independent production company, Sozosha.
Under this system, ATG provided half the budget—5 million yen—while the filmmakers themselves had to raise the other half and cover any cost overruns.
Boy: made by the goodwill of regional towns
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (Art needs a place outside the system, 2025-01-31): Boy was shot by a fifteen-person crew on a railway journey of some 7,400 kilometers, and toured the country before its release.
The entire crew numbered only fifteen people, who worked across roles and helped one another as they traveled together from place to place.
It is fair to say that Boy was brought into being by the goodwill of the people in Japan's regional towns.
In this way, between June 4 and July 11, 1969, roughly 43,000 people were able to see Boy before it opened for its general theatrical release on July 26.
When did cinema come to Japan?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (How spectacle becomes an industry, 2025-02-13): the history of Japanese cinema began entirely with imports, a Kinetoscope into Kobe in the autumn of 1896 and others soon after.
The history of Japanese cinema began entirely with imports.
Japanese film history began in earnest in the autumn of 1896, when a Kinetoscope was imported into Kobe; around the same time, another was brought into Yokohama. Just a few months later, in the spring of 1897, both the Cinématographe and the Vitascope were imported in quick succession.
Why were Tokyo and Osaka the centers of early Japanese film?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (How spectacle becomes an industry, 2025-02-13): from the start the center of gravity in cinema was split between Tokyo and Osaka, a divide with a lasting influence on the industry.
Yet even then, the center of gravity in cinema was already split between Tokyo and Osaka—a geographic divide that would exert a lasting influence on the industry.
Who was Yokota Einosuke?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (How spectacle becomes an industry, 2025-02-13): Yokota, born in Kyoto, excelled in the practical mechanics of business, a contrast to the showman Komada, and with the Russo-Japanese War he mapped out eleven touring routes.
In temperament the two men formed a stark contrast: Komada was a gifted showman who thrived on spectacle, while Yokota excelled in the practical mechanics of business.
Seeing his chance, he immediately recruited staff, mapped out eleven touring routes across Japan, and divided his company into eleven exhibition troupes to screen the footage with maximum efficiency.
How did the Russo-Japanese War change Japanese cinema?
Takahiro Mitsui's thesis (How spectacle becomes an industry, 2025-02-13): cinema needed an enduring adult audience to become an industry, and the realization that ordinary people could watch the reality of the battlefield from home swept the country.
For cinema to develop sustainably as an industry, it had to secure an enduring adult audience.
The realization that ordinary people could watch the reality of the battlefield while remaining in Japan swept the country with fervor.
Riding this new wave, Japan's first dedicated cinema theater opened in October 1903 near Asakusa Park in Tokyo.
Essays to read
- A borrowed tool becomes yours when you point it at home — How did Japanese cinema begin? Early Japanese film became a native craft the moment it pointed at its own streets; Takahiro Mitsui sees a borrowed tool made one's own.
- How spectacle becomes an industry — How did Japanese film become an industry? Touring showmen and war footage turned early Japanese film from novelty into an industry, Takahiro Mitsui traces.
- Art needs a place outside the system — Boy was made outside the studio system through ATG's low-budget scheme, Takahiro Mitsui shows: a new art needs a structure beyond the old one — following the fifteen-person crew, the 7,400 km tour and the ATG deal that covered half the budget.
- The stillness that keeps a film alive — What is the meaning of Tokyo Story? Ozu held back drama so that silence and ma become living presences that never fade, Takahiro Mitsui argues of his stillness — reading the empty shots of Tokyo Story through Nishida's place of nothingness, and the mu on Ozu's gravestone.
- The age of the individual begins — Can a person's way of living become a philosophy? A way of living, not a strong image, reedited Japanese cinema, Takahiro Mitsui writes of Nakadai, whose passing opens an age of the individual.
- Attention shrinks to two seconds — Why are movies getting faster and shorter shots? The average shot has fallen to two seconds, Takahiro Mitsui notes, and an art form's decline is broken by makers from outside.
- Project 2049, Vol.0 (free in full) — begin here; Project 2049 continues every Friday