The history of Japanese Animation (The term Anime started to emerge in the 1970’s) began around the dawn of the 20th century, as filmmakers from Japan started experimenting with animation techniques that had been pioneered in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia. The oldest known Japanese animation in existence screened in 1917 was a two-minute long clip showing a samurai attempting try out his new sword on an opponent, but he ends up being defeated. Early forerunners of the art form included Shimokawa Oten, Junichi Kouchi, and Seitar Kitayama.
In the 1930s, animation had become an alternative method of storytelling alongside the film and theatre industries in Japan. However, animators were faced with stiff competition from foreign producers. To make matters more difficult, many of the top Japanese animators were still working with a cheaper cutout format and not with cell animation, which was and is still the standard, although the results they achieved are nothing short of masterful. Other creative animators made huge progress in animation technique, aided in no small part by the increased funding provided by the government for the production of animations to be used in education and propaganda. In 1933 the short animation Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, became the first Japanese animated “Talkie”. The success of the film led to several of the voice actors becoming stars. Mitsuyo Seo’s 1945 film Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors was the first feature length animated film in Japan. It was sponsored by the Japanese Imperial Navy. The enormous success of Disney’s 1937 feature film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was of great influence to Japanese animators as it was the the rest of the world. It would also inspire one young animator who would later alter the course of Japanese graphic story-telling forever….
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime