As many of us have heard by now, 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Japanese animation industry. Yes ladies and gentlemen, anime is now 100 years old and probably older than our grandparents! Much like what the National Film Center at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo did, the Kyoto International Manga Museum is also jumping in on the celebrations by screening some really old anime!

The museum will be holding the Nippon Animation Kotohajime ~”Ugoku Manga” no Pioneer-tachi~ exhibition event as part of these celebrations. They will be screening some very classic works which date back to Japanese animation’s pioneering years. These works include the “Hanawa Hekonai Meitou no Maki“, as well as other works by the industry’s pioneers. As seen in the poster, these pioneers include Hekoten Shimokawa, Seitarou Kitayama, Junichi Kouchi, and Senpan Maekawa.

The exhibition will also screen a reproduction of the first recognised Japanese animated work, Hekoten Shimokawa’s “Dekobou Shingachou Imosuke no Inoshishigari.” They will only show a reproduction as no original piece of it still exists today. They will also show Shimokawa’s manga, “Imokawa Mukuzou“. Finally, the exhibition will also talk about how manga, as well as Walt Disney works, influenced the industry.

Meanwhile, the museum will also host a manga drawing exhibition titled “Drawing manga — Lines, Panels, Kyara”. It might help some aspiring artists in their path, as it contains about 300 rough drafts from professional mangaka. As they say, you can’t look to the future unless you examine the past.

On 3rd May, the museum will also host renowned mangaka, Keiichi Tanaka and Sensha Yoshida, as they talk about gag manga. The animation exhibition will run from 6th April – 2nd July, while the manga exhibition will end until 14th May.

Source: Comic Natalie