was a Japanese
film studio
A film studio (also known as movie studio or simply studio) is a major entertainment company that makes films. Today, studios are mostly financing and distribution entities. In addition, they may have their own studio facility or facilities; how ...
active in the 1910s. The name translates as the "Natural Color Moving Picture Company," but it was known as Tenkatsu for short. The company was formed in 1914 by remnants of the
Fukuhōdō studio that did not take part in the merger that formed
Nikkatsu
is a Japanese film studio located in Bunkyō. The name ''Nikkatsu'' amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures".
Shareholders are Nippon Television Holdings (35%) and SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (28.4%). ...
, particularly the entrepreneur
Kisaburō Kobayashi, and was first aimed at exploiting the
Kinemacolor color motion picture system in
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
That system became too expensive, so the company soon settled on making regular films, becoming Nikkatsu's main rival in the 1910s. Although it was a decentralized company, one that was run by various bosses and allowed
benshi to order the production of films,
Tenkatsu played a part in the
Pure Film Movement by allowing its employee
Norimasa Kaeriyama to direct some of the first reformist works incorporating actresses and foreign film technique.
It was also known for hiring
Ōten Shimokawa
was a Japanese artist, considered to be one of the founding artists and pioneers of anime. Little is known of his early personal life, other than that his family moved to the Tokyo area when he was nine years old. Here he began working for '' T ...
to produce some of the first Japanese
anime
is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
or
animated films
Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...
in Japan in 1916.
Shimokowa experimented with several techniques until the studio distributed his first short animated movie of 5 minutes duration in January 1917, called ''The Story of the Concierge Mukuzō Imukawa'' (''
Imokawa Mukuzō, genkanban no maki'').
Tenkatsu was eventually bought up by
Kokkatsu in December 1919.
Notes
Japanese film studios
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