Earliest (foreign) animation film shown in Japan

[urbanora]

I've been asked by German film historian Frederick Litten to pass on this link to an article he's just written (in English) identifying what is the earliest animation film known to have been screened in Japan. Long known only as The Nipper's Transformations, he makes a good argument for identifying it as the work of Emile Cohl. But which Cohl film? Well, you''ll just have to read it.

http://litten.de/fulltext/nipper.pdf

And in case you felt up to reading in the article in Japanese, here's a link to that too:

http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20130104 ... 5000c.html