When we talk about anime, we usually refer to Osamu Tezuka as the one who "started it all" in the 1950s. And while that may be true of today's definition of "anime," Japanese animation began much earlier than that. Animated cartoons began as far back as 1907 (and maybe even earlier -- records of this time are spotty at best). In Japan, animation was used as an extension of theater, artists created, experimented, and refined this new artform years before it reached Tezuka's undeniably expert hands. Three men are thought to have kickstarted the medium: Katsudo Shashin, Junichi Kouichi, and Seitarou Kitayama -- names that are not as famous as Tezuka's, but important nonetheless.
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