Before World War II, Taihei Imamura’s Manga Eigaron [A Study of Comics and Films] was the only literature on animation. In recent years, there is much literature to read. I recommend literature based on my impressions while reading them, rather than as general source materials. Other than those 10 books I chose, L. Martin’s Of Mice and Magic and Takuya Mori’s Teihon Animation no Gyagu Sekai [General Reader: World of gags in Animation] were two memorable literature sources. It might be presumptuous for me to recommend my coauthored book, Nihon Animation Eiga Shi [A History of Japanese Animation Films], but I am proud to say that the Library of Congress in the United States has purchased it.

Recently it has become easier to research animation history due to theavailability of prewar and wartime animation online. But even so, there has notyet been sufficient research into the several decades between the beginning ofdomestic animation in 1917 through the establishment of Toei Doga in 1956.This list focuses on the period before Toei Doga’s establishment and presentsmemoirs and critical biographies about animation producers, as well as booksthat offer clues for a deeper understanding of their work.

My book, Nihon no animēshon wa ika ni shite seiritsu shita no ka (How Japanese Animation Was Created), covers a period of almost 100 years, starting with the Meiji era when foreign animation was first screened in Japan. I focus on animation located at peripheries and boundaries, and I examine how the concept of animation was created and developed in Japan. I wish to provide a list of books, perhaps arbitrarily, that, I believe, can be used as references in terms of the history of animation in Japan; I combined with my own book.