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Noburō Ōfuji

Japanese film director and animator (1900–1961)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 4, 2026
Entity authorityQ1154208 ↗
Source-derived summary

Noburō Ōfuji (大藤 信郎, Ōfuji Noburō; June 1, 1900 – July 28, 1961) was a Japanese film director and animator. One of the most notable auteurs of anime (one of the industry's most prestigious awards, the Mainichi Film Awards' Ōfuji Noburō Award, is named after him), he worked primarily with cutout and silhouette animation. He also made a number of films in traditional animation, using then-expensive, imported cels, while his earliest work known to have survived is a live-action/animated film. He trained under Jun'ichi Kōuchi before starting his own company. He is known for his employment of washi, especially the coloured and patterned Edo chiyogami, which gives his films a distinctively Japanese appearance. He was one of the first Japanese animators to earn international recognition for his work.

Filmography

Hanamizake (1924)

Noroma no oyaji (1924)

Kemurigusa monogatari (煙り草物語) [A Story of Tobacco] (1926)

Kirigami zaiku Saiyuki: Songoku monogatari (切紙細工 西遊記 孫悟空物語) [The Story of the Monkey King] (1926)

Baguda-jō no tōzoku (馬具田城の盗賊) [Burglars of "Baghdad" Castle] (1926)

Kujira (鯨) (1927)

Mikansen (みかん舩) [A Ship of Oranges] (1927)

Yaji-Kita jigoku gokuraku (1927)

Chinsetsu Yoshida goten (珍説吉田御殿) (1928)

Hoshi (1928)

Kirinuki urashima (1928)

Kogane no hana (こがねの花) [The Golden Flower] (1929)

Usotsuki-jō (1929)

Kuronyago (1929)

Jidō shōka eiga: Muramatsuri (村祭) [The Village Festival] (1930)

Komainu no me (1930)

Osekisho (お関所) [At the Border Checkpoint] (1930)

Kokka kimigayo (國歌 君か代) [National Anthem, Kimigayo] (1931)

Haru no uta (春の唄) [Spring Song] (1931)

Kokoro no chikara (心の力) [Will Power] (1931)

Musashiyama to Asashio no chin-zumō (1931)

Kaeru san-yushi (蛙三勇士) [The Three Fearless Frogs] (1933)

Numa no taisho (1933)

Saiyuki (1934)

San-ba no chō (1934)

Tengu taiji (1934)

Chinkoroheibei tamatebako (ちんころ平平玉手箱) [Chinkoroheibei and the Treasure Box] (1936)

Dosei (1936)

Dango no yukue (1937)

Katsura hime (1937)

Shikisai manga no dekiru made (色彩漫画の出來る迄) [The Making of a Color Animation] (1937)

Sora no arawashi - Sensen manga (1938)

Warae yamaotoko (1938)

Yakko no Takohei: Otomo wa tsuyoi ne (1938)

Umi no arawashi (1939)

Kodomo to kōsaku (1941)

Mare-oki kaisen (1943)

Kumo no itō (1946)

Yuki no yo no yume (1947)

Kuma ni kuwarenu otoko (1948)

Shaka (釈迦) (1948)

Taisei shakuson (1949)

Seisho genso-fu: Adam to Eve (1951)

Kujira (くじら) (1952)

Taisei shakuson (1952)

Hana to chō (1954)

Kojiki sho: Amano iwato-biraki no maki (1955)

Yūreisen (幽霊船) (1956)

Kojiki monogatari dai nihen: Yamatano-orochi taiji (1956)

Kojiki monogatari: Okuni no mikoto to inaba no usagi (1957)

Kojiki monogatari: Tenson korin no maki (1958)

Kojiki monogatari: Koson-ke no mittsuno takara (1959)

Shaka no shogai (釈迦の生涯) (1961)

See also

History of anime

Kenzō Masaoka

References

External links

Author page at the Japanese Animated Film Classics website by the Japanese National Museum of Modern Art

Ofuji, Noburo at the Japanese Animation Filmography Project

Noburō Ōfuji at IMDb

Noburō Ōfuji at the Japanese Movie Database (in Japanese)

Ettinger, Benjamin (February 28, 2009). "Departed animators". AniPages Daily. Retrieved 2009-06-16.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Noburō Ōfuji” is japanese film director and animator (1900–1961). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Noburō, Ōfuji and Japanese, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1900, 1961, 1924, 1926—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Noburō, Ōfuji and Japanese is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “japanese film director and animator (1900–1961)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1154208. The first chronological checks are 1900, 1961, 1924 and 1926.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Noburō Ōfuji primary sources, Noburō Ōfuji archive and Noburō research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Noburō Ōfuji” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.