Short answers, pulled from the story.
Katsudō Shashin is a three-second Japanese animated filmstrip from the Meiji era, considered the oldest known work of animation from Japan. Its significance lies in its speculated creation date of around 1907, which would make it contemporary with or earlier than early animated works by Western animators such as Émile Cohl, J. Stuart Blackton, and Winsor McCay.
The exact date is unknown. Evidence places its creation somewhere between 1905 and 1912. Historian Frederick S. Litten has suggested around 1907 as the most likely date, and stated that a production date before 1905 or after 1912 is unlikely.
It was discovered in Kyoto in early 2005. A secondhand dealer contacted Natsuki Matsumoto, an iconography expert at the Osaka University of Arts, in December 2004. The film was part of a private Kyoto family collection that included three projectors, eleven 35 mm films, and thirteen glass magic lantern slides.
The creator of Katsudō Shashin is unknown. Natsuki Matsumoto, who examined the film, noted that its relatively poor quality and low-tech stencil technique suggest it came from a smaller company rather than a prominent studio or known individual.
The filmstrip depicts a young boy in a sailor suit who writes the kanji characters "活動写真" (meaning "moving picture" or "Activity photo") from right to left, then turns to face the viewer, removes his hat, and bows. The entire sequence spans fifty frames and lasts three seconds at sixteen frames per second.
Rather than photographing images frame by frame as in conventional animation, each frame was impressed onto 35 mm celluloid using a kappa-ban, a device for stencilling magic lantern slides. The images appear in red and black, and the strip's ends were fastened into a loop for continuous viewing.