was a film studio and importer active in the early years of cinema in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Originally involved in the magic lantern

Magic lantern

The magic lantern or Laterna Magica is an early type of image projector developed in the 17th century.-Operation:The magic lantern has a concave mirror in front of a light source that gathers light and projects it through a slide with an image scanned onto it. The light rays cross an aperture , and...

 business, Yoshizawa bought a cinématographe

Cinematographe

A cinematograph is a film camera, which also serves as a film projector and developer. It was invented in the 1890s.Note that this was not the first 'moving picture' device. Louis Le Prince had built early devices in 1886. His 1888 film Roundhay Garden Scene still survives.There is much dispute as...

 camera off a visiting Italian and began exhibiting motion pictures in 1897. Run by Ken'ichi Kawaura, and having an office in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Yoshizawa soon became the most prosperous and stable of the early film companies. It was the first to manufacture motion picture equipment domestically in 1900 and it established the first permanent movie theater, the Denkikan

Denkikan

The was the first dedicated movie theater in Japan. Originally a hall built in Asakusa's Rokku theater district to present spectacles featuring electricity , it was converted into a movie theater in October 1903 by Yoshizawa Shōten, the most successful of the film companies at the time...

, in Asakusa

Asakusa

is a district in Taitō, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for the Sensō-ji, a Buddhist temple dedicated to the bodhisattva Kannon. There are several other temples in Asakusa, as well as various festivals.- History :...

 in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 in 1903.

When the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

 broke out in 1904, Yoshizawa Shōten sent off a camera team to follow the Japanese troops. The public interest aroused by this media event allowed the studio to build more theatres around Asakusa and to build Japan's first movie studio in Meguro in Tokyo in 1908. It was even successful enough to print its own magazine, Katsudō shashinkai, and build an amusement park

Luna Park, Tokyo

In operation in 1910 and 1911, Tokyo's Luna Park was the first park of that name to be open in Japan...

 in Asakusa named after Luna Park in Coney Island

Coney Island

Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....

 in 1910. But when several arson incidents led to the destruction of several theatres and the Asakusa Luna Park in 1911, financial considerations prompted Yoshizawa to take part in the merger with Yokota Shōkai

Yokota Shōkai

was a Japanese film studio active in the early years of cinema in Japan. Its origins can be traced back to when Einosuke Yokota received one of the first Lumiere cinematograph machines in Japan from Katsutarō Inaba to conduct traveling exhibitions of the device. In 1901, Yokota founded Yokota...

, M. Pathe

M. Pathe

was a Japanese film studio active in the early years of cinema in Japan.-Background:M. Pathe was founded in 1906 by Shōkichi Umeya, a businessman who had distributed films first in Malaysia and Singapore and then in Japan. He took the name "M. Pathe" from the French Pathé Frères studio even though...

 and Fukuhōdō

Fukuhōdō

was a Japanese film studio active in the early years of cinema in Japan.-Background:Fukuhōdō was founded in 1910 when Kenzō Tabata built a chain of modern, concrete movie theaters in Tokyo. To supply these eight theaters, Tabata started a production arm, with a studio located in Nippori...

 that formed Nikkatsu

Nikkatsu

is a Japanese entertainment company well known for its film and television productions. It is Japan's oldest major movie studio. The name Nikkatsu is an abbreviation of Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Cinematograph Company".-History:...

in 1912.

External links

• Yoshizawa Shoten at the Internet Movie Database