Animated version of the 800-900 years old Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga. One of the first Japanese cartoon style drawings/paintings
Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga (鳥獣人物戯画, literally “Animal-person Caricatures”), commonly shortened to Chōjū-giga (鳥獣戯画, literally “Animal Caricatures”), is a famous set of four picture scrolls, or emakimono, belonging to Kōzan-ji temple in Kyoto, Japan. The Chōjū-giga scrolls are also referred to as Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Scrolls of Frolicking Animals and Humans in English. Some think that Toba Sōjō created the scrolls; however, it seems clear from the style that more than one artist is involved.[1] The right-to-left reading direction of Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga is traditional in East Asia, and is still common in Japan. Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga is also credited as the oldest work of manga.[2][3] The scrolls are now entrusted to the Kyoto National Museum and Tokyo National Museum.
The scrolls are the earliest in a linear monochrome drawing style that was to continue in use in Japanese painting (as they are all done with the usual writing and painting brush, they count as painting).[4]
As opened, the first scroll illustrates anthropomorphic rabbits and monkeys bathing and getting ready for a ceremony, a monkey thief runs from animals with sticks and knocks over a frog from the lively ceremony. Further on, the rabbits and monkeys are playing and wrestling while another group of animals participate in a funeral and frog prays to Buddha as the scroll closes.
