Instant History

Aired: 1961 - 1962

A TV anime produced by Otogi Pro. Broadcast in 312 monochrome 3-minute episodes on the Fuji TV network as a weekday strip program from May 1, 1961 to February 24, 1962. Sponsored solely by Meiji Seika (now Meiji). The historical introduction mini-anime produced by Otogi Pro, led by Ryuichi Yokoyama, humorously depicts historical figures and events unknown to today's people in this educational short-form series. It features a hybrid composition combining animation footage with photographs and documentary films. As an extremely early example of a long-running serialized TV anime in strip-broadcast format, it is mentioned as one of the candidates for Japan's first continuous television anime work. After its conclusion, production know-how was carried over to the successor TBS series Otogi Manga Calendar (starting June 1962), to which Otogi Pro's serial production expertise was inherited. An indispensable historical work in discussing the prehistory of Japanese TV anime.