Three Tales (film)
Three Tales was a black and white Japanese anime direct-to-TV short film aired in 1960. It was thought to be the first domestic anime ever televised until the discovery of Mole's Adventure.
Background
The show was an experimental anthology broadcast on the NHK channel. It was divided into 3 parts featuring individual short fairy tales. The first part of the show titled "The Third Plate" is technically the first anime segment ever televised. In total, the show was 30 minutes long. Though it is questionable as to how widespread the anime actually was, since NHK was only broadcasting to 866 TV sets as of 1953. There is no known estimate as to how much their infrastructure scaled just 7 years later. Though the best evidence pointing to the anime as being black and white comes from the NHK station record, which indicated they did not make their first analog color broadcast until September 10, 1960, at 8:55pm 9 months later in Tokyo and Osaka.Story
The story is an anthology of 3 separate fairy tales.| Story | Japanese Name | English Name | Original Story by |
| Story 1 | 第三の皿 | The Third Plate | Hirosuke Hamada |
| Story 2 | オッペルと象 | Oppel and the Elephant | Kenji Miyazawa |
| Story 3 | 眠い町 | Sleepy Town | Mimei Ogawa |
Staff
Kenji Miyazawa had already died when the show saw his story turned into an anime, even Mia Ogawa would also die just 1 year after the show's first broadcast in 1961.| Function | Japanese Name | English Name | Alternate English Name |
| Director, Supervisor | 小薗江圭子 | Keiko Osonoe | |
| Director, Supervisor | 中原収一 | Shûichi Nakahara | |
| Director, Supervisor | 和田誠 | Makoto Wada | |
| Original Story Author | 浜田広介 | Hirosuke Hamada | |
| Original Story Author | 宮沢賢治 | Kenji Miyazawa | |
| Original Story Author | 小川未明 | Mimei Ogawa | Bimei Ogawa |