JOAX-TV (Nippon Television)

1st Logo (August 28, 1953-September 30, 2001, July 24, 2011)
Nicknames: "Hato no Kyūjitsu" / "Doves' Day Off", "Japanese Birdcage", "Japanese LED Letters Logo", "Yakitori"

Logo:
 * August 28, 1953-June 30, 1972: On a black background, we see a large, transparent-looking N, with the letters T and V spaced out in the sides of the letter. The words "JOAX-TV" are seen on the bottom of the logo. After a few seconds, we fade in to three doves standing on a birdcage, spreading their wings to the rhythm of the music. The birdcage fades out and the doves begin to fly off one by one, with one dove remaining; this dove flaps its wings and zooms towards us. This fades into a black "NTV" wordmark zooming in over a white background. The background becomes black, and "NTV" becomes white. The text "日本テレビ放送" (which stands for "Nippon Television Broadcasting"), in an LED display-like font, scrolls to the left. We see the TV station's info (including the channel number and the broadcasting frequencies) on a sign made up of arrows. Finally, the screen cuts to the end card, as explained below in the Trivia section.
 * July 1, 1972-September 30, 2001: The first part of this ident is a colorized version of the original one, where the big N is steel blue (with "TV" in light blue), the birdcage is brown, and the doves are blue. When the last dove zooms towards us, it morphs into glittering sparkles that form a wreath of confetti over a black background; the stars in that wreath quickly turn into doves, and a star shines in the center of that wreath. The wordmark "NTV", in white, shines and zooms in, without its color switching this time. The background becomes a very dark blue color. The text "日本テレビ" ("Nippon Television") scrolls left, in the same font as the one seen in the original ident, but colored orange. We cut to a new channel info screen set on a white background; there is a tile-like animation done three times, revealing different white text (the first screen shows "JOAX-TV" over a series of orange tiles, the second shows "4チャンネル" ("Channel 4") over a series of blue tiles, with the "4" bigger than the rest, and the third shows "日本テレビ" over a series of combined blue and orange tiles). Afterwards, the end card is shown.

Trivia:
 * The doves represent the three television networks in Japan at the time (NHK, TBS, and NTV), and eventually, only one dove remains: the one representing Nippon Television. As more television networks were established over the decades, no new doves were added to this ident and the amount of doves always remained three.
 * Here are the end cards used by this ident:
 * August 28, 1953-August 27, 1958: The NTV wordmark is placed inside an outlined circle. Directly above the circle is "JOAX-TV", and directly below that circle is "東京" ("Tokyo"). The circle outline and text are colored white and the background color is black.
 * The reason why the bottom text is displayed as "Tokyo" because NTV at that time planned to expand their broadcasting operations to the entire country (with each city that would have its own NTV-affiliated TV station display its name as the bottom text of a local version of this end card), but the then-current broadcast license issued to them was limited to the Kanto region only.
 * August 28, 1958-June 30, 1972: Same as the 1953 end card, but "JOAX-TV" is now displayed at the upper left, and "日本テレビ" is displayed at the lower right.
 * July 1, 1972-December 31, 1977, July 24, 2011: The background is now blue, with the NTV wordmark now in color ("N" is light blue, "T" is red, and "V" is green) and placed inside a white outlined rounded rectangle. "JOAX-TV" and "日本テレビ" are displayed in the same positions as before.
 * January 1, 1978-September 30, 2001: On a white background, the newly-introduced corporate emblem of Nippon Television (which is a stylized "日" over a grid pattern) is displayed in an indigo color. "JOAX-TV" is displayed at the upper-left of the screen in red and "日本テレビ" is displayed at the lower-right of the screen in gray.

Variant: On July 24, 2011 (the date when Japanese analog television switched off in most regions), at 11:58 PM local time, the 1972-1977 version of this ident was broadcast on NTV's analog signal in Tokyo, with the addition of the text "58年間 ありがとうございました" ("Thank you for 58 years"), superimposed on the lower-left corner of the end card, in white. Both lower text elements form this message: "Thank you for 58 years [of analog television broadcasts], Nippon Television."

FX/SFX: Very nicely executed 2D animation! The quality of the animation would hold up until the end of the 1990s, when most recent Japanese animation was starting to become computerized. The 1972 color variant makes the ident even more impressive with the added animation to go alongside the cel animation of the doves.

Music/Sounds: A custom-made orchestra piece (composed by Shirō Fukai) titled "Hato no Kyūjitsu" (鳩の休日, "Doves' Day Off") that had been slightly reorchestrated in 1972 and 1978. The 1972 version was used until September 27, 1978, while the 1978 version, performed by the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, was used from September 28, 1978 onwards. During the part with the network information, an announcer can be heard, which varies due to the logo's usage:
 * August 28, 1953-June 30, 1972: Two announcers were used; the first is Masako Yūki, and the second one is a currently-unidentified male announcer. The male announcer variant contains a slight variation in the section of the music that is played during and after the voiceover. Either way, the announcer says: "NTV. Channel 4. Video frequency: 171.25 megacycles. Audio frequency: 175.75 megacycles. JOAX-TV, this is Nippon Television."
 * July 1, 1972-September 27, 1978, July 24, 2011: Currently-unidentified female announcer, who says "JOAX-TV, Channel 4, this is Nippon Television." From this point on, the station's broadcasting frequencies are not stated anymore in the ident, instead appearing on the test card (along with the station's transmission output) that is broadcasted before the ident is shown.
 * September 28, 1978-March 31, 1987: Mihoko Kosaka, same spiel as before.
 * April 1, 1987-September 30, 2001: Hiroko Ogiwara; same spiel as before on the main sound multiplex channel, and "JOAX-TAM, this is NTV, television sound multiplex broadcasting." on the second channel. There is a delay of about one-halfth of a second between the two spiels.

Availability: Extinct. This was only seen on sign-offs and sign-ons on JOAX-TV.

Editor's Note: This logo was a trademark of Japanese television, given its professional animation.

2nd Logo (2001-2003)
TBA.

3rd Logo (2002- )
TBA.

4th Logo (April 1, 2008-December 26, 2013)
Seen at 9:03

Nicknames: "Doves' Day Off II", "Japanese Birdcage II", "CGI (Japanese) Birdcage", "2000s (Japanese) Birdcage", "Yakitori II"

Logo: This is an abridged remake of the 1953-2001 ident using 3D CGI. The big N with the letters "T" and "V" inside is first seen, with either "JOAX-TV" (analog channel) or "JOAX-DTV" (digital channel) below. The big N morphs into the birdcage, and the word "TV" explodes into blue dots that group into bunches of six of those (that each form a circle); three of these bunches of six dots turn into the same doves from before. Two doves each explode back into the same six dots instead of flying, while the remaining dove flaps its feathers before jumping with its feathers up. Then, the lone dove creates copies of itself while spinning (appearing as "wreaths" of six doves each), and the whole thing fades to a white background with the Nippon Television logo (consisting of the "pixelated" letters "日テレ" ("Nittele") in dark gold with the network's pig mascot (named Nandarō) to the left of it), with either "JOAX-TV" or "JOAX-DTV" in dark gold above and "Nippon Television" below in a dark gold sans-serif font in uppercase.

Trivia:
 * The bunch of six dots that form a circle and the "wreath" of six doves both represent Japan's six national television networks at the time, including TV Asahi, TV Tokyo, and Tokyo MX.

Variant:
 * The 55th anniversary variant of the end card, used from April 1, 2008 to March 29, 2009, has the station callsign and the Nippon Television logo in teal, with the numeral 55 in black and positioned to the upper right of the logo (as if that numeral was treated as an exponent), and instead of "Nippon Television", the lower text now reads "Nittele 55th Anniversary" in black and exactly as cased. The network's mascot does not appear in the NTV logo.
 * From July 5, 2010 to July 23, 2011, the analog version of this ident was presented in a 16:9 widescreen mode; polished glass-like pillar boxes were added to the left and right sides of the video.

FX/SFX: CGI animation.

Music/Sounds: A reorchestrated and abridged version of the 1953-2001 ident's music (similar to the 1978 version), played using a synthesizer. The announcer this time is Takahiko Fujī, who says the following:
 * JOAX-TV:
 * “The channel that you are watching is JOAX-TV, Nippon Television.” (junction; the entire sentence is said twice)
 * “We will now begin our broadcast. The channel that you are watching is JOAX-TV, Nippon Television.” (sign-on)
 * “The channel that you are watching is JOAX-TV, Nippon Television. Today's broadcast will now end.” (sign-off)
 * JOAX-DTV: “JOAX-DTV. The channel that you are watching is Nippon Television, digital television.” (the last sentence is said twice)

Availability: Extinct.

5th Logo (January 5, 2014- )
TBA.