The company was founded on January 20, 1934, as Fuji Shashin Film K.K. (富士写真フィルム㈱, later translated as Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd.), producing several sorts of film. It was an offshoot of Dai-Nippon Celluloid K.K. (大日本セルロイド㈱), founded in 1919. The company's first CEO was Asano Shūichi (浅野修一). The plants were located in the village of Minami-Ashigara (南足柄村, now a city) in the prefecture of Kanagawa (神奈川県), at the foot of Mt. Hakone (箱根山). It is said that the name "Fuji" (富士) was chosen by Asano Shūichi because of Mt. Fuji (富士山), situated not far from Mt. Hakone, but was already registered by a third party, to which the rights were bought for ¥8,000, a large sum at the time.
The company started to produce optical glass during the early 1940s for military use. The dependent company Fuji Shashin Kōki K.K. (富士写真光機㈱, meaning "Fuji Photo Optical Co., Ltd.") was founded in 1944, from the assets of Enomoto Kōgaku Seiki Seisakusho (榎本光学精機製作所), but this was absorbed back into Fuji Shashin Film after 1945. Many other Fuji companies were created after the war, all of them dependent of the main Fuji Shashin Film company and eventually of the Fujifilm Group (富士フィルムグループ). Fuji began producing cameras in 1948 with the Fujica Six. Until the late 1970s, many cameras made by Fuji were called Fujica, a contraction of Fuji and camera (cf Leica, Yashica etc.).
