Along with Kanzo Shirai, he made the earliest films in Japan, mostly of geisha, Ginza, and selections of scenes from popular plays.
His first exhibition was at the Tokyo Kabuki-za, a Kabuki theater, in 1899.
In 1898, before starting his work with Shirai, he shot five documentary films of street scenes in Tokyo for the Lumière Company, numbers 981–985 in the Lumière catalogue.
In November 1899 Shibata filmed a scene from the Kabuki play Momijigari, starring two of the most famous Kabuki actors of the period, Ichikawa Danjūrō IX and Onoe Kikugorō V. This 3 minute 50 second long film version of Momijigari is the oldest surviving narrative movie filmed in Japan.
This biographical article related to film in Japan is a stub.