The Showa Semi Leotax DL is a small folding , well built, inspired by before the war German industry, as this Zeiss Ikon Ikonta, like many Japanese foldings of that time.

The fixed finder is mounted on a rocker drived by a small slider allowing to adjust the parallax to infinity either 3.5 , value in feet of the minimum focusing distance.
The shutter release is located on the left side of the top of the device while the opening of the front door is effected by pressing a button on the sole.

The lens could be a Reginon likely manufactured by Nishida Kogaku paired with a NKK Wester shutter also manufactured by Nishida Kogaku, or a Kominar or a Toko both paired with a Copal shutter. Even if all three lenses are 7.5 cm focal opening to f 3.5 , the price of the camera was growing in the order of these three versions.
The NKK shutter has a flash sync socket formed by a pin plug of about two millimeters in diameter, the Copal was using a Kodak bayonet.

The scissors are stamped with a SoW logo for Showa Optical Works, logo also found embossed in leatherette of the back side. Semi Leotax is embossed in the leatherette to the right of the front panel.

In 1938, Mr. Kanzo Nagakawa found, in Tokyo, the Kyoei-Sha Company.
After Canon, this company was the most former to go into in the manufacturing of 35mm cameras
This same year it changed its name for SHOWA and started to produce pretty copies of Leica II, then III.then M!!!.
The war happened and for lack of raw materials, the factory idled in photography and its capacity was requisitioned for the effort of war.
Around 1942 Showa was confronted with a problem of Leitz patents. Involved in a lawsuit, it was obliged to separate the viewfinder and the rangefinder.
Very fortunately, the factory escaped the American bombardments and been able to start again a normal activity as early as 1946.
After the war, Showa manufactured also some folding camera 4.5 x 6 and some TLR 14 x 14 mm.

Particularly strong, technologically, the brand was the only one to venture on the lands of the Leica IIIg.with its magnificent “TV” .then of the “M”, with its superb “G” .which only remained experimental.
The company was named LEOTAX in 1956 and went bankrupt in 1961, just before the sales launch of the “G”.

The classification of LEOTAX models is very complex
Lenses of origin of the Letax was some Leotax, at the very beginning, then some of Topcor, Simlar or Fujinon. But, as for Nicca, some American stores left a total choice with its customers.
Possible causal relation, Topcor and Simlar are today very difficult to find.