Anime
Anime is a distinctive form of Japanese animation that has evolved since its inception in the early twentieth century. Gaining significant popularity after World War II, anime is closely linked to manga, Japan's comic book art, and has become a globally recognized medium with influential filmmakers. Early anime films were often short, silent, and drew inspiration from Western animation, particularly Disney. With the emergence of notable figures like Osamu Tezuka, who is hailed as a founder of anime, the art form began to expand, leading to successful television series such as "Astro Boy."
Throughout the decades, anime has diversified into various genres, with acclaimed directors like Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Kanbe emerging as key players in the industry. Miyazaki’s works, including "Spirited Away" and "My Neighbor Totoro," have garnered international acclaim, even winning prestigious awards. The late twentieth century saw anime's popularity surge in overseas markets, notably in the United States, where titles such as "Pokémon" and "Dragon Ball Z" became cultural phenomena.
However, the anime industry faces challenges, including labor shortages and working conditions that have led to concerns over quality production. Despite these hurdles, anime remains immensely popular worldwide, continuing to attract new fans and expanding its influence in global entertainment.
Subject Terms
Anime
Anime is the art of Japanese animation. While anime has existed since the early twentieth century, it became popular in the years following World War II due to its links with manga, the Japanese art of comic books. Since then, it has grown into an internationally recognized and admired art form; some of its practitioners are among the world’s most respected filmmakers.
History
Some of the earliest anime films were made between 1900 and 1920. These silent films often spanned three reels, though they were generally not longer than fifteen minutes. Some were simple tales while others copied films popular in the United States at the time—for instance, the Felix the Cat series influenced early anime. These early films were drawn in what historians consider a traditional Japanese style. Many were made in their animators' homes, but major studios eventually hired these animators when they saw the success of the films. Some of the most famous silent anime filmmakers were Noboru Ofuji (who specialized in paper silhouette animation), Sanae Yamamoto, and Oten Shimokawa.
From the beginning of the 1930s to the end of World War II, most anime was somewhat propagandistic; animators showed the glory of the Japanese military by making military figures the heroes of their stories. Anime did not begin to branch away from subjects strictly intended to serve the government until the early 1950s.
As the art form developed, anime cartoonists were significantly influenced by the work of Walt Disney Studios, which had become tremendously popular in the United States. The goal of anime artists across Japan was to achieve the success of Disney's films. The opening of Toei Studios helped anime artists reach this goal. It offered the equipment and promotion needed to make anime films into hits.
Osamu Tezuka, one of the filmmakers who worked with Toei Studios and the inventor of manga, became recognized as one of the founders of anime. Tezuka first collaborated with Toei Studios on a film called Alakazam the Great, which was based on a sixteenth-century Japanese novel. After this, he decided to work with the studio on his films.
Tezuka, who was inspired by the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons when they aired on Japanese television, decided to work in television. His earliest success was a series based on his already popular 1960s manga comic Astro Boy, which was about a heroic robot and his friends. The success of this film established a link between popular manga and anime based on manga. Some of Tezuka’s most successful works were Black Jack, Kimba the White Lion, and Phoenix.
Influential Anime Artists
For a time during the 1970s, anime was dominated by science-fiction stories. After this, several animators became well known, and anime films were once again made in movie studios rather than in television studios. These animators included Hayao Miyazaki, Mamoru Kanbe, and Noboru Ishiguro.
Hayao Miyazaki is respected by movie-watchers worldwide and considered by many critics to be one of the world’s best animators. He began as an animator for children’s cartoons and then co-founded Studio Ghibli with Isao Takahata. Some of Miyazaki’s most famous films are My Neighbor Totoro (1988), about two young girls who befriend a large, cuddly creature named Totoro; Princess Mononoke (1997), a fantasy tale of a civil war between gods and humans; Spirited Away (2001), a tale of a girl’s journey through a parallel world; and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), the story of a girl trying to free herself after a witch’s spell has turned her into an old woman. In the United States, Miyazaki’s films were frequently picked up and distributed by Walt Disney. In 2014, he received an Honorary Award at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Governor Awards.
Mamoru Kanbe’s work has always featured fantasy and provocative subject matter. One of his more famous films is Elfen Lied (2004), which is about two teenagers who take a wounded girl they find on a beach home with them, only to discover that she is quite dangerous. Cardcaptor Sakura (1998–2000), a television series and film based on a highly popular manga, is about a girl who gains supernatural powers after discovering a set of magic cards in a library. In Demon Prince Enma (2006–07), demons have descended on Earth to possess humans and drive them to commit violent acts. A group of demon hunters chases them to try to wipe them off the planet.
During the 1970s, Noboru Ishiguro was the director of an enormously popular series called Space Battleship Yamato, in which the human race goes underground after aliens cover Earth's surface with radioactive meteorites. During the 1980s, Ishiguro directed a remake of Tezuka’s Astroboy. However, a television series set in the thirty-fifth century called Legend of the Galactic Heroes (1988–97) is often cited as his most significant achievement. Many historians consider Ishiguro's work instrumental in introducing anime to Western audiences. Ishiguro passed away in 2012 from a lung infection.
Anime Today
In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, anime became more and more successful in overseas markets. In the 1990s, anime was popularized in the United States by television shows like Pokémon (1997– ), Dragon Ball Z (1996–2003), and Yu-Gi-Oh! (2000–06). In 2002, Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Animated Feature Film. By 2016, anime accounted for 60 percent of television cartoons worldwide. The following year, animator Masaaki Yuasa’s film Lu Over the Wall won the Cristal Award for Best Feature Film from the Annecy International Animated Film Festival—the world’s most prestigious and longest-running animated film festival.
In 2019, Japan was honored by the Annecy Festival as its tribute country, a title that highlights the country’s animation culture. The same year, three out of the ten nominations for the Cristal Award for Best Feature Film were anime films. As the popularity of anime grew overseas, however, Japan’s anime industry began experiencing a crisis due to a shortage of animation artists. Animators complained about long hours with low pay and a lack of new artists entering the industry, leaving experienced animation teams overworked. Some predicted these factors could affect Japan’s output of quality films and shows. In response, some employees of anime studios filed complaints, arguing that the studios violated Japanese labor regulations.
However, anime remained enormously popular across the globe, gaining even more fans during the COVID-19 pandemic, when many people were stuck at home amidst lockdown restrictions. Some turned to anime, binge-watching prolific series such as One Piece (1999– ), the long-running pirate adventure based on a manga of the same name, which had over one thousand episodes by 2024. Alongside anime, manga grew as well; from 2019 to 2022, US sales of manga quadrupled. Anime films also experienced tremendous success during this period. In the US, the 2022 film Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero debuted at number one at the box office. Though Miyazaki had announced his retirement in 2013, he returned to filmmaking with the release of his critically acclaimed work The Boy and the Heron in 2023.
Bibliography
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