History of Anime
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The history of anime can be traced back to the start of the 20th century, with the earliest verifiable films dating from 1906. Before the advent of film, Japan already had a rich tradition of entertainment with colourful painted figures moving across the projection screen in 写し絵 (Utushi-e), a particular Japanese type of magic lantern show popular in the 19th century. Possibly inspired by European phantasmagoria shows, utushi-e showmen used mechanical slides and developed lightweight wooden projectors (furo) that were handheld so that several performers could each control the motions of different projected figures.
The first generation of animators in the late 1910s included Ōten Shimokawa, Jun'ichi Kōuchi and Seitaro Kitayama, commonly referred to as the "fathers" of anime. Propaganda films, such as Momotarō no Umiwashi (1943) and Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei (1945), the latter being the first anime feature film, were made during World War II. During the 1970s, anime developed further, with the inspiration of Disney animators, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing distinct genres such as mecha and its super robot subgenre. Typical shows from this period include Astro Boy, Lupin III and Mazinger Z. During this period several filmmakers became famous, especially Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii.
In the 1980s, anime became mainstream in Japan, experiencing a boom in production with the rise in popularity of anime like Gundam, Macross, Dragon Ball, and genres such as real robot, space opera and cyberpunk. Space Battleship Yamato and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross also achieved worldwide success after being adapted respectively as Star Blazers and Robotech.
The film Akira set records in 1988 for the production costs of an anime film and went on to become an international success. Later, in 2004, the same creators produced Steamboy, which took over as the most expensive anime film. Spirited Away shared the first prize at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, while Innocence: Ghost in the Shell was featured at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Origins of anime (early 1900s – 1922)
According to Natsuki Matsumoto, the first animated film produced in Japan may have stemmed from as early as 1907. Known as Katsudō Shashin (活動写真, "Activity Photo"), from its depiction of a boy in a sailor suit drawing the characters for katsudō shashin, the film was first found in 2005. It consists of fifty frames stencilled directly onto a strip of celluloid.This claim has not been verified though and predates the first known showing of animated films in Japan. The date and first film publicly displayed is another source of contention: while no Japanese-produced animation is definitively known to date before 1917, the possibility exists that other films entered Japan and that no known records have surfaced to prove a showing prior to 1912. Film titles have surfaced over the years, but none have been proven to predate this year. The first foreign animation is known to have been found in Japan in 1910, but it is not clear if the film was ever shown in a cinema or publicly displayed at all. Yasushi Watanabe found a film known as Fushigi no Bōrudo (不思議のボールド, "Miracle Board") in the records of the Yoshizawa Shōten (吉沢商店) company. The description matches James Blackton's Humorous Phases of Funny Faces, though academic consensus on whether or not this is a true animated film is disputed. According to Kyokko Yoshiyama, the first animated film called Nippāru no Henkei (ニッパールの変形, "Nippāru's Transformation") was shown in Japan at the Asakusa Teikokukan (浅草帝国館) in Tokyo sometime in 1911. Yoshiyama did not refer to the film as "animation" though. The first confirmed animated film shown in Japan was Les Exploits de Feu Follet by Émile Cohl on April 15, 1912. While speculation and other "trick films" have been found in Japan, it is the first recorded account of a public showing of a two-dimensional animated film in Japanese cinema. During this time, German animations marketed for home release were distributed in Japan.
Few complete animations made during the beginnings of Japanese animation have survived. The reasons vary, but many are of commercial nature. After the clips had been run, reels (being property of the cinemas) were sold to smaller cinemas in the country and then disassembled and sold as strips or single frames. The first anime that was produced in Japan was made sometime in 1917, but there it is disputed which title was the first to get that honour. It has been confirmed that Dekobō Shingachō: Meian no Shippai (凸坊新画帳・名案の失敗, "Bumpy New Picture Book: Failure of a Great Plan") was made sometime during February 1917. At least two unconfirmed titles were reported to have been made the previous month.
The first anime short-films were made by three leading figures in the industry. Ōten Shimokawa was a political caricaturist and cartoonist who worked for the magazine Tokyo Puck. He was hired by Tenkatsu to do an animation for them. Due to medical reasons, he was only able to do five movies, including Imokawa Mukuzo Genkanban no Maki (1917), before he returned to his previous work as a cartoonist. Another prominent animator in this period was Jun'ichi Kōuchi. He was a caricaturist and painter, who also had studied watercolour painting. In 1912, he also entered the cartoonist sector and was hired for an animation by Kobayashi Shokai later in 1916. He is viewed as the most technically advanced Japanese animator of the 1910s. His works include around 15 movies. The third was Seitaro Kitayama, an early animator who made animations on his own and was not hired by larger corporations. He eventually founded his own animation studio, the Kitayama Eiga Seisakujo, which was later closed due to lack of commercial success. He utilized the chalkboard technique, and later paper animation, with and without pre-printed backgrounds. The works of these two latter pioneers include Namakura Gatana ("An Obtuse Sword", 1917) and a 1918 film Urashima Tarō which were believed to have been discovered together at an antique market in 2007. However, this Urashima Tarō was later proved to most likely be a different film of the same story than the 1918 one by Kitayama, which, as of October 2017, remains undiscovered.
Pre-war productions (1923–1939)
Yasuji Murata, Hakuzan Kimura, Sanae Yamamoto and Noburō Ōfuji were students of Kitayama Seitaro and worked at his film studio. Kenzō Masaoka, another important animator, worked at a smaller animation studio. In 1923, the Great Kantō earthquake destroyed most of the Kitayama studio and the residing animators spread out and founded studios of their own.
Prewar animators faced several difficulties. First, they had to compete with foreign producers such as Disney, which were influential on both audiences and producers. Foreign films had already made a profit abroad, and could be undersold in the Japanese market, priced lower than what domestic producers needed to break even. Japanese animators thus had to work cheaply, in small companies with only a handful of employees, which then made it difficult to compete in terms of quality with foreign product that was in color, with sound, and promoted by much bigger companies. Until the mid-1930s, Japanese animation generally used cutout animation instead of cel animation because the celluloid was too expensive. This resulted in animation that could seem derivative, flat (since motion forward and backward was difficult) and without detail.But just as postwar Japanese animators were able to turn limited animation into a plus, so masters such as Yasuji Murata and Noburō Ōfuji were able to perform wonders that they made with cutout animation.
Animators such as Kenzo Masaoka and Mitsuyo Seo, however, did attempt to bring Japanese animation up to the level of foreign work by introducing cel animation, sound, and technology such as the multiplane camera. Masaoka created the first talkie anime, Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, released in 1933, and the first anime made entirely using cel animation, The Dance of the Chagamas (1934). Seo was the first to use the multiplane camera in Ari-chan in 1941.
Such innovations, however, were difficult to support purely commercially, so prewar animation depended considerably on sponsorship, as animators often concentrated on making PR films for companies, educational films for the government, and eventually works of propaganda for the military. During this time, censorship and school regulations discouraged film-viewing by children, so anime that could possess educational value was supported and encouraged by the Monbusho (the Ministry of Education). This proved important for producers that had experienced obstacles releasing their work in regular theaters. Animation had found a place in scholastic, political, and industrial use.
During the second World War
In the 1930s, the Japanese government began enforcing cultural nationalism. This also lead to a strict censorship and control of published media. Many animators were urged to produce animations which enforced the Japanese spirit and national affiliation. Some movies were shown in newsreel theaters, especially after the Film Law of 1939 promoted documentary and other educational films. Such support helped boost the industry, as bigger companies formed through mergers and prompted major live-action studios such as Shochiku to begin producing animation. It was at Shochiku that such masterworks as Kenzō Masaoka's Kumo to Chūrippu were produced. Wartime reorganization of the industry, however, merged the feature film studios into three big companies.
More animated films were commissioned by the military,showing the sly, quick Japanese people winning against enemy forces. In 1941, Princess Iron Fan was made in China, as Asia's first full-length animated feature. In 1943, Geijutsu Eigasha produced Mitsuyo Seo's Momotaro's Sea Eagles with help from the Navy. Shochiku then made Japan's first full-length animated feature, Seo's Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors in 1945, again with the help of the Navy.
Toei Animation and Mushi Production
Toei Animation and Mushi Production was founded and produced the first color anime feature film in 1958, Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent, 1958). It was released in the US in 1961 as well as Panda and the Magic Serpent. After the success of the project, Toei released a new feature-length animation annually.
Toei's style was characterized by an emphasis on each animator bringing his own ideas to the production. The most extreme example of this is Isao Takahata's film Horus: Prince of the Sun (1968). Horus is often seen as the first major break from the normal anime style and the beginning of a later movement of "auteuristic" or "progressive anime" which would eventually involve directors such as Hayao Miyazaki (creator of Spirited Away) and Mamoru Oshii.
A major contribution of Toei's style to modern anime was the development of the "money shot". This cost-cutting method of animation allows for emphasis to be placed on important shots by animating them with more detail than the rest of the work (which would often be limited animation). Toei animator Yasuo Ōtsuka began to experiment with this style and developed it further as he went into television. In the 1980s, Toei would later lend its talent to companies like Sunbow Productions, Marvel Productions, DiC Entertainment, Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, Ruby Spears and Hanna Barbera, producing several animated cartoons for America during this period. Other studios like TMS Entertainment, were also being used in the 1980s, which lead to Asian studios being used more often to animate foreign productions, but the companies involved still produced anime for their native Japan.
Osamu Tezuka established Mushi Production in 1961, after Tezuka's contract with Toei Animation expired. The studio pioneered TV animation in Japan, and was responsible for such successful TV series as Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Gokū no Daibōken and Princess Knight.
Mushi Production also produced the first anime to be broadcast in the United States (on NBC in 1963), although Osamu Tezuka would complain about the restrictions on US television, and the alterations necessary for broadcast.
1960s
The 1960s brought anime to television and in America. The first anime film to be broadcast was Three Tales in 1960. The following year saw the premiere of Japan's first animated television series, Instant History, although it did not consist entirely of animation. Osamu Tezuka's Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy) is often miscredited as the first anime television series, premiering on January 1, 1963. Astro Boy was highly influential to other anime in the 1960s,and was followed by a large number of anime about robots or space.
1963 introduced Sennin Buraku as the first "late night" anime and Toei Doga's first anime television series Wolf Boy Ken. Mushi Pro continued to produce more anime television and met success with titles such as Kimba the White Lion in 1965. What is noted as the first magical girl anime, Sally the Witch, began broadcasting in 1966. The original Speed Racer anime television began in 1967 and was brought to the West with great success. At the same time, an anime adaptation of Tezuka's Princess Knight aired, making it one of very few shoujo anime of the decade. The first anime adaptation of Shotaro Ishinomori's manga Cyborg 009 was created in 1968, following the film adaptation two years prior. 1969's "Attack no.1", the first shoujo sports anime was one of the first to have success in Japanese primetime and was also popular throughout Europe, particularly in Germany under the name "Mila Superstar."
The long-running Sazae-san anime also began in 1969 and continues today with excess of 6,500 episodes broadcast as of 2014. With an audience share of 25% the series is still the most-popular anime broadcast.
1970s
During the 1970s, the Japanese film market shrank due to competition from television.This reduced Toei animation's staff and many animators went to studios such as A Pro and Telecom animation. Mushi Production went bankrupt (though the studio was revived 4 years later), its former employees founding studios such as Madhouse and Sunrise. Many young animators were thrust into the position of director, and the injection of young talent allowed for a wide variety of experimentation. One of the earliest successful television productions in the early 1970s was Tomorrow's Joe (1970), a boxing anime which has become iconic in Japan. 1971 saw the first installment of the Lupin III anime. Contrary to the franchise's current popularity, the first series ran for 23 episodes before being cancelled. The second series (starting in 1977) saw considerably more success, spanning 155 episodes over three years.
Another example of this experimentation is Isao Takahata's 1974 television series Heidi, Girl of the Alps. This show was originally a hard sell because it was a simple realistic drama aimed at children, and most TV networks thought children needed something more fantastic to draw them in. Heidi was an international success, popular in many European countries, and so successful in Japan that it allowed for Hayao Miyazaki and Takahata to start a series of literary-based anime (World Masterpiece Theater). Miyazaki and Takahata left Nippon Animation in the late 1970s. Two of Miyazaki's critically acclaimed productions during the 1970s were Future Boy Conan (1978) and Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979).
During this period, Japanese animation reached continental Europe with productions aimed at European and Japanese children, with the most-pronounced examples being the aforementioned Heidi but also Barbapapa and Vicky the Vikings. Italy, Spain and France grew an interest in Japan's output, which was offered for a low price.
Another genre known as mecha came into being at this time. Some early works include Mazinger Z (1972–1974), Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (1972–1974), Space Battleship Yamato (1974–75) and Mobile Suit Gundam (1979–80).
As a contrast to the action-oriented shows, shows for a female audience such as Candy Candy and Rose of Versailles earned high popularity on Japanese television and later in other parts of the world.
By 1978, over fifty shows were aired on television.
1980s
The shift towards space operas became more pronounced with the commercial success of Star Wars (1977). This allowed for the space opera Space Battleship Yamato (1974) to be revived as a theatrical film. Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) was also successful and revived as a theatrical film in 1982. The success of the theatrical versions of Yamato and Gundam is seen as the beginning of the anime boom of the 1980s, and of "Japanese Cinema's Second Golden Age".
A subculture in Japan, whose members later called themselves otaku, began to develop around animation magazines such as Animage and Newtype. These magazines formed in response to the overwhelming fandom that developed around shows such as Yamato and Gundam in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
In the United States, the popularity of Star Wars had a similar, though much smaller, effect on the development of anime. Gatchaman was reworked and edited into Battle of the Planets in 1978 and again as G-Force in 1986. Space Battleship Yamato was reworked and edited into Star Blazers in 1979. The Macross series began with The Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982), which was adapted into English as the first arc of Robotech (1985), which was created from three separate anime titles: The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada. The sequel to Mobile Suit Gundam, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (1985), became the most successful real robot space opera in Japan, where it managed an average television rating of 6.6% and a peak of 11.7%.
The otaku subculture became more pronounced with Mamoru Oshii's adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's popular manga Urusei Yatsura (1981). Yatsura made Takahashi a household name and Oshii would break away from fan culture and take a more auteuristic approach with his 1984 film Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer. This break with the otaku subculture would allow Oshii to experiment further.
The otaku subculture had some effect on people who were entering the industry around this time. The most famous of these people were the amateur production group Daicon Films which would become Gainax. Gainax began by making films for the Daicon science fiction conventions and were so popular in the otaku community that they were given a chance to helm the biggest-budgeted anime film (at that time), Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise (1987).
One of the most-influential anime of all time, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), was made during this period. The film gave extra prestige to anime allowing for many experimental and ambitious projects to be funded shortly after its release. It also allowed director Hayao Miyazaki and his longtime colleague Isao Takahata to create their own studio under the supervision of former Animage editor Toshio Suzuki. This studio would become known as Studio Ghibli and its first film was Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), one of Miyazaki's most-ambitious films.
The success of Dragon Ball (1986) introduced the martial arts genre and became incredibly influential in the Japanese Animation industry. It influenced many more martial arts anime and manga series' including YuYu Hakusho (1990), One Piece (1999), Naruto (2002), and One Punch Man (2015).
The 1980s brought anime to the home video market in the form of original video animation (OVA). The first OVA was Mamoru Oshii's Dallos (1983–1984). Shows such as Patlabor had their beginnings in this market and it proved to be a way to test less-marketable animation against audiences. The OVA allowed for the release of pornographic anime such as Cream Lemon (1984); the first hentai OVA was actually the little-known Wonder Kids studio's Lolita Anime, also released in 1984.
The 1980s also saw the amalgamation of anime with video games. The airing of Red Photon Zillion (1987) and subsequent release of its companion game, is considered to have been a marketing ploy by Sega to promote sales of their newly released Master System in Japan.
Sports anime, as it is now known, made its debut in 1983 with an anime adaptation of Yoichi Takahashi's soccer manga Captain Tsubasa, which became the first worldwide successful sports anime. Its themes and stories were a formula that would be used in many sports series that followed, such as Slam Dunk, Prince of Tennis and Eyeshield 21.
The late 1980s saw an increasing number of high-budget and experimental films. In 1985, Toshio Suzuki helped put together funding for Oshii's experimental film Angel's Egg (1985). Theatrical releases became more ambitious, each film trying to outclass or outspend its predecessors, taking cues from Nausicaä's popular and critical success. Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985), Tale of Genji (1986), and Grave of the Fireflies (1988) were all ambitious films based on important literary works in Japan. Films such as Char's Counterattack (1988) and Arion (1986) were lavishly budgeted spectacles. This period of lavish budgeting and experimentation would reach its zenith with two of the most-expensive anime film productions ever: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987) and Akira (1988). Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) was the top-grossing film for 1989, earning over $40 million at the box office.
Despite the commercial failure of Akira in Japan, it brought with it a much larger international fan base for anime. When shown overseas, the film became a cult hit and, eventually, a symbol of the medium for the West. The domestic failure and international success of Akira, combined with the bursting of the bubble economy and Osamu Tezuka's death in 1989, brought a close to the 1980s era of anime.
1990s
In 1995, Hideaki Anno wrote and directed the controversial anime Neon Genesis Evangelion. This show became popular in Japan among anime fans and became known to the general public through mainstream media attention. It is believed that Anno originally wanted the show to be the ultimate otaku anime, designed to revive the declining anime industry, but midway through production he also made it into a heavy critique of the subculture. It culminated in the successful but controversial film The End of Evangelion which grossed over $10 million in 1997. The many violent and sexual scenes in Evangelion caused TV Tokyo to increase censorship of anime content. As a result, when Cowboy Bebop was first broadcast in 1998, it was shown heavily edited and only half the episodes were aired; it too gained heavy popularity both in and outside of Japan.
Evangelion started a series of so-called "post-Evangelion" or "organic" mecha shows. Most of these were giant robot shows with some kind of religious or complex plot. These include RahXephon, Brain Powerd, and Gasaraki. It also led to late-night experimental anime shows. Starting with Serial Experiments Lain (1998), late night became a forum for experimental anime such as Boogiepop Phantom (2000), Texhnolyze (2003) and Paranoia Agent (2004). Experimental anime films were also released in the 1990s, most notably the cyberpunk thriller Ghost in the Shell (1995), which had a strong influence on The Matrix. Ghost in the Shell, alongside Evangelion and the neo-noir space western Cowboy Bebop, helped further increase the awareness of anime in international markets.
The late 1990s also saw a brief revival of the super robot genre that had decreased in popularity due to the rise of real robot and psychological mecha shows like Gundam, Macross, and Evangelion. The revival of the super robot genre began with Brave Exkaiser in 1990, and led to remakes and sequels of 1970s super robot shows like Getter Robo Go and Tetsujin-28 go FX. There were very few popular super robot shows produced after this, until Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in 2007.
Alongside its super robot counterpart, the real robot genre was also declining during the 1990s. Though several Gundam shows were produced during this decade, very few of them were successful. The only Gundam shows in the 1990s which managed an average television rating over 4% in Japan were Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994) and New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995). It wasn't until Mobile Suit Gundam SEED in 2002 that the real robot genre regained its popularity.
In 1997, Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke became the most-expensive anime film up until that time, costing $20 million to produce. Miyazaki personally checked each of the 144,000 cels in the film, and is estimated to have redrawn parts of 80,000 of them. 1997 was also the year of Satoshi Kon's debut, Perfect Blue, which won "Best Film" and "Best Animation" awards at Montreal's 1997 Fantasia Festival, It also won awards in Portugal's Fantasporto Film Festival.
By 1998, over one hundred anime shows were aired on television in Japan, including a popular series based on the Pokémon video game franchise. Other 1990s anime series which gained international success were Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and Digimon; the success of these shows brought international recognition to the martial arts superhero genre, the magical girl genre, and the action-adventure genre, respectively. In particular, Dragon Ball Z and Sailor Moon were dubbed into more than a dozen languages worldwide. Another large success was the anime One Piece, based on the best-selling manga of all time, which is still ongoing.
2000s
The "Evangelion-era" trend continued into the 2000s with Evangelion-inspired mecha anime such as RahXephon (2002) and Zegapain (2006) – RahXephon was also intended to help revive 1970s-style mecha designs.
The real robot genre (including the Gundam and Macross franchises), which had declined during the 1990s, was revived in the early 2000s with the success of shows such as FLCL (2000), Mobile Suit Gundam SEED (2002), Eureka Seven (2005), Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (2006), Mobile Suit Gundam 00 (2007), and Macross Frontier (2008).
The 1970s-style super robot genre revival began with GaoGaiGar in 1997 and continued into the 2000s, with several remakes of classic series such as Getter Robo and Dancougar, as well as original titles created in the super robot mold like Godannar and Gurren Lagann. Gurren Lagann in particular combined the super robot genre with elements from 1980s real robot shows, as well as 1990s "post-Evangelion" shows. Gurren Lagann received both the "best television production" and "best character design" awards from the Tokyo International Anime Fair in 2008.[37] This eventually culminated in the release of Shin Mazinger in 2009, a full-length revival of the first super robot series, Mazinger Z.
An art movement started by Takashi Murakami that combined Japanese pop-culture with postmodern art called Superflat began around this time. Murakami asserts that the movement is an analysis of post-war Japanese culture through the eyes of the otaku subculture. His desire is also to get rid of the categories of 'high' and 'low' art making a flat continuum, hence the term 'superflat'. His art exhibitions have gained popularity overseas and have influenced a handful of anime creators, particularly those from Studio 4 °C.
The experimental late night anime trend popularized by Serial Experiments Lain also continued into the 2000s with experimental anime such as Boogiepop Phantom (2000), Texhnolyze (2003), Paranoia Agent (2004), Gantz (2004), and Ergo Proxy (2006)
In addition to these experimental trends, the 2000s were also characterized by an increase of moe-style art and bishōjo and bishōnen character design. There was a rising presence and popularity of genres such as romance, harem and slice of life.
Anime based on eroge and visual novels increased in popularity in the 2000s, building on a trend started in the late 1990s by such works as Sentimental Journey (1998) and To Heart (1999). Examples of such works include Green Green (2003), SHUFFLE! (2006), Kanon (2002 and 2006), Fate/Stay Night (2006), Higurashi no Naku Koro ni (2006), Ef: A Tale of Memories (2007), True Tears (2008), and Clannad (2008 and 2009).
Many shows have been adapted from manga and light novels, including popular titles such as Yu-Gi-Oh! (2000), Inuyasha (2000), Naruto and its sequel series Naruto Shippuden (2002 and 2007), Fullmetal Alchemist and its manga faithful adaptation Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2003 and 2009), Monster (2004), Bleach (2004), Rozen Maiden (2005), Aria the Animation (2005), Shakugan no Shana (2005), Pani Poni Dash! (2005), Death Note (2006), Mushishi (2006), Sola (2007), The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya (2006), Lucky Star (2007), Toradora! (2008), K-On! (2009), Bakemonogatari (2009), and Fairy Tail (2009); these shows typically last several years and achieve large fanbases. Nevertheless, original anime titles continue to be produced with the same success.
The 2000s marked a trend of emphasis of the otaku subculture. A notable critique of this otaku subculture is found in the 2006 anime Welcome to the N.H.K., which features a hikikomori (socially withdrawn) protagonist and explores the effects and consequences of various Japanese sub-cultures, such as otaku, lolicon, internet suicide, massively multiplayer online games and multi-level marketing.
In contrast to the above-mentioned phenomenon, there have been more productions of late-night anime for a non-otaku audience as well. The first concentrated effort came from Fuji TV's Noitamina block. The 30-minute late-Thursday timeframe was created to showcase productions for young women of college age, a demographic that watches very little anime. The first production Honey and Clover was a particular success, peaking at a 5% TV rating in Kantou, very strong for late-night anime. The block has been running uninterrupted since April 2005 and has yielded many successful productions unique in the modern anime market.
There have been revivals of American cartoons such as Transformers which spawned four new series, Transformers: Car Robots in 2000, Transformers: Micron Legend in 2003, Transformers: Superlink in 2004, and Transformers: Galaxy Force in 2005. In addition, an anime adaptation of the G.I Joe series was produced titled G.I. Joe: Sigma 6.
The revival of earlier anime series was seen in the forms of Fist of the North Star: The Legends of the True Savior (2006) and Dragon Ball Z Kai (2009). Later series also started receiving revivals in the late 2000s and early 2010s, such as with Studio Khara's Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy (2007–), and new adaptations of Masamune Shirow's manga Appleseed XIII (2011) and Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013–2016).
The decade also dawned a revival of high-budget feature-length anime films, such as Millennium Actress (2001), Metropolis (2001), Appleseed (2001), Paprika (2006), and the most expensive of all being Steamboy (2004) which cost $26 million to produce. Satoshi Kon established himself alongside Otomo and Oshii as one of the premier directors of anime film, before his premature death at the age of 46. Other younger film directors, such as Mamoru Hosoda, director of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) and Summer Wars (2009), also began to reach prominence.
During this decade, anime feature films were nominated for and won major international film awards for the first time in the industry's history. In 2002, Spirited Away, a Studio Ghibli production directed by Hayao Miyazaki, won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and in 2003 at the 75th Academy Awards it won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was the first non-American film to win the award and is one of only two to do so. It has also become the highest grossing anime film, with a worldwide box office of US$274 million.
Following the launch of the Toonami programming block on Cartoon Network in the United States in March 1997, anime saw a giant rise in the North American market. Kid-friendly anime such as Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon, Doraemon, Bakugan, Beyblade, and the 4Kids Entertainment adaptation of One Piece have all received varying levels of success. This era also saw the rise of anime-influenced animation, most notably Avatar: the Last Airbender and its sequel The Legend of Korra, Ben 10, Chaotic, Samurai Jack, The Boondocks, RWBY and Teen Titans.
At the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, directed by Mamoru Oshii, was in competition for the Palme d'Or and in 2006, at the 78th Academy Awards, Howl's Moving Castle, another Studio Ghibli-produced film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, was nominated for Best Animated Feature. 5 Centimeters Per Second, directed by Makoto Shinkai, won the inaugural Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2007, and so far, anime films have been nominated for the award every year.
By 2004, over two hundred shows were aired on television.
2010s
In May 2012, the Toonami programming block in the United States was relaunched as a late night adult-oriented action block on Adult Swim, bringing more uncut popular anime back to a wider audience on cable television. In addition to broadcasting or re-broadcasting previously released dubbed anime, the block (as well as Adult Swim itself) has overseen the worldwide premiere of English dubbed releases for various anime, including but not limited to: Durarara!! (2010), Deadman Wonderland (2011), Hunter x Hunter (2011), Sword Art Online (2012), JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (2012), Attack on Titan (2013), Kill la Kill (2013), Space Dandy (2014), Akame ga Kill! (2014), Parasyte -the maxim- (2014), One-Punch Man (2015) Dragon Ball Super (2015), Boruto: Naruto Next Generations (2017), and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (2019).
On September 6, 2013 Hayao Miyazaki announced that The Wind Rises (2013) would be his last film, and on August 3, 2014 it was announced that Studio Ghibli was "temporarily halting production" following the release of When Marnie Was There (2014), further substantiating the finality of Miyazaki's retirement. The disappointing sales of Isao Takahata's comeback film The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013) has also been cited as a factor.Several prominent staffers, including producer Yoshiaki Nishimura and director Hiromasa Yonebayashi, left to form their own Studio Ponoc, premièring with Mary and the Witch's Flower (2017). Both Ghibli and Miyazaki subsequently went back into production for the up-coming film How Do You Live?, while Takahata died on April 5, 2018 of lung cancer.
Additionally, various international anime distribution companies, such as ADV Films, Bandai Entertainment, and Geneon Entertainment, were shut down due to poor revenue, with their assets spun into new companies like Sentai Filmworks or given to other companies.
In 2011, Puella Magi Madoka Magica was aired in Japan. The anime was a change from normal magical girl anime, as this anime contained more darker, complex and more gorier themes than magical anime usually would. The anime got great reception from critics, as United Kingdom's Anime Network's Andy Hanley rated it a 10 out of 10 for its emotional content and evocative soundtrack.
Both Attack on Titan and The Wind Rises reflect a national debate surrounding the reinterpretation of Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan, with Miyazaki's pacifism in the film coming under fire from the political right,[46] while Attack on Titan has been accused of promoting militarism by people in neighboring Asian countries, despite being intended to show the haunting, hopeless aspects of conflict. The mecha anime genre (as well as Japanese kaiju films) received a Western homage with the 2013 film Pacific Rim directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Western streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime are increasingly becoming involved in the production and licensing of anime.
In 2015, an all record-high of three hundred forty anime series aired on television.
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Train became the highest-grossing Japanese film and one of the world's highest-grossing films of 2020. It's also fastest grossing film in Japanese cinema, because in 10 days it made 10 billion yen ($95.3m; £72m). It beat the previous record of Spirited Away which took 25 days.
Firsts
| First... | Native language name | English name | Released | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anime (oldest known) | 活動写真 | Katsudō Shashin | Unknown | short film |
| Confirmed film release | 凸坊新画帳・名案の失敗 | Bumpy new picture book – Failure of a great plan | February 1917 | short film |
| Anime publicly shown in a theater | 芋川椋三玄関番の巻 or 芋川椋三玄関番之巻 | The Story of the Concierge Mukuzo Imokawa | April 1917 | short film |
| Talkie | 力と女の世の中 | Within the World of Power and Women | April 13, 1933 | film |
| Entirely cel-animated anime | 茶釜音頭 | The Dance of the Chagamas | 1934 | film |
| Feature film | 桃太郎 海の神兵 | Momotaro: Sacred Sailors | April 12, 1945 | film |
| Appearance on television (non series) | もぐらのアバンチュール | Mole's Adventure | July 14, 1958 | short film |
| Color feature film | 白蛇伝 | The Tale of the White Serpent | October 22, 1958 | film |
| Television series | インスタントヒストリー | Instant History | May 1, 1961 | series |
| Late night series | 仙人部落 | Hermit Village | September 4, 1963 | series |
| Giant robot series | 鉄人28号 | Tetsujin 28-go | October 20, 1963 | series |
| Color television series | ジャングル大帝 | Kimba the White Lion | October 6, 1965 | series |
| Magical girl series | 魔法使いサリー | Sally the Witch | December 5, 1966 | series |
| Adult-oriented (animated) film | 千夜一夜物語 | A Thousand and One Nights | June 14, 1969 | film |
| Hentai with an "X rating" | クレオパトラ | Cleopatra | September 15, 1970 | film |
| Space opera series | 宇宙戦艦ヤマト | Space Battleship Yamato | October 6, 1974 | series |
| Isekai series | 聖戦士ダンバイン | Aura Battler Dunbine | February 5, 1983 | series |
| OVA | ダロス | Dallos | December 12, 1983 | OVA |
| Fully computer animated anime | A.LI.CE | A.LI.CE | February 5, 2000 | film |
| ONA | あずまんがWEB大王 | Azumanga Daioh | December 28, 2000 | ONA |
Records
| Record... | Native language name | English name | Released | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Highest grossing anime film in Japan | 千と千尋の神隠し | Spirited Away | July 20, 2001 | film |
| Fastest grossing anime film[50] | 劇場版「鬼滅の刃」 無限列車編 | Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Infinity Train | October 16, 2020 | film |
| Highest grossing anime film worldwide | 君の名は。 | Your Name | July 3, 2016 | film |
One by one, many of the technologies used today were added to Japanese animated productions—sound (and eventually color); the multiplane camera system; and cel animation. But due to the rise of Japanese nationalism and the start of WWII, most of the animated productions created from the 1930s on were not popular entertainments, but instead were either commercially-oriented or government propaganda of one type or another.
Post-War and the Rise of TV
It wasn’t until after WWII—in 1948, to be precise—that the first modern Japanese animation production company, one devoted to entertainment, came into being: Toei. Their first theatrical features were explicitly in the vein of Walt Disney’s films (as popular in Japan as they were everywhere else). One key example was the ninja-and-sorcery mini-epic Shōnen Sarutobi Sasuke (1959), the first anime to be released theatrically in the United States (by MGM, in 1961). But it didn’t make anywhere near the splash of, say, Akira Kurosawa’s Rashōmon, which brought Japan’s movie industry to the attention of the rest of the world.
What really pushed animation to the fore in Japan was the shift to TV in the Sixties. The first of Toei’s major animated shows for TV during this time were adaptations of popular manga: Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Sally the Witch and the “kid with his giant robot” story Tetsujin 28-go was adapted for TV by Toei and TCJ/Eiken, respectively. Ditto Shotaro Ishinomori’s hugely-influential Cyborg 009, which was adapted into another major Toei animated franchise.
First Exports
Up until this point, Japanese animated productions had been made by and for Japan. But gradually they began to show up in English-speaking territories, although without much in the way to link them back to Japan.
1963 heralded Japan’s first major animated export to the U.S.: Tetsuwan Atomu—more commonly known as Astro Boy. Adapted from Osamu Tezuka’s manga about a robot boy with superpowers, it aired on NBC thanks to the efforts of Fred Ladd (who later also brought over Tezuka’s Kimba the White Lion). It became a nostalgia touchstone for several generations to come, although its creator—a cultural legend in his own country—would remain largely anonymous elsewhere.
In 1968, animation studio Tatsunoko followed the same pattern—they adapted a domestic manga title and ended up creating an overseas hit. In this case, the hit was Speed Racer (aka Mach GoGoGo). The man responsible for bringing Speed to the U.S. would be none other than Peter Fernandez, a hugely important figure in anime’s spread beyond Japan. Later, Carl Macek and Sandy Frank would do the same for other shows, setting a pattern where a few insightful impresarios helped bring key anime titles to English-speaking audiences.
At the time these shows were released, few viewers realized they had been heavily reworked for non-Japanese audiences. Aside from beginning redubbed in English, they were also sometimes edited to remove things not acceptable to network censors. It would be a long time before an audience arose that demanded the originals as a matter of principle.
Diversification
In the 1970s, the rising popularity of TV put a major dent in the Japanese film industry—both live-action and animation. Many of the animators who had worked exclusively in film gravitated back to TV to fill its expanding talent pool. The end result was a period of aggressive experimentation and stylistic expansion, and a time where many of the common tropes found in anime to this day were coined.
Among the most important genres that arose during this time: mecha, or anime dealing with giant robots or vehicles. Tetsujin 28-go had been the first: the story of a boy and his remote-controlled giant robot. Now came Gō Nagai’s outlandish battling-robots epic Mazinger Z, and the massively influential Space Battleship Yamato and Mobile Suit Gundam (which spawned a franchise that continues unabated to this day).
More shows were showing up in other countries, too. Yamato and Gatchaman also found success in the U.S. in their re-edited and re-worked counterparts Star Blazers and Battle of the Planets. Another major hit, Macross (which arrived in 1982), was transformed along with two other shows into Robotech, the first anime series to make major inroads on home video in America. Mazinger Z showed up in many Spanish-speaking countries, the Philippines, and Arabic-speaking nations. And the earlier series Heidi, Girl of the Alps had found great popularity across Europe, Latin America, and even Turkey.
The Eighties also saw the emergence of several major animation studios that became groundbreakers and trendsetters. Former Toei animator Hayao Miyazaki and his colleague Isao Takahata set up StudioGhibli (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away) in the wake of the success of their theatrical film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. GAINAX, later the creators of Evengelion, formed during this time too; they started as a group of fans making animated shorts for conventions and grew from there into a professional production group.
Some of the most ambitious productions from this period weren’t always financially successful. Gainax’s own and Katsuhiro Otomo’s AKIRA (adapted from his own manga) did poorly in theaters. But another major innovation that came along during the Eighties made it possible for those films—and just about all of anime—to find new audience long after their release: home video.
The Video Revolution
Home video transformed the anime industry in the Eighties even more radically than TV had. It allowed casual re-watching of a show apart from the rerun schedules of broadcasters, which made it that much easier for die-hard fans—otaku, as they were now starting to be known in Japan—to congregate and share their enthusiasm. It also created a new submarket of animated product, the OAV (Original Animated Video), a shorter work created directly for video and not for TV broadcast, which often featured more ambitious animation and sometimes more experimental storytelling as well. And it also spawned an adults-only niche—hentai—which acquired its own fandom despite censorship both domestically and abroad.
LaserDisc (LD), a playback-only format that boasted top-notch picture and sound quality, emerged from Japan in the early Eighties to become a format of choice amongst both mainstream videophiles and otaku. Despite its technological advantages, LD never achieved the market share of VHS and was eventually eclipsed completely by DVD and Blu-ray Disc. But by the beginning of the Nineties owning an LD player and a library of discs to go with it (as few places in the U.S. rented LDs) was a hallmark of one’s seriousness as an anime fan both in the U.S. and Japan. One major benefit of LD: multiple audio tracks, which made it at least partly feasible for LDs to feature both the dubbed and subtitled version of a show.
Even after home video technology became widely available, few dedicated channels for anime distribution existed outside of Japan. Many fans imported discs or tapes, added their own subtitles electronically, and formed unofficial tape-trading clubs whose memberships were small but intensely devoted. Then the first domestic licensors began to appear: AnimEigo (1988); Streamline Pictures (1989); Central Park Media (1990); which also distributed manga; A.D. Vision (1992). Pioneer (later Geneon), the developers of the LaserDisc format and a major video distributor in Japan, set up shop in the U.S. and imported shows from their own roster (Tenchi Muyo) as well.
Evangelion, “Late-Night Anime” and the Internet
In 1995, GAINAX director Hideaki Anno created Neon Genesis Evangelion, a landmark show which not only galvanized existing anime fans but broke through to mainstream audiences as well. Its adult themes, provocative cultural criticism and confounding ending (eventually revisited in a pair of theatrical films) inspired many other shows to take risks, to use existing anime tropes, such as giant robots or space-opera plotlines, in challenging ways. Such shows earned a place for themselves on both home video and late-night TV, where programs aimed at mature audiences could find a time slot.
Two other major forces arose towards the end of the Nineties that helped anime find broader audiences. The first was the Internet—which, even in its early dial-up days, meant that one didn’t have to go digging through back issues of newsletters or hard-to-find books to glean solid information about anime titles. Mailing lists, websites, and wikis made learning about a given series or personality as easy as typing a name into a search engine. People on opposite sides of the world could share their insights without having to ever meet in person.
The second force was the newly-emergent DVD format, which brought high-quality home video into the home at affordable prices—and gave licensors an excuse to find and issue tons of new product to fill store shelves. It also provided fans with the best available way to see their favorite shows in their original, uncut forms: one could buy a single disc with both English-dubbed and -subtitled editions, and not have to choose one or the other.
DVDs in Japan were and still are expensive (they’re priced to rent, not sell), but in the U.S. they ended up as commodities. Soon a broad range of product from multiple licensors appeared on retail and rental shelves. That plus the start of widespread TV syndication of many more popular anime titles in English dubs—Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon—made anime that much more readily accessible to fans and visible to everyone else. A rise in the amount of English-dubbed product, both for broadcast TV and home video, produced that many more casual fans. Major video retailers like Suncoast created entire sections of their floor space devoted to anime.
The Trouble New Millenium
At the same time, anime was expanding far beyond Japan’s borders, one major upheaval after another through the 2000s threatened its growth and led many to speculate if it even had a future.
The first was the implosion of Japan’s “bubble economy” in the Nineties, which had injured the industry during that time but continued to affect things into the new millennium. Contracting budgets and declining industry revenues meant a turn towards things that were guaranteed to sell; edgy and experimental work took a backseat. Titles based on existing manga and light novel properties that were guaranteed hits (One Piece, Naruto, Bleach) came all the more to the fore. Shows that tapped into the lightweight moé aesthetic (Clannad, Kanon, ) became dependable if also disposable money-makers. Attention shifted from OAVs to TV productions which stood far more of a chance of recouping costs. Conditions in the animation industry itself, never good to begin with, worsened: more than 90% of the animators who enter the field now leave after less than three years of working brutal hours for meager pay.
Another problem was the rise of digitally-powered piracy. The Internet’s early dial-up days didn’t lend itself to copying gigabytes of video, but as bandwidth and storage grew exponentially cheaper, it became that much easier to bootleg a whole season’s worth of episodes onto a DVD for the cost of the blank media. While much of this revolved around fan distributions of shows not likely to be licensed for the U.S., too much of it was the copying of shows already licensed and readily available on video.
Another shock was the worldwide economic crunch at the end of the 2000s, which caused many more companies to either cut back or go under completely. ADV Films and Geneon were major casualties, with a large chunk of their titles moving to rival company FUNimation. The latter had become, by any measure, the single largest English-language anime licensor thanks to its distribution of the massively profitable Dragon Ball franchise. Brick-and-mortar retailers cut back floorspace devoted to anime, in part because of the market’s shrinkage but also because of the prevalence of online retailers like Amazon.
Surviving and Enduring
And yet despite all this, anime survives. Convention attendances continue to climb. A dozen or more anime titles (full series, not simply single discs) hit the shelves in any given month. The very digital networks that made piracy possible are now also being used aggressively by the distributors themselves to put high-quality, legit copies of their shows into the hands of fans. The overall presentation of anime for non-Japanese fans—the quality of English dubs, the bonus features created specifically for overseas audiences—is vastly better than it was ten or even five years ago. And more experimental work began to find an audience, thanks to outlets like the Noitamina programming block.
Most importantly, new shows continue to emerge, among them some of the best yet made: Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist. The anime we get in the future may bear that much less a resemblance to what’s come before, but only because of anime lives and evolves along with the society that produced it and the world that savors it.
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