What Makes Anime So Popular?

Why is Japanese anime so popular in other countries?

I’ve always been curious how Anime is viewed in Japan culturally. Now, anime and its comic book counterpart, manga, are hugely successful in Japan and beyond with an industrial worth of over 15 billion US dollars. Is it seen as something more for children? Is it something that is popular among all ages. Anime has existed in various forms since the beginning of the 20th century. But it was only in the latter half of that century that it became a widespread form of entertainment.

The first years

In the early 20th century, when Japanese filmmakers experimented with the animation techniques also pioneered in France, Germany, the United States and Russia. A claim for the earliest Japanese animation is Katsudō Shashin, its creator is unknown. It simply features a boy writing the words “活動写真, katsudo Shashin” and then doffing his cap. Much of the work done in these early years was not the cel animation technique that would come to be the dominant production technique, but a host of other methods: chalkboard drawings, painting directly on the film, paper cut-outs, and so on. Developments continued over the following decades, but during the period of the Second World War much of the animation produced in Japan had a propagandizing nature. This Include ” Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors “  The first feature-length animated film was directed by Seo in 1944 with sponsorship by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The characteristic anime art style emerged in the 1960s with the works of Osamu Tezuka and spread internationally in the late twentieth century, developing a large domestic and international audience. was a manga artist, but he also founded one of the early modern animation studios, Mushi Production. Osamu Tezuka was extremely prolific and continued to draw stories until his dying day. As a matter of fact, his last words were reportedly a complaint when a nurse attempted to get him to stop working. Outside of Japan Tezuka is more popularly known as the creator of “Astro Boy,”

How has anime influenced Japan?

What really pushed animation to the fore in Japan was the shift to the 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. Soon after the war ended, the General Headquarters of the Allied occupation (GHQ) brought together 100 anime artists in the bombed-out ruins of Tokyo to form the Shin Nihon Dōgasha, or New Japan Animation Company.

It was during these years, as Japan began to recover from the disastrous war, That Ōkawa Hiroshi, president of the Tōei film company, saw Disney’s Snow White featured  The Walt Disney Company 1937 and also profoundly influenced many Japanese animators.

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. Tōei Dōga chose Hakujaden (The Legend of the White Snake) as their first film. They sent a research team to the United States and invited several experts to travel to Japan as mentors. As a result, they were able to master the Disney system of “assembly-line production.” They hired a team of new employees who honed their skills while they produced the film under the supervision of veteran animators like Mori Yasuji and Daikuhara Akira. Anime gained success in other countries when early series such as Dragonball, Astro Boy, Sailor Moon, and Slam Dunk aired. There are many people who started to become interested in Japan after watching some of these shows.

The First Japanese Television Anime: Tetsuwan Atomu

On January 1, 1963, Fuji Television broadcast a 30-minute animated television series called Astro Boy, known in Japan by its original name Mighty Atom or . the first popular animated Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that later became familiar worldwide as anime. Astro Boy has become one of the most successful manga and anime franchises in the world. The combined 23 tankōbon volumes have sold over 100 million copies worldwide making it the tenth best-selling manga series of all time. The early 1990’s served as what was known to be an anime boom. Due to this, anime culture further evolved when anime conventions started taking place.

How Anime Influenced the World :

More shows were showing up in other countries, too. Anime has become one of the best resources nowadays to tell stories in an animated form, with freedom of expression in any genre and for any audience. Star Blazers is an American animated television series adaptation of the Japanese anime series Space Battleship Yamato (Uchū Senkan Yamato). Star Blazers was the .first broadcast in the United States in 1979. It was the first popular English-translated anime. 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. In fact, Italy imported the most anime outside of Japan. These mass imports influenced anime popularity in South American, Arabic and German markets. In the 1980s, anime became more accepted in the mainstream in Japan (although less than manga) and experienced a boom in production. Following a few successful adaptations of anime in overseas markets in the 1980s, anime gained increased acceptance in those markets in the 1990s and even more at the turn of the 21st century.

The Video Revolution :

The second development was the emergence of the home-video market. 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. The home distribution of anime releases was popularized in the 1980s with the Video Home System (VHS) and LaserDisc formats. 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. The Video CD (VCD) format was popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan but became only a minor format in the United States that was closely associated with bootleg copies. Beginning in 1984, animation began to be produced especially for this market (resulting in a Japanese-created English term, OVA or OAV–for Original Anime Video–which has been adopted by American anime fandom as well).OAVs are often better than either movies or television for stories which are too long for a standard theatrical release, but not long enough for a TV series. 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. 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.

Japanese Anime holds 2 Guinness World Record :

Japanese Anime holds several Guinness World Record. One is “Sazae-san”, which is the longest broadcasting animation in the world with more than 7,000 episodes since 1969. Another one is “Anpanman”, which holds the highest number of characters in an animated franchise with a total of 1,768 characters appearing in the first 980 episodes of the TV series and the first 20 movie films.

Anime Today :

Today, animation in Japan is considered to be in a creative doldrums. Due to the sheer volume of the output over the past three decades. The Japanese anime industry is at a turning point. The reality is that many anime production companies are struggling, and have become little more than subcontractors for television stations. This multi-billion-dollar industry has certainly influenced modern cartoons in different countries as well as attracting many fans to Japan. It caused people from all over the world to decide to learn Japanese, leading to the creation of the JLPT ( Japanese-Language Proficiency Test ).  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. Anime will continue to inspire people around the world. With the rise of the Internet on which you can Watch Anime Free Online anytime and with all new concepts coming up, we will see more works inspired by anime.