Aaah, I'm sorry it's been so long between updates! Especially since I know that there's people out there who actually read this! (Keep the comments coming! :D That's the only way I know if this is actually getting read)
I had a presentation about Japan for AP World Lit, and I chose to focus on anime. So, with my newfound knowledge, I'm going to briefly discuss the history of anime.
Anime in America is defined as "a style of animation originating in Japan that is characterized by stark colorful graphics depicting vibrant characters in action-filled plots often with fantastic or futuristic themes" (Cite). In Japan, anime is the word for all animation. Everything from Speed Racer to Superman to the latest Disney movie--those are all anime in Japan.
The Japanese have been writing long narratives with illustrations since the 12th century. Murasaki Shikubu's Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) is (one of) the first novels ever written, and illustrated copies of it were circulating in the 1200s, some 200 years after she wrote it. Illustrated stories like Genji were called emakimono. Shorter, more comedic illustrated stories were called giga.
In the late 1800s, the British magazines Punch and Puck were very popular in Japan. They strongly influenced a couple of fellows whose names I don't currently remember. One of them created Tokyo Puck, a Japanese magazine similar to Puck, featuring comic strips. The other fellow founded an organization for professional comic writers. Together, those men (I'll update as soon as I can look at the book where I got the information originally) and other artists of the time invented word bubbles and sequential panels.
The earliest known Japanese animation was created in 1917. It was 3 seconds long, and consisted of a boy writing the kanji for "moving pictures" on a board, removing his hat, and saluting the audience. (Cite) Some extremely influntial animators of the 1910s and 20s were Shimokawa Oten and Kouchi Jun'ichi.
In the 1930s, Japan was preparing to go to war, and most animations were commisioned by the military. By 1937, all animations had to be approved by the military. All animations of this time were extremely patriotic and usually depicted the Japanese military defeating other countires. The first feature-length animation in Japan was Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors in 1945. You may know Momotaro as "peach boy", the classic Japanese folk tale of a boy who goes on a journey and meets a bird, a monkey, and a dog. Well, this "classic" was actually invented in the 20th century.
After the war, the animations were no longer censored by the military. In 1948, Toei Animations was founded. Toei produced the first color feature animation in Japan, The Tale of the White Serpent, and would go on to release some of the most popular anime of all time, including Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon.
Osamu Tezuka, who deserves his own article, came on the scene in the 1960s. Tezuka, known as "the godfather of anime", "the grandfather of anime", and, at the time, "the Disney of Japan" quite literally invented anime as we know it today. Tezuka founded a studio called Mushi Productions to rival Toei. His budget was extremely limited, however. To develop plot and show characters' emotions without having to animate long, expensive scenes, Tezuka gave his characters large, expressive eyes. He found that large eyes show emotion much more easily. Nowadays, anime studios have enough money to animate any way they want, but they continue to use Tezuka's style. Even Miyazaki-sensei, who has extremely realistic characters (as opposed to the majority of anime) uses the traditional anime eyes to an extent.
The other distincitve trait of anime is wild, spiky hair. This also came about because of a lack of money, but was developed by manga artists rather than animators. American comic characters could be easily recognized by colors (i.e. Archie and orange hair, Superman and his red/blue costume) but Japanese comics had three colors: black, white, and gray. To make their characters distinctive and memorable, artists would draw crazy hairstyles. Manga is still published in black and white, but the hairstyles carried over into anime simply out of habit. Again, another one of those things define anime.
I had a presentation about Japan for AP World Lit, and I chose to focus on anime. So, with my newfound knowledge, I'm going to briefly discuss the history of anime.
Anime in America is defined as "a style of animation originating in Japan that is characterized by stark colorful graphics depicting vibrant characters in action-filled plots often with fantastic or futuristic themes" (Cite). In Japan, anime is the word for all animation. Everything from Speed Racer to Superman to the latest Disney movie--those are all anime in Japan.
The Japanese have been writing long narratives with illustrations since the 12th century. Murasaki Shikubu's Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) is (one of) the first novels ever written, and illustrated copies of it were circulating in the 1200s, some 200 years after she wrote it. Illustrated stories like Genji were called emakimono. Shorter, more comedic illustrated stories were called giga.
In the late 1800s, the British magazines Punch and Puck were very popular in Japan. They strongly influenced a couple of fellows whose names I don't currently remember. One of them created Tokyo Puck, a Japanese magazine similar to Puck, featuring comic strips. The other fellow founded an organization for professional comic writers. Together, those men (I'll update as soon as I can look at the book where I got the information originally) and other artists of the time invented word bubbles and sequential panels.
The earliest known Japanese animation was created in 1917. It was 3 seconds long, and consisted of a boy writing the kanji for "moving pictures" on a board, removing his hat, and saluting the audience. (Cite) Some extremely influntial animators of the 1910s and 20s were Shimokawa Oten and Kouchi Jun'ichi.
In the 1930s, Japan was preparing to go to war, and most animations were commisioned by the military. By 1937, all animations had to be approved by the military. All animations of this time were extremely patriotic and usually depicted the Japanese military defeating other countires. The first feature-length animation in Japan was Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors in 1945. You may know Momotaro as "peach boy", the classic Japanese folk tale of a boy who goes on a journey and meets a bird, a monkey, and a dog. Well, this "classic" was actually invented in the 20th century.
After the war, the animations were no longer censored by the military. In 1948, Toei Animations was founded. Toei produced the first color feature animation in Japan, The Tale of the White Serpent, and would go on to release some of the most popular anime of all time, including Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon.
Osamu Tezuka, who deserves his own article, came on the scene in the 1960s. Tezuka, known as "the godfather of anime", "the grandfather of anime", and, at the time, "the Disney of Japan" quite literally invented anime as we know it today. Tezuka founded a studio called Mushi Productions to rival Toei. His budget was extremely limited, however. To develop plot and show characters' emotions without having to animate long, expensive scenes, Tezuka gave his characters large, expressive eyes. He found that large eyes show emotion much more easily. Nowadays, anime studios have enough money to animate any way they want, but they continue to use Tezuka's style. Even Miyazaki-sensei, who has extremely realistic characters (as opposed to the majority of anime) uses the traditional anime eyes to an extent.
The other distincitve trait of anime is wild, spiky hair. This also came about because of a lack of money, but was developed by manga artists rather than animators. American comic characters could be easily recognized by colors (i.e. Archie and orange hair, Superman and his red/blue costume) but Japanese comics had three colors: black, white, and gray. To make their characters distinctive and memorable, artists would draw crazy hairstyles. Manga is still published in black and white, but the hairstyles carried over into anime simply out of habit. Again, another one of those things define anime.
The 1970s saw more anime series. Directors such as Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki-sensei made their first films and directed their first series in the 70s. Takahata is probably best known for Hols, Prince of the Sun, and Heidi, Girl of the Alps; Miyazaki, for Future Boy Conan and Lupin III. Miyazaki's first feature film would be Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro.
The 80s saw a huge wave of mecha (and subsequent super robot and real robot) series. Space Battleship Yamato (1974-75) and Mobile Suit Gundam (1979-80) paved the way for mecha in the late 70s, and they were followed by Macross and far too many Gundam series.
The first anime magazines, Animage and Newtype were released in the 80s. Former Animage editor Toshio Suzuki would later team up with Hayao Miyazaki to create Studio Ghibli, one of the best and most successful animation studios in existance today. Their first movie together was Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Ghibli was founded with the money made from Nausicaa, and its first film was Laputa: Castle in the Sky. For more info on Ghibli and Miyazaki-sensei, here's the entry I had about Studio Ghibli or check out nausicaa.net. A quick edit to the info imn my post, though: while Ghibli animated Takahata's Grave of the Fireflies, they did not produce or release it.
OVAs or OAVs (original video animation or original animation video) started to come out in the 80s. Until that time, anime was either a TV series, a TV movie, or a feature film. OVAs are simply direct-to-video releases. (like Disney and their ridiculous sequels)The famous film Akira was released in 1988. While it wasn't all that successful in Japan, it was a very good film, and started drawing attetion to Japan's animation industry. Nowadays, Akira is a classic anime film.
The 80s also saw many more Ghibli films, including Laputa, Totoro, Kiki, and Grave of the Fireflies. These films were some of the most successful of their time. Kiki was the top-grossing film of the year in 1989, and was seen by more than 2.6 million people.
The 90s brought one of the most celebrated mecha animes to date: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Its creator, Hideaki Anno, started off animating the god warrior in Miyazaki's Nausicaa. Besides Eva, other widely known anime series such as Dragonball, Sailor Moon, and of course, Pokémon came out in the 90s. Pokémon is actually based on a videogame, in case anyone wondered how they could get so many episodes off of a show with no plot. (yes, I'm a Digimon fan. Digimon was better than Pokémon in every way--plot, characters, animation, voice actors, plot, music, plot, plot, and more plot. At least that's my opinion)
The 90s brought one of the most celebrated mecha animes to date: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Its creator, Hideaki Anno, started off animating the god warrior in Miyazaki's Nausicaa. Besides Eva, other widely known anime series such as Dragonball, Sailor Moon, and of course, Pokémon came out in the 90s. Pokémon is actually based on a videogame, in case anyone wondered how they could get so many episodes off of a show with no plot. (yes, I'm a Digimon fan. Digimon was better than Pokémon in every way--plot, characters, animation, voice actors, plot, music, plot, plot, and more plot. At least that's my opinion)
2000s had another brief wave of mecha anime, including more Gundam and Eureka Seven. The anime series created in the late 90s and on become far too numerous to categorize. Everything you watch on CN or anime channels: Naruto, Death Note, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Trinity Blood, Fruits Basket, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya... almost anime on American TV today, which means almost every widely known anime, was started in this decade. A distinct new type of anime that has emerged, though, one that specifically targets otaku. An example of this would be Lucky Star, which reguarly references other anime series.
Also, anime's popularity has increased dramatically over the years. This is reflected in the animations of the 21st century, and in the quality of dubbing. Prime examples of American Anime would be Avatar: The Last Airbender and Peach Fuzz (American manga series run in select US newspapers) Also, back in the 70s and 80s, and even some 90s, anime was regulary hacked apart, edited, attacked with Mr. Digital Paint bucket, horrible revoiced, and served to American audiences. The famous Macross was actually combined with two other series and presented to Americans as Robotech. Nowadays, such a practice is condemned by hard-core otaku and fair-weather fans alike, though the otaku are often more sensible about it. There is one major dubbing studio to date, 4kids Entertainment, that still heavily edits, rescores music, and has horrible, over-the-top dubbed voices, but I'll save them for another time. Sensible studios like FUNimation, ADV, etc, censor extremely little, if nothing at all, and leave all the original music and names. Not to mention their exceptional voice actors.
For more links, in-depth descriptions, and pictures, check out the wikipedia history of anime: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_anime
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