Anime is a Japanese word borrowed from French, and is used to mean "animation". Outside of Japan, anime refers specifically to Japanese animation or animation that mimics Japanese animation. Anime has its roots in manga or Japanese comics.  Manga developed over hundreds of years, starting as pictures drawn on temple walls, then on wooden blocks, and finally as woodblock prints with captions collected in books.  In time, the captions became stories and the art became sequential. By the early 20th century, manga had become the main form of literature for most of Japanese society.

Anime's history began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese graphic artists began to feel the influence of two very powerful Western inventions and when Japanese filmmakers began trying out new animation techniques that were being used in the Western world. The oldest Japanese animation is from about 1907. Only three seconds long it showed a young boy in a sailor suit writing out the words in Japanese for "Moving Pictures," turns to the audience, takes off his hat and salutes. From this beginning animation in Japan continued to develop. By the 1930's animation had taken a place among the burgeoning film industry of Japan. In 1914, cartoonists were among the first Japanese artists to experiment with animated motion pictures. Japan's first world-wide success was Kitayama Seitaro's short film Momotaro(1918). The last pre-war milestone was the short film Chikara To Onna No Yononaka, which appeared in 1932.

In the 1930's the largest influence on Japanese anime was Walt Disney. With the invasion of Manchuria and the war, all art in Japan at this time was used to enforce the official line of nationalism, and this can be seen in Japanese animation throughout the 1930's and 1940's.

The first full-length anime feature in Japan was one of these propagandistic nationalistic efforts: Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors, released in 1945. The film portrays Japanese victory on Sulawesi Island and how their efforts are liberating Asia. It was directed by Mitsuyo Seo, who had been greatly inspired by seeing Walt Disney's Fantasia.

The popularity and influence of Disney and the Fleishers' animated films were not limited to the United States. Before World War II, much of their work was seen by receptive audiences in Europe and Asia. These works also inspired the dreams of a young man who would go on to alter the direction of Japanese graphic story-telling forever.

Disney influences can be seen throughout Japanese animation in the 1940's and 50's.

The success of both the anime and manga industries in Japan is connected with name of one man: Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka became a cartoonist after World War II. He was only 20 years old whne his first significant work, the novel-length Shintakarajima or "New Treasure Island", appeared in 1947. In just a few years, he became Japan's most popular manga artist, eventually earning the title "God of Manga." What Tezuka was doing was telling stories in the manner of a filmmaker. In the process, he was also teaching an entire generation of artists how to visualize and compose a story kinetically. Successive generations of manga and anime artists discovered the flexibility of Tezuka's character designs and adapted them into their own diverse works. Eventually, Tezuka's great success as a manga artist led to a more direct impact on the post-war animation industry.

One of the important leaders after the end of World War 2 was the Japanese film company Toei Animation. Hiroshi Okawa was the president of Toei, his dream was to create and Asian film studio that would produce animated features similar to those put out by Walt Disney Studios in America. Toei  produced the first color anime feature film: Hakujaden, in 1956. It was later released in the United States under the name Panda and the Magic Serpent.

Tezuka, the undisputed giant of manga, formally entered the anime filed in 1958 when he started working on the storyboards, screenplay, and chracter designs for a Toei feature based on Wu Cheng-en's the Pilgrimage to the West. Tezuka founded the Osamu Tezuka Production Animation Department or, as it was eventually called, Mushi Productions. His goal was to produce animated theatrical features as well as episodic series for the fledgling Japanese television industry. Tezuka created the first Japanese TV animation studio and produced his first and most popular work: Astro Boy in 1963, which became an immediate success.

During the 1970's a new subfield of anime hit the market: mecha, a field of science fiction where the main characters were not people, but robots. This continues to be an extremely popular field in Japan, and has influenced many American works.

Anime reached mainstream status in the 1980s, and since then it has blown up not only in Japan, but around the globe. Television and film producers scrambled to keep up with the increasing demand for more sophisticated and exciting animated programming. Now Japanese fans could actually buy copies of their favorite animated TV shows and movies. Production companies even started to bypass the traditional entertainment media and release original animated features straight to video.

The end of the 1980's saw the ending of the Golden Age of Anime. Projects began to be more and more detailed and costly, while their popularity was waning. In 1988 the artist and director Katsuhiro Otamo ushered in an entirely new style of anime with film Akira. It was the most expensive anime feature film ever released and also a huge disappointment in the Japanese box office. At the same time it was gaining success world-wide, especially in the United States; the film became a huge international hit. Akira became a symbol of the medium and greatly increased anime's popularity in the west.

As the '90's wind down, optimism comes easily to the anime fan. Osamu Tezuka's influence was still being felt in recent films based on his earlier manga works. International audiences were also enjoying a growing influx of popular anime. Japanese artists could explore the boundaries of space and examine the complexities of the human condition - it has made anime dynamic and appealing. This same quality promises to keep anime a vital artistic option for filmmakers in the 21st Century.

 

What is it that makes Japanese animation popular, not only to the young but to adults as well?

Part of the draw that anime possesses is the fact that they can target wide ranges of viewers. This is due to the fact that animes are not confined to one category, but run the entire gamut of genres, including action, sci-fi, drama, romance, horror, and yes, even erotica. Many animes do not limit themselves to one particular genre and mix genres together.

Animation itself allows anime creators to convey just about any storyline they desire. It is much easier to make a cartoon about large robots featuring huge action and destruction sequences than it is to produce a live-action film including the same things. With recent advances in CGI animators have even more power to transfer their wildest imaginations on to a screen. Storylines, characters, and settings are limited only to what creators can conjure up in their minds.

Though animes seem to be simple cartoons on the surface, many of them have deeper storylines and character development. This may be conveyed through the use of character-based flashbacks, which portray part of a character's past to the viewer, allowing them to understand why they act a certain way or say the things they say. Juvenile humor may be thrown in sporadically in drama-based animes, but do not be surprised if you see poignant and profound character development in humor-based animes as well.

In the west, animation has long been limited to children's subjects, and comics not only to children's or young adult subjects, but specifically to "superhero" stories. However, in Japan, anime and manga are used for every type of story imaginable and are watched or read by all types of people at every level of society. Most anime series find their foundations in manga. These mangas are usually a few episodes ahead of the actual television series and have become popular among international audiences as well. In Japan, manga and anime can cover very serious topics, depict situational comedy or soap opera, involve police or detective drama, mystery, or pornography. In other words, Japanese do not view anime or manga as limited to any particular market or genre. Western attitudes about comics haven't reached the level of Japan, where a popular comic's sales can rival those of major magazines and an animated film can become the top-grossing film in national history, but the trend towards greater acceptance and greater availability of anime and manga in the west is very encouraging to fans.

American Anime is the most recent trend in the modern animated cartoon. Shows like Avatar and Martin Mystery and Teen Titans blend the American style of using proper body proportions while adding elements of traditional anime as well. Common features of the traditional version include oversized eyes and extreme exaggeration of emotion in facial expressions.

Needless to say, not all animes are just cartoons for kids. In fact, the majority of animes feature violence, sexual innuendos, and language that may not be suitable for children. This is likely a major reason why anime's popularity has exploded in the past few years across the world. With animes, cartoons are no longer just for kids, and even adults can find themes of romance and drama that they might otherwise find only in real-life television shows. The unique blend of animated characters with more mature themes is undoubtedly an enticing combination for adult-viewers.

When animes are released in theaters, on television, or on DVDs in countries outside of Japan, distributors must decide whether they want to use subtitles or dubbed voices. There are pros to both sides of the issue, and there are strong proponents of both. Some viewers enjoy watching their anime without having to read words on the bottom of the screen, which they say take away from the visual pleasures of the anime. Others prefer to hear the original voice acting and enjoy reading the more literal translations. DVDs offer both sides a satisfying medium, as they allow for either subtitles or English voice tracks.

There are countless resources on the Internet that give recommendations and reviews of numerous anime series, many of which are readily available on DVD and even on television stations. Pick a genre, read up on reviews and summaries of shows that you are interested in, and enjoy.