is animation originating in Japan. The world outside Japan regards anime as "Japanese animation". Anime originated about 1917.
Anime, like
manga (Japanese comics), has a
large audience in Japan and high recognition throughout the world.
Distributors can release anime via television broadcasts, directly
to
video, or theatrically,
as well as
online.
Both hand-drawn and
computer-animated anime exist. It is used
in
television series,
films,
video,
video games,
commercials, and
internet-based releases, and represents most, if
not all,
genres of
fiction. Anime gained early popularity in
East and
Southeast
Asia and has garnered more-recent popularity in the
Western World.
History
Anime began at the start of the 20th century, when Japanese
filmmakers experimented with the
animation techniques also pioneered in
France, Germany, the United States, and Russia. The oldest known
anime in existence first screened in 1917 – a two-minute clip of a
samurai trying to test a new sword on his target, only to suffer
defeat. The first
talkie anime was
Chikara to Onna no Yo
no Naka, released in 1933.
By the 1930s, animation became an alternative format of
storytelling to the underdeveloped
live-action industry in Japan. Unlike in the
United States, the live-action industry in Japan remained a small
market and suffered from budgeting, location, and casting
restrictions. The lack of Western-looking actors, for example, made
it next to impossible to shoot films set in Europe, America, or
fantasy worlds that do not naturally involve Japan. Animation
allowed artists to create any characters and settings.
The success of
The Walt Disney
Company's 1937 feature film
Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs influenced Japanese animators. In the 1960s,
manga artist and animator
Osamu Tezuka
adapted and simplified many Disney animation-techniques to reduce
costs and to limit the number of frames in productions. He intended
this as a temporary measure to allow him to produce material on a
tight schedule with inexperienced animation staff.
The 1970s saw a surge of growth in the popularity of
manga – many of them later animated. The work of
Osamu Tezuka drew particular attention:
he has been called a "legend" and the "god of manga". His work –
and that of other pioneers in the field – inspired characteristics
and genres that remain fundamental elements of anime today. The
giant
robot genre (known as "
Mecha" outside Japan), for instance, took shape under
Tezuka, developed into the
Super Robot
genre under
Go Nagai and others, and was
revolutionized at the end of the decade by
Yoshiyuki Tomino who developed the
Real Robot genre. Robot anime like the
Gundam and
The Super Dimension
Fortress Macross series became instant classics in the
1980s, and the robot genre of anime is still one of the most common
in Japan and worldwide today. 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.
Terminology
Japanese write the English term "animation" in
katakana as アニメーション (
animēshon,
pronounced ), and the term anime (アニメ) emerged in the 1970s as an
abbreviation, though some state that the word derives from the
French phrase
dessin animé. Japanese-speakers use both the
original and abbreviated forms interchangeably, but the shorter
form occurs more commonly.
The pronunciation of
anime in Japanese, , differs
significantly from the
Standard
English , which has different vowels and
stress. (In Japanese each
mora carries equal stress.) As with a few
other Japanese words such as
saké,
Pokémon, and
Kobo Abé, English-language texts
sometimes spell
anime as
animé (as in French),
with an
acute accent over the final
e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave
it silent as English orthography might suggest.
Word usage
In Japan, the term
anime does not specify an animation's
nation of origin or style; instead, it serves as a
blanket term to refer to all forms of animation
from around the world. English-language dictionaries define
anime as "a Japanese style of motion-picture animation" or
as "a style of animation developed in Japan".Non-Japanese works
that borrow stylization from anime are commonly referred to as
"
anime-influenced
animation" but it is not unusual for a viewer who does not know
the country of origin of such material to refer to it as simply
"anime". Some works are co-productions with non-Japanese companies,
such as most of the traditionally animated
Rankin/Bass works, the
Cartoon Network and
Production I.G series
IGPX or
Ōban
Star-Racers; different viewers may or may not consider
these anime.
In English,
anime, when used as a common
noun, normally functions as a
mass
noun (for example: "Do you watch anime?", "How much anime have
you collected?"). However, in casual usage the word also appears as
a
count noun.
Anime can also be
used as a
suppletive adjective or classifier noun ("The anime
Guyver is
different from the movie
Guyver").
Synonyms
English-speakers occasionally refer to anime as
Japanimation, but this term has fallen into disuse.
Japanimation saw the most usage during the 1970s and
1980s, but the term
anime supplanted it in the mid-1990s
as the material became more widely known in English-speaking
countries. In general, the term now only appears in nostalgic
contexts. Although the term was coined outside Japan to refer to
animation imported from Japan, it is now used primarily
in
Japan, to refer to domestic animation; since
anime does
not identify the country of origin in Japanese usage,
Japanimation is used to distinguish Japanese work from
that of the rest of the world.
In Japan,
manga can additionally refer to both animation
and comics (although the use of
manga to refer to
animation mostly occurs only among non-fans). Among English
speakers, manga usually has the stricter meaning of "Japanese
comics". An alternate explanation is that it is due to the
prominence of
Manga
Entertainment, a distributor of anime to the US and UK markets.
Because Manga Entertainment originated in the UK the use of the
term is common outside of Japan. The term "
animanga" has been used to collectively refer to
anime and manga, though it is also a term used to describe comics
produced from animation cels.
Visual characteristics
An example of the wide range of
drawing styles anime can adopt
Many commentators refer to anime as an
art
form. As a visual medium, it can emphasize visual styles. The
styles can vary from artist to artist or by studio to studio. Some
titles make extensive use of common stylization:
FLCL, for example, is known for its wild,
exaggerated stylization. Other titles use different methods:
Only Yesterday or
Jin-Roh take much more realistic
approaches, featuring few stylistic exaggerations;
Pokemon uses drawings which specifically do not
distinguish the nationality of characters.
While different titles and different artists have their own
artistic styles, many stylistic elements have become so common that
people describe them as definitive of anime in general. However,
this does not mean that all modern anime share one strict, common
art style. Many anime have a very different art style from what
would commonly be called "anime style", yet fans still use the word
"anime" to refer to these titles. Generally, the most common form
of anime drawings include "exaggerated physical features such as
large eyes, big hair and elongated limbs... and dramatically shaped
speech bubbles,
speed lines and
onomatopoeic, exclamatory typography."
The influences of
Japanese
calligraphy and
Japanese
painting also characterize linear qualities of the anime style.
The round
ink brush traditionally used for
writing
kanji and for painting produces a
stroke of widely varying thickness.
Anime also tends to borrow many elements from
manga, including text in the background, and borrowing
panel layouts from the manga as well. For example, an opening may
employ manga panels to tell the story, or to dramatize a point for
humorous effect. See for example the well-known anime
Kare Kano.
Character design
Proportions
Body proportions emulated in anime come from proportions of the
human body. The height of the head is considered as the base unit
of proportion. Head heights can vary as long as the remainder of
the body remains proportional. Most anime characters are about
seven to eight heads tall, and extreme heights are set around nine
heads tall.
Variations to proportion can be modded .
Super deformed characters feature a
non-proportionally small body compared to the head. Sometimes
specific body parts, like legs, are shortened or elongated for
added emphasis. Most super deformed characters are two to four
heads tall. Some anime works like
Crayon Shin-chan completely disregard
these proportions, such that they resemble Western cartoons. For
exaggeration, certain body features are increased in
proportion.
Eye styles
A common approach is the large
eyes style drawn
on many anime and
manga characters.
Osamu Tezuka, who is believed to have been the
first to use this technique, was inspired by the exaggerated
features of American cartoon characters such as
Betty Boop,
Mickey
Mouse, and Disney's
Bambi. Tezuka
found that large eyes style allowed his characters to show emotions
distinctly. When Tezuka began drawing
Ribbon no Kishi, the first manga
specifically targeted at young girls, Tezuka further exaggerated
the size of the characters' eyes. Indeed, through
Ribbon no
Kishi, Tezuka set a stylistic template that later
shōjo artists tended to follow.
Coloring is added to give eyes, particularly to the cornea, some
depth. The depth is accomplished by applying variable color
shading. Generally, a mixture of a light shade, the tone color, and
a dark shade is used. Cultural anthropologist
Matt Thorn argues that Japanese animators and
audiences do not perceive such stylized eyes as inherently more or
less foreign.
However, not all anime have large eyes. For example, some of the
work of
Hayao Miyazaki and
Toshiro Kawamoto are known for having
realistically proportioned eyes, as well as realistic hair colors
on their characters. In addition many other productions also have
been known to use smaller eyes. This design tends to have more
resemblance to traditional Japanese art. Some characters have even
smaller eyes, where simple black dots are used. However, many
western audiences associate anime with large detailed eyes.
Facial expressions
Anime characters may employ wide variety of facial expressions to
denote moods and thoughts. These techniques are often different in
form than their counterparts in western animation.
There are a number of other stylistic elements that are common to
conventional anime as well but more often used in comedies.
Characters that are shocked or surprised will perform a "
face fault", in which they display an extremely
exaggerated expression. Angry characters may exhibit a "vein" or
"stress mark" effect, where lines representing bulging veins will
appear on their forehead. Angry women will sometimes summon a
mallet from nowhere and strike someone with it, leading to the
concept of
Hammerspace and
cartoon physics. Male characters will
develop a
bloody nose around their
female love interests (typically to indicate arousal, based on an
old wives' tale). Embarrassed characters either produce a massive
sweat-drop (which has become one
of the most widely recognized motifs of conventional anime) or
produce a visibly red blush or set of parallel (sometimes squiggly)
lines beneath the eyes, especially as a manifestation of repressed
romantic feelings. Some anime, usually with political plots and
other more serious subject matters, have abandoned the use of these
techniques.
Animation technique
Like all
animation, the production
processes of
storyboarding,
voice acting, character design, cel production
and so on still apply. With improvements in computer technology,
computer animation increased the
efficiency of the whole production process.
Anime is often considered a form of
limited animation. That means that
stylistically, even in bigger productions the conventions of
limited animation are used to fool the eye into thinking there is
more movement than there is. Many of the techniques used are
comprised with cost-cutting measures while working under a set
budget.
Anime scenes place emphasis on achieving three-dimensional views.
Backgrounds depict the scenes' atmosphere. For example, anime often
puts emphasis on changing seasons, as can be seen in numerous
anime, such as
Tenchi Muyo!.
Sometimes actual settings have been duplicated into an anime. The
backgrounds for the
Melancholy of Haruhi
Suzumiya are based on various locations within the suburb
of
Nishinomiya, Hyogo,
Japan.
Camera angles, camera movement, and lighting play an important role
in scenes. Directors often have the discretion of determining
viewing angles for scenes, particularly regarding backgrounds. In
addition, camera angles show
perspective. Directors can also
choose camera effects within
cinematography, such as panning, zooming,
facial closeup, and panoramic.
The large majority of anime uses
traditional animation, which better
allows for
division of labor,
pose to pose approach and checking of drawings before they are
shot - practices favoured by the anime industry. Other mediums are
mostly limited to independently-made
short
films, examples of which are the
silhouette and other
cutout animation of
Noburo Ofuji, the
stop
motion puppet animation of
Tadahito Mochinaga,
Kihachirō Kawamoto and
Tomoyasu Murata and the
computer animation of
Satoshi Tomioka (most famously
Usavich).
Distribution
While anime had entered markets beyond Japan in the 1960s, it grew
as a major cultural export during its market expansion during the
1980s and 1990s. The anime market for the United States alone is
"worth approximately $4.35 billion, according to the
Japan External Trade
Organization". Anime has also been a commercial success in
Asia, Europe and Latin America, where anime has become even more
mainstream than in the United States. For example, the
Saint Seiya video game was released in
Europe due to the popularity of the show even years after the
series has been off-air.
Anime distribution companies handled the
licensing and distribution of anime outside
Japan. Licensed anime is modified by distributors through
dubbing into the language of the
country and adding language subtitles to the Japanese language
track.
Using a similar global distribution pattern as Hollywood
, the world is divided into five regions.
Some
editing of cultural references
may occur to better follow the references of the non-Japanese
culture. Certain companies may remove any objectionable content,
complying with domestic law. This editing process was far more
prevalent in the past (e.g.
Voltron), but its use has declined because of
the demand for anime in its original form. This "light touch"
approach to localization has favored viewers formerly unfamiliar
with anime. The use of such methods is evident by the success of
Naruto and
Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming block, both of which
employ minor edits.
Robotech and
Star Blazers were the earliest
attempts to present anime (albeit still modified) to North American
television audiences without harsh censoring for violence and
mature themes.
With the advent of
DVD, it became possible to
include multiple language tracks into a simple product. This was
not the case with
VHS cassette, in which
separate VHS media were used and with each VHS cassette priced the
same as a single DVD. The "light touch" approach also applies to
DVD releases as they often include both the dubbed audio and the
original Japanese audio with
subtitles, typically unedited. Anime
edited for television is usually released on DVD "uncut", with all
scenes intact.
TV networks regularly broadcast anime programming.
In Japan, major
national TV networks, such as TV Tokyo
broadcast
anime regularly. Smaller regional stations broadcast anime
under the
UHF. In the United States, cable
TV channels such as
Cartoon Network,
Disney,
Syfy,
and others dedicate some of their timeslots to anime. Some, such as
the
Anime Network and the
FUNimation Channel, specifically show
anime.
Sony-based
Animax
and Disney's
Jetix channel broadcast anime
within many countries in the world.
AnimeCentral solely broadcasts anime in the
UK.
Although it violates
copyright laws in
many countries, some fans add subtitles to anime on their own.
These are distributed as
fansubs. The ethical
implications of producing, distributing, or watching fansubs are
topics of much controversy even when fansub groups do not profit
from their activities. Once the series has been licensed outside of
Japan, fansub groups often cease distribution of their work. In one
case,
Media Factory Incorporated
requested that no fansubs of their material be made, which was
respected by the fansub community. In another instance, Bandai
specifically thanked fansubbers for their role in helping to make
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya popular in the English
speaking world.
The
Internet has played a significant role
in the exposure of anime beyond Japan. Prior to the 1990s, anime
had limited exposure beyond Japan's borders. Coincidentally, as the
popularity of the Internet grew, so did interest in anime. Much of
the fandom of anime grew through the Internet. The combination of
internet communities and increasing amounts of anime material, from
video to images, helped spur the growth of fandom. As the Internet
gained more widespread use, Internet advertising revenues grew from
1.6 billion yen to over 180 billion yen between 1995 and
2005.
Influence on world culture
Anime has become commercially profitable in western countries, as
early commercially successful western adaptations of anime, such as
Astro Boy, have revealed. The
phenomenal success of
Nintendo's
multi-billion
dollar
Pokémon franchise was helped
greatly by the
spin-off anime
series that, first broadcast in the late 1990s, is still
running worldwide to this day. In doing so, anime has made
significant impacts upon Western culture. Since the 19th century,
many Westerners have expressed a
particular
interest towards Japan. Anime dramatically exposed more
Westerners to the culture of Japan. Aside from anime, other facets
of Japanese culture increased in popularity. Worldwide, the number
of people studying Japanese increased. In 1984, the
Japanese Language Proficiency
Test was devised to meet increasing demand.
Anime-influenced animation refers
to non-Japanese works of animation that emulate the visual style of
anime. Most of these works are created by studios in the United
States, Europe, and non-Japanese Asia; and they generally
incorporate stylizations, methods, and gags described in
anime physics, as in the case of
Avatar: The Last
Airbender. Often, production crews either are fans of
anime or are required to view anime. Some creators cite anime as a
source of inspiration with their own series. Furthermore, a French
production team for
Ōban
Star-Racers moved to Tokyo to collaborate with a Japanese
production team from
Hal Film Maker.
Critics and the general anime fanbase do not consider them as
anime.
Some American animated television-series have singled out anime
styling with satirical intent, for example
South Park (with "
Chinpokomon" and with "
Good Times with Weapons").
South
Park has a notable drawing style, itself parodied in "
Brittle Bullet", the fifth episode of
the anime
FLCL, released several
months after "Chinpokomon" aired. This intent on satirizing anime
is the springboard for the basic premise of
Kappa Mikey, a Nicktoons Network original
cartoon. Even clichés normally found in anime are parodied in some
series, such as
Perfect Hair
Forever.
Anime conventions
began to appear in the early 1990s, during the Anime boom, starting
with
Anime Expo,
Animethon,
Otakon, and
JACON. Currently anime conventions are held
annually
in various cities
across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Many attendees participate
in
cosplay, where they dress up as anime
characters. Also, guests from Japan ranging from artists,
directors, and music groups are invited. In addition to anime
conventions,
anime clubs have become
prevalent in colleges, high schools, and community centers as a way
to publicly exhibit anime as well as broadening
Japanese cultural understanding.
Anime and American audiences
The Japanese term
otaku is used in America as a term for
anime fans, more particularly the obsessive ones. The negative
connotations associated with the word in Japan have disappeared in
its American context, where it instead connotes the pride of the
fans. Only in the recent decade or so has there been a more casual
viewership outside the devoted
otaku fan base, which can
be attributed highly to technological advances. Also, shows like
Pokémon and
Dragon Ball Z provided a pivotal
introduction of anime's conventions, animation methods, and
Shinto influences to many American
children.
Ancient Japanese myths – often deriving from the animistic nature
worship of Shinto – have influenced anime greatly, but most
American audiences not accustomed to anime know very little of
these foreign texts and customs. For example, an average American
viewing the live-action TV show
Hercules will be no
stranger to the Greek myths and legends it is based on, while the
same person watching the show
Tenchi
Muyo! might not understand that the pleated ropes wrapped
around the "space trees" are influenced by the ancient legend of
Amaterasu and Susano.
See also
References
- anime - Definition from the Merriam-Webster Online
Dictionary
- "Old anime discovered, restored" , Daily Yomiuri
Online. March 28, 2008.
- American Heritage Dictionary,
4th ed.; Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1).
- Pokemon Case Study
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