Anime: To the Japanese it is simply what they use for all animation. For us, it means anything animated from Japan. What started as a way to get around the dirt poor budgets of the Japanese film industry is now a 4.5 billion dollar industry, with a large following of anime fans, both passing and full blown fanatic alike, in the United States and an even large following in the Latin Nations of South and Central America.
Yet, for all its popularity, it has developed a good large number of people who heavily criticize this style of animation in, with varying degrees of intelligence. In fact, from my experience on discussions on the web and in person, most of the reasons people do not like anime is often found in unhealthy amounts in our own forms of entertainment. Out of all the arguments and rants on anime, I figure a good 95% of the arguments are either idiotic at best, are done by people that are just as rabid as the weirdest of anime fans, or what they are complaining about they would ignore in a more western style of animation.
So for a simplified account of its history. As a note: this is largely from an American perspective, and how anime has done in the US. I?m not sure how it has done in the last few decades in the rest of the world, so any anime fans into it from across the world tell me how its done in the rest of the world.
So with no further ado: The film industry in Japan during the early 1900?s sucked. By the time the United States and Europe were now out of the making things up as you go stage of this fledgling form of entertainment, the Japanese were just getting into it. Moreover most film makers had three major handicaps when it came to making films.
1. A lack of funds. Pretty much the people in charge of the studies then, were penny pinching scrooges and didn?t a lot for a lot of money for the filmmakers. This has not changed since then for the most part. Because of this, this severely limited where directors could film, how many people they could have for a cast and crew, and how elaborate the sets, props, and costumes could be.
2. Very short deadlines. Much like the American films industry, the Japanese one had to constantly be churning out movies. While I do not know the exact number of films they had to produce in a year, if it was like their American counterparts, it would have not been unheard of to pull off three movies a year with one director. As you might guess, this probably caused much untold amounts of stress on the actors and filmmakers.
3. A complete lack of other racial groups, or at least people who could pull them off to some extent. While there were multiple ethnicities they could do, Japan at the time didn?t have a lot of none Asians. Most people from other racial backgrounds that came there were either missionaries, diplomats, or sailors and not much else. This lack of diversity also limited the filmmakers as to what kind of films they wanted to do.
And those films were largely period pieces, namely samurai films. Unfortunately, while they may have been great, people got so oversaturated with them that they became board with it.
Seeking another solution, Japanese filmmakers turned to Animation as you were only limited to the artists? imagination as what you could do. As the realms of physics and nature were thrown out the windows, things that were impossible to have do to coasts, technology, or safety issues could be done freely, and Japan loved it.
However America would not get its first taste of anime till after World War 2 as many of the G.I.?s stationed there would watch the Japanese cartoons and feel right at home. They probably didn?t understand anything going on, but it probably reminded them of when they did this back in their hometowns before they left to fight the war.
Americans would soon get another taste of it in the sixties when many film studios grew tired of seeing the same cartoons over and over again. A decade earlier, the film industry was bought out by corporations who wanted to make a quick buck and play it safe. However as animation was no longer cheaper then live action film, it got shafted into children?s fair, and high quality material was never truly given to children?s fair. Animation quality was one of the things that got shafted, and with little exception, story as well. This is also why today people in the United States consider animation largely in the realm of children?s fair.
With Anime, especially the early stuff that got brought over like Star Blazers, Speed Racer, and Astro Boy, they provided something different. At the same time the average person didn?t know they were getting imports as frankly the characters in them didn?t look all too Japanese.
Then Star Wars came, bringing with it a science fiction craze that has not been really seen since then. This saw a whole slew of anime getting licensed in the 80?s, especially ones that were sci fie like Robotech, Voltron, and G-Force. We also saw others coming in out of the wood work, as Thunder Cats was largly outsorced to Japanese studios, Transformers was animated in Japan and origionaly based on a Japanese toy line Hasbro got a hold of, and we saw more kid oriented stuff like Samurai Pizza Cats and Super Book cross the Pacific.
Then the late 80?s happen, and anime would go into the college demographic niche market. We would still get stuff out like Dragon Ball, and Gargoyles and EXO Squad were heavily influenced by anime, but as a whole this didn?t change until the advent of the late 90?s.
And this is largely do to two things. 1. Toonami, which originally largely just broadcasted old action cartoons but slowly but surely involved more anime into its time slots. This included the Midnight run, which also aired the first violent anime to be uncut: Gundam Wing. While the cut version was still shown during the afternoon and early evening, but the fact it was shown unaltered would later warrant the creation of Adult Swim.
As for the other thing that brought anime back on the radar? Pokemon, and the fact that between the games and other merchandising it grossed over a billion dollars worldwide within its first year. Something like that does not go unnoticed in the business world.
Now a days, it?s not as big, but it is no way going back to a complete niche market.
Still, it has had as large a hatdom as it has a fandom throughout the years. Why is that? I wish to cover that in nine more posts with the following aspects of anime that may be new to the none anime crowed.
1. Animation Quality and the Lack thereof
2. Anime and Sensuality.
3. Anime and Violence
4. Other Clichés
5. Cosplay
6. AMV?s
I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to rip this a new one as you see fit.
Yet, for all its popularity, it has developed a good large number of people who heavily criticize this style of animation in, with varying degrees of intelligence. In fact, from my experience on discussions on the web and in person, most of the reasons people do not like anime is often found in unhealthy amounts in our own forms of entertainment. Out of all the arguments and rants on anime, I figure a good 95% of the arguments are either idiotic at best, are done by people that are just as rabid as the weirdest of anime fans, or what they are complaining about they would ignore in a more western style of animation.
So for a simplified account of its history. As a note: this is largely from an American perspective, and how anime has done in the US. I?m not sure how it has done in the last few decades in the rest of the world, so any anime fans into it from across the world tell me how its done in the rest of the world.
So with no further ado: The film industry in Japan during the early 1900?s sucked. By the time the United States and Europe were now out of the making things up as you go stage of this fledgling form of entertainment, the Japanese were just getting into it. Moreover most film makers had three major handicaps when it came to making films.
1. A lack of funds. Pretty much the people in charge of the studies then, were penny pinching scrooges and didn?t a lot for a lot of money for the filmmakers. This has not changed since then for the most part. Because of this, this severely limited where directors could film, how many people they could have for a cast and crew, and how elaborate the sets, props, and costumes could be.
2. Very short deadlines. Much like the American films industry, the Japanese one had to constantly be churning out movies. While I do not know the exact number of films they had to produce in a year, if it was like their American counterparts, it would have not been unheard of to pull off three movies a year with one director. As you might guess, this probably caused much untold amounts of stress on the actors and filmmakers.
3. A complete lack of other racial groups, or at least people who could pull them off to some extent. While there were multiple ethnicities they could do, Japan at the time didn?t have a lot of none Asians. Most people from other racial backgrounds that came there were either missionaries, diplomats, or sailors and not much else. This lack of diversity also limited the filmmakers as to what kind of films they wanted to do.
And those films were largely period pieces, namely samurai films. Unfortunately, while they may have been great, people got so oversaturated with them that they became board with it.
Seeking another solution, Japanese filmmakers turned to Animation as you were only limited to the artists? imagination as what you could do. As the realms of physics and nature were thrown out the windows, things that were impossible to have do to coasts, technology, or safety issues could be done freely, and Japan loved it.
However America would not get its first taste of anime till after World War 2 as many of the G.I.?s stationed there would watch the Japanese cartoons and feel right at home. They probably didn?t understand anything going on, but it probably reminded them of when they did this back in their hometowns before they left to fight the war.
Americans would soon get another taste of it in the sixties when many film studios grew tired of seeing the same cartoons over and over again. A decade earlier, the film industry was bought out by corporations who wanted to make a quick buck and play it safe. However as animation was no longer cheaper then live action film, it got shafted into children?s fair, and high quality material was never truly given to children?s fair. Animation quality was one of the things that got shafted, and with little exception, story as well. This is also why today people in the United States consider animation largely in the realm of children?s fair.
With Anime, especially the early stuff that got brought over like Star Blazers, Speed Racer, and Astro Boy, they provided something different. At the same time the average person didn?t know they were getting imports as frankly the characters in them didn?t look all too Japanese.
Then Star Wars came, bringing with it a science fiction craze that has not been really seen since then. This saw a whole slew of anime getting licensed in the 80?s, especially ones that were sci fie like Robotech, Voltron, and G-Force. We also saw others coming in out of the wood work, as Thunder Cats was largly outsorced to Japanese studios, Transformers was animated in Japan and origionaly based on a Japanese toy line Hasbro got a hold of, and we saw more kid oriented stuff like Samurai Pizza Cats and Super Book cross the Pacific.
Then the late 80?s happen, and anime would go into the college demographic niche market. We would still get stuff out like Dragon Ball, and Gargoyles and EXO Squad were heavily influenced by anime, but as a whole this didn?t change until the advent of the late 90?s.
And this is largely do to two things. 1. Toonami, which originally largely just broadcasted old action cartoons but slowly but surely involved more anime into its time slots. This included the Midnight run, which also aired the first violent anime to be uncut: Gundam Wing. While the cut version was still shown during the afternoon and early evening, but the fact it was shown unaltered would later warrant the creation of Adult Swim.
As for the other thing that brought anime back on the radar? Pokemon, and the fact that between the games and other merchandising it grossed over a billion dollars worldwide within its first year. Something like that does not go unnoticed in the business world.
Now a days, it?s not as big, but it is no way going back to a complete niche market.
Still, it has had as large a hatdom as it has a fandom throughout the years. Why is that? I wish to cover that in nine more posts with the following aspects of anime that may be new to the none anime crowed.
1. Animation Quality and the Lack thereof
2. Anime and Sensuality.
3. Anime and Violence
4. Other Clichés
5. Cosplay
6. AMV?s
I hope you enjoy, and please feel free to rip this a new one as you see fit.
