THE HISTORY OF ANIME
The history of anime can be traced back to the start of the 20th century, with the oldest surviving anime being Namakura Gatana (Blunt Sword).
The first generation of animators in the late 1910s included Ōten Shimokawa, Jun'ichi Kōuchi and Seitaro Kitayama, commonly referred to as the "fathers" of anime.Propaganda films, such as Momotarō no Umiwashi (1943) and Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei (1945), the latter being the first anime feature film, were made during World War II. During the 1970s, anime developed further, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing distinct genres such as mecha and its Super Robot subgenre. Typical shows from this period include Astro Boy, Lupin III and Mazinger Z. During this period several filmmakers became famous, especially Hayao Miyazaki and Mamoru Oshii.
In the 1980s, anime became mainstream in Japan, experiencing a boom in production with the rise in popularity of anime's like Gundam, Macross, Dragon Ball, and genres such as Real Robot, Space Opera and Cyberpunk. Space Battleship Yamato and The Super Dimension Fortress Macross also achieved worldwide success after being adapted respectively as Star Blazers and Robotech.
The film Akira set records in 1988 for the production costs of an anime film and went on to become an international success. Later, in 2004, the same creators produced Steamboy, which took over as the most expensive anime film. Spirited Away shared the first prize at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and won the 2003 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, while Innocence: Ghost in the Shell was featured at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.
Anime (Japanese: アニメ?, [anime] is Japanese hand-drawn or computer animation. The word is the abbreviated pronunciation of "animation" in Japanese, where this term references all animation. Outside Japan, anime is used to refer specifically to animation from Japan or as a Japanese-disseminated animation style often characterized by colorful graphics, vibrant characters and fantastical themes. Arguably, the stylization approach to the meaning may open up the possibility of anime produced in countries other than Japan.For simplicity, many Westerners strictly view anime as an animation product from Japan. Some scholars suggest defining anime as specifically or quintessentially Japanese may be related to a new form of orientalism.
The earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917, and production of anime works in Japan has since continued to increase steadily. 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. Anime is distributed theatrically, by television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the Internet. It is classified into numerous genres targeting diverse broad and niche audiences.
The First Anime
Astroboy's Claim to Fame
Astroboy (1963) is often thought to be the "first anime", but that's false. It does merit some firsts though: it was the first anime to be broadcast overseas, and also the first anime that was broadcast regularly that lasted a full TV slot's duration.
In 1963, Astroboy was released and had great impact on the industry. Osamu Tesuka (Director & Author of Astroboy) made large breakthroughs on how anime was produced and significantly reduced the financial investment required. This probably belongs better in another question, but for a taster some of his innovations included:
- Realising that Intros, Outros, "Previously On", "In the Next Episode" segments could be reused - cutting animation time per episode significantly.
- Reuse of backgrounds and celsheets, and reducing the amount of movement onscreen also reduced the time to animate each episode. (Fun fact - before Tesuka, animation studios would give fans who showed up to the studio cel sheets because the fans loved them and the studio had no use for them. They're now worth a lot of money)
Astroboy isn't the real "first anime"
The first known animation to come from Japan is Katsudo Shashin. Experts debate its age, but it's thought to have been created between 1907 - 1911. This short clip was likely shown in a private home to entertain guests, rather than be publicly available.Anime's growth then was primarily attached to live action. Actors would interact with fictional anime characters for a short segment of a show. The most screen-time anime would get would be during advertisements, or occasionally once-off films that were shown as a novelty. The main reason for this is that the production costs for anime were prohibitive if a company wanted any significant amount of time animated.
Many of the frames from Katsudo Shashin
This clip is out of copyright, you can watch it on the Wikipedia page
Japan wasn't devoid of animation, however. Disney was doing very well in the West and many of their movies were imported to Japan, and did consistently well in the box office. The Tale of the White Serpent was released in 1958 to try and rival the productions of Disney. Toei (the animation studio responsible) had difficultly making a significant profit off film however, and had to support their work with money made from advertisements.
The Tale of the White Serpent was heavily influenced by Disney works, although Toei tried to keep some of its own influence in the drawings
