Culture is constantly in dialogue with what came before. The very first anime took their inspiration from Disney; one of the biggest '80s mecha shows got its start from a GI Joe spinoff, while another took heavy inspiration from an adaptation of Starship Troopers. And what "anime" is doing in the '90s is very different from what "anime" is doing in the '10s - doubly so if you're going deeper than Miyazaki (who mostly made very Disney-like westernised things - not a bad thing by any means, but not at all representative of the wider landscape).
In the end talking about being "inspired by anime" is as facile as talking about being "inspired by movies" or "inspired by television".
Anime from the last twenty years seems less directly influenced by foreign tendencies. Of course, since Japan is impregnated of the American culture (including the language), its anime cannot ignore this context. But decades ago, the Japanese pioneers like Tezuka were following the steps of previous pioneers like Disney, but now, the anime has grown enough to claim a relative independence, meaning their internal tendencies are much stronger than foreign influences.
> Miyazaki (who mostly made very Disney-like westernised things
The level of "Disney-like thing" hugely varies across Miyazaki's films. Mononoke is obviously Disney/Hollywod compatible, but Totoro not so much.
Miyazaki and Takahata, who co-founded Ghibli, repeatedly stated that the work that most influenced them was "Le roi et l'oiseau" (Grimault & Prévert, 1953, 1980). This masterpiece is of course a "western thing", but very far from "Disney-like", especially toward the second half of the film. I heard that the Ghibli museum often had screenings of it.
I've seen plenty of other Ghibli films and thought I knew what to expect from Pom Poko, but it was quite a surprise experience. Definitely wild. I need to watch it again!
It’s a pro watch! There are actually two versions of The King and the Mockingbird. The other release is an “unfinished” copy called Mr. Wonderbird, and they have a lot of differences.
I actually prefer it to the “finished” version. It’s more minimalist and weird and somber.
The environment of the totalitarian state is contrasted more strongly in Mr. Wonderbird. You have the grandiose and highly modernist towers on the top, a practically deserted and people-free environment. Then you have the bleak cities underneath the surface with lots of quirky peasants. It’s a lot like a cartoon version of Metropolis.
The finished version adds a lot more cartoonish and baroque elements to the world and it kind of detracts from the feeling imo. They’re both good though.
Yeah the article completely omits the perspectives of the Japanese anime creators. I'm sure that many of them worship live-action American films to the same degree that the article's quoted directors do anime.
The lack of recognition of this fact and the conflation of 'everything' with animation probably speaks to most animation fans' general refusal to engage with other film traditions. Do Studio Ghibli fans care to know what Miyazaki's favorite films are? I guarentee almost none of them are anime or even animated
Hollywood live-action movies and animation have been mainstream entertainment in Japan for a very very very long time. It's almost so obvious and overt that it can be difficult to discuss. With movies like Terminator and Star Wars playing to packed theater audiences in Japan, it would be more of a story if a Japanese animator was somehow not influenced by such imported media!
It's quite a contrast to how anime infiltrated the minds of American artists. Anime (at least in original and uncut form) was far from mainstream. For decades it was traded peer-to-peer on VHS tapes and such. It was far from a given that any particular person knew about it. It was quite a niche interest even among geeks and artists.
(Not that I wouldn't love an article full of Japanese animators discussing the topic!)
Some US movies made it big in Japan; others didn't, or never went there for whatever reason. (Hell, I grew up in the UK and there are plenty of american cultural touchstones that sank without trace there, or bands that are known in one country for something that's an obscure deep cut in another). And those movies that did make it into pop culture in Japan were generally dubbed and may even have been cut. So I think it's pretty much the same situation; after all, Robotech was on TV in the US since what, the '70s? And conversely there were certainly plenty of nerdy collectors passing around pieces of obscure cinema (whether US, French, Soviet...) on tape in Japan.
I think what I'm trying to say is that anime is just one of dozens of influences that go into any given project. A director (animation or large-scale live-action) will use dozens of films and film scenes for references in planning scenes or art direction. None of the 90s directors' films in the article have that much to do with anime besides The Matrix. Deeming anime 'the root' of all current film or animation is going way too far. Especially when you can scratch the surface of any famous anime and find Hollywood again (as well as dozens of other influences of course).
I agree with everything you just wrote about influences. =)
But, I think we read the article a lot differently. I didn't feel the author meant to claim that anime was the only influence, or even the biggest influence, on western animation. Certainly, I'd agree with you that such a claim would be junk.
From the article:
Pixar, and by extension Hollywood 3D animation, is
attached to anime at the root.
This is probably the strongest claim and also... kind of the weirdest and most ambiguous.
If they said "anime is the root of blahblahblah", that's a pretty unambiguous (and blatantly wrong IMHO) claim.
But what does, "western animation is attached to anime at the root" even mean? Are we saying that one grew from the other? Are there also lots of other things attached to these roots? It's sloppy writing.
However, taken in context, I think the author has a reasoned and informed view. The influence of anime is darn near universal, although I think that's definitely not to say that it is the biggest or only influence.
The author doesn't address all of the things that influence anime, such as western animation. Which is fine. That's a big topic in and of itself. Would have added another zillion words. I think they made the correct choice.
None of the 90s directors' films in the article
have that much to do with anime besides The Matrix
I always felt The Matrix borrowed more from John Woo-type HK live action movies than anything else. Second on the list for me would be video games or maybe Neuromancer-style classic hard cyberpunk. Or PK Dick. Or... probably a few more other things before anime.
> I always felt The Matrix borrowed more from John Woo-type HK live action movies than anything else. Second on the list for me would be video games or maybe Neuromancer-style classic hard cyberpunk. Or PK Dick. Or... probably a few more other things before anime.
I'm sceptical about a lot of the article, but the directors were very explicit about taking inspiration from anime. Ghost in the Shell in particular is a clear direct influence on both the general look and the famous lobby gunfight conclusion.
> It was far from a given that any particular person knew about it
Indeed. In the 70s, Star Blazers and Speed Racer were broadcast in my area (USA). No one called it anime. But we knew it was different because of the style, and I really didn’t like it at the time. The eyes, the expressions, the language… I wish I had gotten past that for the stories, but I didn’t.
In my location in the US in the 70's we had poor TV reception for the station that carried Star Blazers and Speed Racer. (Some combination of our antenna quality and our location.)
It wasn't until cable TV reached my area in the early 1980's that I finally got a taste of anime, in the form of Robotech. Catching every single episode was a priority, because if you miss one, it could be years until you had another chance to see it. (I wasn't rich enough to buy VHS tapes for the series, even if I could find them.)
watching every single episode was a priority, because if you miss one, it could be years until you had another chance to see it.
Oh my god, yeah. The S1 and S2 finales of Star Blazers were huge annual events for me for a few years as a small kid.
Robotech was even tougher because there were so many episodes, since it was three totally different series stitched together hahaha. You miss one, you're waiting a looooong time.
Speed Racer was absolutely bizarre to me as a kid. It still is, really. The art style, the voices. It feels like some kind of postmodern absurdist art. I like it in a way but, man, wow.
Star Blazers always just felt normal to me. The designs and dialog were more grounded in reality. I realize "reality" is a relative term here, since we're talking about a space opera starring a WWII battleship (lol) but it definitely aspired to some sort of a "hard sci fi" aesthetic. Like a Robert Heinlein novel or something.
If you look at isolated cels or something they're pretty close, and of course they share aesthetics like "big anime eyes". But man, they hit me completely differently.
The English dub voice acting for the first two seasons of Star Blazers was actually pretty admirable in places. They hired non-union, off-Broadway actors as opposed to hiring the typical kids' cartoon actors such as the Speed Racer dub gang. Both as a money-saving move and because they wanted people that would try and take the roles seriously.
The first few eps are tough but once the actors settle into their roles, there are some really credible moments. The overall result is highly uneven but I think it was revolutionary in its own way.
Hilariously, for the third season of Star Blazers, the original cast had scattered to the wind so they hired the Speed Racer cast lol. The results are a farce.
Japan has been in a dialogue with Europe for a long time regarding anime and manga. Anime has been huge in Western Europe since probably at least the 70s. France and Italy commissioned some in the 70s to cut on animation costs and it worked so well that it spiralled into a ton of imports. France is still the second largest market for manga in the world in front of the USA despite having a sixth of its population. Strangely I think France and Japan are culturally a lot more permeable than the USA and Japan are.
> Do Studio Ghibli fans care to know what Miyazaki's favorite films are? I guarentee almost none of them are anime or even animated
Miyazaki got part of the King and the Mockingbird by Grimault actually printed to study them when he was a student. It’s notable because the movie was written by a famous French poet and screenwriter from the poetic realist movement and you can some the influences that had on Miyazaki career are fairly obvious.
Basically every cyberpunk anime from the 80s through today is at least a stylistic nod to Blade Runner. Sometimes the references are more explicit, like Bubblegum Crisis featuring a band called Pris and the Replicants.
The interesting thing about Blade Runner and almost all modern sci-fi and cyberpunk is that they all took their influence from one single comic, The Long Tomorrow, by Dan O'Bannon and Jean Giraud (aka Moebius).
Dan and Moebius were working on Jodorowsky's Dune. During a slow period, Dan was bored and started drawing a comic. Moebius saw this and offered to rework it a bit. Their collab appeared in Heavy Metal (Metal hurlant) magazine. Ridley Scott used this comic as visual inspiration for Blade Runner. William Gibson even credits this comic for Neuromancer. Other movies influenced by this comic, or the art of Moebius include Tron, Heavy Metal (based on the magazine comics), The Fifth Element, and The Abyss. And, of course, pretty much everything else that came later such as The Matrix or video games like Deus Ex.
It's crazy to think about all the what-ifs with Jodorowsky's Dune. If he did not bring Dan and Moebius together, we wouldn't have Blade Runner (or a vastly different one). If Dune didn't fall apart, Dan wouldn't have gone and written Alien. If Alien didn't happen, Ridley Scott may not have known about Dan O'Bannon or Moebius, and never have done Blade Runner.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was also influenced by Moebius, according to Miyazaki. Look at Azrach (again, Metal hurlant magazine) and the similarities are obvious. The French were really ahead in illustration and animation at one point, and don't often get the credit they deserve. Go and look at what René Laloux was doing with Fantastic Planet, Time Masters, or his short films. Some of this stuff still blows my mind.
If everything is Anime, isn't the term meaningless ?
Also I think this article misrepresents anime's increasing super popularity.
The most popular anime (and even light novels) lately are wish fulfillment fantasies. People who are losers in our world, end up in another world where they are special and valued. They find friendship, adventure, and love.
My theory is people are unhappy with the increasing competition in their lives.
We compete with more people than ever in the globalized economy for jobs.We compete with other people for relationships on Tinder/OkCupid/etc. Not everyone can be a winner.
I also think this explains why so many people are snapping when their last refuge of fiction(video games, movies,tv) get altered not to their preference.
Yup, we also have to keep in mind that Japan's culture is reflected in their media, so their competitive school and work culture work leads to anime and manga that give people an escape from reality and makes them feel good.
And that's why anime is so popular, everyone experiences the same types of stressors an average Japanese person would have (although maybe not to the same degree).
While I don't disagree with the idea that anime has been very popular and influential in recent years, this author makes the argument that it is a completely one sided arrangement, that anime is the complete soul of the vast majority of creative works today, not a global exchanging of ideas. Yes, many pre-eminent filmmakers love anime and have for decades, but animation and cinema did not begin with Studio Ghibli. Modern anime was inspired by early manga like Astro Boy which was inspired by animated Disney and Warner Bros which was inspired by newspaper cartoons and so on and so forth. I've seen this argument in my friends who are big fans of anime, and it can be very exciting to see an art form you're so fond of get widespread recognition, but it seems meaningless and a bit dishonest to frame it as the end all and be all in a global world.
It's only a short article, it's not trying to be a definitive history of animation. And it still references that the influence went both ways with Zaslove's comment that he felt Miyazaki was watching their stuff.
I wouldn’t say I’m really into anime though I’ve probably watched a lot more than the typical American. I find it really difficult to find new content that is interesting and not filled with awkward pedophillic undertones, jokes about boob size, or the typical annoyances.
Much to my surprise, Netflix is turning out to be a pretty great curator and creator for anime.
The content range is very wide, and some of the most popular anime's/mangas are geared towards pre-teens.
But there's plenty of art that has no match in any other field. A list of my favorites if you want to test them out, that don't include "fan-service" (most of what you mention).
Wolf's Rain
Fullmetal Alchemist
Evangelion (includes some pandering, but the content is way
too original to care)
Berserk (recommend manga over anime)
Vagabond (manga)
Death Note
Attack on Titan
Utena (old, but a very strong story about grooming and abuse)
And these are the popular ones. If you start going deeper and branching out you can find jewels, specially in manga.
If by any chance you have not watched "Arcane" I very much recommend it.
Haven't seen much anime apart from the classics (cowboy bebop and the like) and never played League of Legends myself, but found Arcane's whole story, cinematography and action just riveting.
I think it's fair to say it's not anime, but if you were to recommend the show to someone and give a brief description or comparison, I think it definitely shares more stylistic elements with anime than it does with other cartoon media.
Arcane's visuals are indeed stunning, but I strongly disagree about story, mainly because the characters have zero depth.
Vi and Jinx are defined by childhood trauma and little else. Jayce is a charming inventor. Viktor is trying to cure himself. Caitlyn is rich. Etc.
Their origin as video game cardboard cutouts is plain to see. The more interesting ones are originals created for the show (Silco, the cops, a couple others), but they're quickly killed off.
Worst is that all the dramatic moments in the story are triggered by miscommunication between these shallow characters. It's lazy.
Not an anime fan, but some of my brothers are, and years ago the times they were watching it was the time I was supposed to be sleeping (opposite schedules are great) and it just ruined it for me...
Half of the shit they watched seems like it was written by some timid teenage boy with a romance fantasy. If that's what you like, it's not really my concern, but I found them too cringey and repetitive in a way that could challenge Hollywood. There were some ok ones, I didn't mind a lot of mainstream stuff or things that had a particularly interesting or unique premise, but for most the plots were just too easily predictable (an issue that some shows seems to have in general regardless of genre).
> I find it really difficult to find new content that is interesting and not filled with awkward pedophillic undertones, jokes about boob size, or the typical annoyances.
I agree. But luckily last quarter's "Spy x Family" was the exception, I recommend it (nice animation, light and funny, story ok).
>..difficult to find new content that is interesting and not filled with awkward pedophillic undertones, jokes about boob size, or the typical annoyances.
Try these Steins' Gate, One Outs, Dr. Stone, Made in Abyss, one punch man, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Goblin Slayer, Hajime No Ippo, Parasyte
Well most anime is for teen boys.
Japanese adults don't really watch anime, and if you do you are considered weird.
Now some animes are more akin to peanuts or Garfield which is more socially acceptable.
For adults,most people work alot of hours and many businesses have forced socialization. So when you do get some free time, you might watch an episode of something but not in way Americans obsess over it . There's so much anime,manga being produced, and alot of it never makes it to the West.
The irony is that Disney is the great copycat. First they copied classic stories like Snowwhite and Cinderella, now they do the same with anime style storytelling. And all this while reaping enormous benefits from copyright law.
> Is anime a new status quo that will, one day, be upturned by films equivalent to My Neighbor Totoro and Akira — but in a style we can’t imagine yet?
Not that it radically created a new style, but I think the sheer excellence of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse goes to show that the current superhero renaissance/overload misses out on the core strength of the source material- the power of animation. Perhaps when more of those comic book movies actually resemble comic book art can there be a challenger from American animation traditions against the anime status quo.
I'd say anime's influence is because how experimental, cheaper to produce and accessible it is.
Movies are ungodly expensive to make, so only sure-fire hits are green lit. Books have always been more niche so inspiration from them remains niche.
Also the lamentation that China is losing animation to Pakistan is amusing. By all rights that shouldn't be possible, the market is huge. I theorised it's because Chinese gov interference, https://langsoul.com/blog/the-potential-collapse-of-chinese-...
> Satoshi Kon, the director of Perfect Blue and Paprika
(Perhaps these examples were saved for the subscribers-only section) Quite notable is the influence of those two films on later Western films--elements shots in Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream match those in Perfect Blue; the same for Inception and Paprika.
> He was blown away, as well. Obviously it influenced us when it came time to create TaleSpin.
Kinda interesting given how many similarities there are in the setting of talespin and Porco Rosso. But talespin predates porco rosso by 2 years.
When I first watched porco rosso I thought “man talespin really copied this one!” And only later learned of the time line. Now I can’t help imagining Miyazaki watching talespin and get inspired - although realistically they probably both draw from the same, third source of inspiration.
Also transformers and Gundam. There has got to be a connection there.
Miyazaki's family owned an airplane parts manufacturing company during WWII. In the 80s he contributed manga and illustrations of airplanes and tanks to a hobby magazine Model Graphix. One of these short manga, published 1989, he adapted into Porco Rosso. I don't know if the creators of Talespin would have had access to it but it is possible
TaleSpin was inspired by old adventure movies. The whole tiki-bar culture, scruffy cargo pilot thing was a vibe back then.
Transformers has a much weirder cycle. They were a collection of different transforming toy lines from Japan that U.S. companies wanted to sell to children here. They divvied them up based on criteria: road vehicles largely became good guys, weapons and planes largely became bad guys. They wrote some comics around a concept of a giant war, made some animated films as a sort of pilot, and went to town.
Jetfire (IIRC) is actually a Macross figure.
Gundam is Gundam. I think that's just a Japanese series that is also popular in the U.S.
To me some of the main characters from transformers really looks like gundam. That’s what I meant with “there must be a connection”, as I thought transformers was an American invention and assumed heavy inspiration from gundam.
As much as any mecha is inspired by any other mecha.
Go Lion, Albegas, Dairugger, Super Sentai, Macross, Gundam, they're all the same and they're all different. I think it all comes down to "Giant robots are fucking cool"
Transformers were Japanese toys ported to America. I don't think there's a direct connection other than Japan's fascination with mecha, which predates both Gundam and Transformers.
While it's true the Transformers toys were made in Japan the old Transformers cartoon which ran in the U. S. was American made and an American company owns the western rights to the toys.
In Japan, everything is anime, literally. Even the public sector's PSA-like subway posters and TV ads are using Anime characters, and it occasionally creates some conflicts.
Anime tends to have gender bias, which is kind of fine , but sometimes it is not the best tool to convey the public service messages. But people didn't notice until feminists get really mad. This is the result of the ultimate penetration and of the anime culture, and fascinating to observe. It's a skewed twin of Japanese culture after all.
Do you think women haven't noticed because they've been quiet about it until more recently? Japan is infamously challenged with sexism and oppressive to women, and women have struggled to have a voice on these topics
More than a "gender bias", the issue has been hyper sexualization in public/professional spaces
You mean women haven't been noticed? Anyways, I think you're right about hyper sexualization. I wrote "gender bias" to keep the post from being too political. Gender in Japan is like Race in the US. It's hard to keep it nuanced.
If this piece was to highlight anime to show us that it's not underground, they're about 30 years too late. Almost all entertainment was borrowed from other pieces of art. Anime isn't immune from it. The detailed styling of anime can be accredited from manga. Manga flourished under Osamu Tezuka, the god father of manga, especially with Astro Boy - which was influenced by Disney.
> Or is there no “next thing” this time, like when sound came to film?
I have an answer: "not for the time being" - and it's not even about the style itself.
The reason is in the market that creates it: when it comes to anime series at least, they rarely start as such and they're not designed to make money by themselves. Usually the source material comes from printed media - be it a manga or a so-called light novel. Prospective stories are selected and then turned into a single 12-episode season (made at a loss). In the meantime a line of plastic figurines is released becoming the main source of revenue over time along with DVD releases and such because they fetch the highest margins. If the show is successful, more seasons are produced.
Sometimes the source material is a video game. With the rise of mobile gaming some of the more successful titles include a mobile gacha game.
Overall it's a massive factory of content with multiple selection steps along the way - much like a startup scene. Hard to beat such a process.
I don't know, seems to be a cultural US thing. I live in the EU and I have a hard time finding anything even resembling anime on the TV and any public media.
> I live in the EU and I have a hard time finding anything even resembling anime on the TV and any public media.
What does "I live in the EU" mean specifically? I grew up in Italy and I can 100% guarantee you that most Italians (and from what I heard Spaniards and French too) are very familiar with anime. Anime is *huge* in Italy (at least it was 30 years ago). I grew up with Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Evangelion, GTO, and a lot of other older "Italian-ified" anime that I don't even know the proper name of (because they got translated into Italian). Italy is home to the world's second largest anime/comic convention after Comiket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucca_Comics_%26_Games). I live in Japan now, and I don't know what kids these days watch on TV in Italy (if they even watch TV) but every single one of my peers is familiar with anime as a medium and has watched several dozens of series growing up (and some of us still watch them today). All of this from public TV and public media.
It was but I’m not sure it still is. I’ve not been following the scene in a very long while, but anecdotally I’ve not heard any of the nieces and nephews mention anything which sounded like anime, it’s all 3D/CGI american animation, with the odd Chinese stuff: paw patrol, blue’s clues, bubble guppies, deer squad, blaze and the monster machines, ...
My feeling is that anime / manga is more popular than ever. Kids in my 8 yo nieces and 10 yo nephews class are crazy about Pokemon, Naruto (both seem to be still around...), Haikyuu and My Hero Academia. They are even wearing Haikyuu shirts for PE class. They also have all Yotsuba books and loved reading it. (I read the first two books with them together and it indeed is really fun!)
It would be interesting to have some data on that, but seeing all this anime content on social media and explosion of anime convetions i'd be surprised if there was no huge rise in popularity for both anime / manga.
I think anime is more popular in the teen demographics, as it is seen as the "cooler"/"edgier" stuff compared to US animation.
I am not familiar with the most recent stuff, but for instance
Naruto and One Piece are both huge in Italy, as were Death Note or GTO when they came out. Plus, there are cult shows that are still loved by a lot of people, such as Lupin III and Dragon Ball which are still frequently aired on national TV.
> How do Italy people get animes? Through some online subscription service (like US's crunchyroll) or cable?
When I was a kid they were just broadcast on normal national TV. In the morning we'd have some kid friendly shows (like pingu, power rangers, etc) then we'd go to school and come back around lunch time and we'd get to watch Sailor Moon, Dragonball, One Piece, etc (depending on your generation, in order those were the big 3 "main" ones from 80s, 90s, and 00s kids). Every day we'd get new episodes (unlike in Japan where each series is weekly), so it became a part of a shared cultural phenomenon. We had lots of toys and we'd play with our friends and every day we'd discuss the previous day's episodes. For the more "grown up" kids (teenagers and up) you'd get more mature shows like Hokuto no Ken, Evangelion, etc on a different channel, not cable (it later became MTV channel) and those were usually weekly rather than daily. At least I remember watching GTO, Evangelion, Trigun, etc every Tuesday evening from 9pm to midnight.
I only realized they were "Japanese anime" by the time I was a young teenager watching Evangelion because that's when I started having access to the internet and my friends and I would look up lore and hypothetical storylines of the show and we'd stumble upon English and sometimes Japanese websites. Until then everything was properly dubbed in Italian, names of characters and shows translated/adapted to Italian, the songs (OP and ED) were sung in Italian as brand new original songs, etc so most people don't even realize they are "Japanese anime". We wouldn't make a difference between Sailor Moon or Tom and Jerry as far as country of origin went.
These days though I imagine most people watch them online using viz or netflix or similar sites, but I don't live in Italy anymore and most of my friends just pirate stuff so I don't know.
I really don't know the current trends, but anime have always been a staple of free-to-air television. It all started with regional channels in the early 80s; national channels (most famously, Italia 1) followed suit a few years later. Italia 1 still does feature several "oldies" shows daily, and recently aired Dragon Ball Super (as I said, Dragon Ball is wildly popular).
I don't think we have an anime-only service à la crunchyroll yet, but
most streaming services feature anime as part of their offer. A controversial new dub of NGE by Netflix Italy even raised a minor commotion among fans.
When I was a kid in the 90s and 00s our TV program was always full of "cartoni animati" (telemontecarlo, which later became MTV I think, and also on Italia uno). I don't think there exists *any* Italian that grew up in the 80s/90s that doesn't know shows like Sailor Moon, Power Rangers (not anime, but still), Sanpei, Ken il Guerriero (with one of the best non-Japanese openings *ever* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Crm94eMuPE), Holly e Benji (Capt Tsubasa), Lady Oscar, Mila e Shiro, Dragon Ball, Ranma 1/2, Nadia e il mistero della pietra azzurra, Mazinga, E' quasi magia Johnny (Orange Road), Lupin, etc. These were all parts of the communal zeitgeist when I was in elementary school in the 90s, and my sister who's a bit older than me (about your age I imagine) also had the exact same experience (we often watched them together).
At least in the U.S., I get the sense that people increasingly rely on streaming services rather than broadcast/cable TV. So for many of us, what really matters (I think) is that we're able to access Crunchyroll and (for now) Funimation.
My point is simply that I suspect fewer and fewer people (at least in the U.S.) are limited by what's available via public broadcast.
That is why I specified "any public media".
I know maybe 1 or 2 people who once told me they watch anime, and that's it. Never ever hear about it in any conversation.
Austrian, born in 97, here. RTL 2 used to have some anime in the oughts/early tens. But yeah, nowadays, almost nothing on tv. Pretty sure the high amount of people who just pirate it is a factor.
I "grew up" on Digimon, One piece, shaman king and the like.
Is TV still relevant in 2022 to determine a country's cultural baseline? I don't mean to say television is irrelevant, I'm saying the Internet is these days the biggest contender for people's attention.
My impression is also very different. Preteens losing their mind over korean bands like BTS and big on japanese anime, due to the internet. The same all over the world.
TV? Like Cable TV is your metric? Come on its the wrong century for this.
People aren’t going to lead with their counter culture obsession but there are other ways look.
Where in the EU do you live that you don't get Cartoon Network? Also when I was a kid the most popular cartoon that was not on cartoon network was a locally produced Japanese anime called Alfred Kwak. I imagine kids these days have access to many more anime and anime inspired cartoons.
Finland got Cartoon Network at 2017, and I'm not sure if anyone paid for cable TV at that point. Back in the day there were lots of European-produced shows that had production outsourced to Japan, but the content was still very European. The anime boom really took off here only at 2000s.
At least a while back the people in Anime weren't watching it on TV, but pirated shows and currently probably Crunchy Roll. Not that there wasn't some shows shown like Dragonball, but not too many. Not sure what is the current state, I haven't watched TV in years.
> As the magazine Keyframe pointed out a few years ago, the influence of anime predates the current moment. It touched Steven Universe, How to Train Your Dragon and Teen Titans — but predated them, too.
I guess that this is written for a young audience. Getting close to 50 and having grown with Mazinger Z the examples seem childishly recent. If you look back before I was born you will also find the West being inspired by Japan and the other way around.
> "The Great Wave is one of the most reproduced and instantly recognizable artworks in the world. It has influenced several notable artists and musicians, including Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Debussy, Claude Monet, Hiroshige and more." The Great Wave off Kanagawa. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sturgeon's law applies of course, and not everyone can be Miyazaki, but I think Attack on Titan is a masterpiece of the 21st century and will definitely be inspiring western directors.
recently read the idea that a lot of anime contains sequences that are specifically crafted to be enhanced for viewers that are under the influence of nitrous oxide. something about its legality in Japan where other substances are strictly forbidden
and taboo. I haven't tested out the theory but it sounds plausable
it was a post on the shroomery titled the perfect guide to whippets. not sure how or why I got there, and it's not the most reputable source as far as science goes, but then again, maybe it is...
Culture is constantly in dialogue with what came before. The very first anime took their inspiration from Disney; one of the biggest '80s mecha shows got its start from a GI Joe spinoff, while another took heavy inspiration from an adaptation of Starship Troopers. And what "anime" is doing in the '90s is very different from what "anime" is doing in the '10s - doubly so if you're going deeper than Miyazaki (who mostly made very Disney-like westernised things - not a bad thing by any means, but not at all representative of the wider landscape).
In the end talking about being "inspired by anime" is as facile as talking about being "inspired by movies" or "inspired by television".
I globally agree, with two nitpicks.
Anime from the last twenty years seems less directly influenced by foreign tendencies. Of course, since Japan is impregnated of the American culture (including the language), its anime cannot ignore this context. But decades ago, the Japanese pioneers like Tezuka were following the steps of previous pioneers like Disney, but now, the anime has grown enough to claim a relative independence, meaning their internal tendencies are much stronger than foreign influences.
> Miyazaki (who mostly made very Disney-like westernised things
The level of "Disney-like thing" hugely varies across Miyazaki's films. Mononoke is obviously Disney/Hollywod compatible, but Totoro not so much.
Miyazaki and Takahata, who co-founded Ghibli, repeatedly stated that the work that most influenced them was "Le roi et l'oiseau" (Grimault & Prévert, 1953, 1980). This masterpiece is of course a "western thing", but very far from "Disney-like", especially toward the second half of the film. I heard that the Ghibli museum often had screenings of it.
> Mononoke is obviously Disney/Hollywod compatible, but Totoro not so much.
My preferred example would be Pom Poko and clubbing police officers with hypertrophied testicles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFPaSIy--50
I've seen plenty of other Ghibli films and thought I knew what to expect from Pom Poko, but it was quite a surprise experience. Definitely wild. I need to watch it again!
> The level of "Disney-like thing" hugely varies across Miyazaki's films. Mononoke is obviously Disney/Hollywod compatible, but Totoro not so much.
I'd say Totoro is still a lot more Disney-like than the average anime (if that's even a meaningful concept).
It’s a pro watch! There are actually two versions of The King and the Mockingbird. The other release is an “unfinished” copy called Mr. Wonderbird, and they have a lot of differences.
I actually prefer it to the “finished” version. It’s more minimalist and weird and somber.
The environment of the totalitarian state is contrasted more strongly in Mr. Wonderbird. You have the grandiose and highly modernist towers on the top, a practically deserted and people-free environment. Then you have the bleak cities underneath the surface with lots of quirky peasants. It’s a lot like a cartoon version of Metropolis.
The finished version adds a lot more cartoonish and baroque elements to the world and it kind of detracts from the feeling imo. They’re both good though.
Yeah the article completely omits the perspectives of the Japanese anime creators. I'm sure that many of them worship live-action American films to the same degree that the article's quoted directors do anime.
The lack of recognition of this fact and the conflation of 'everything' with animation probably speaks to most animation fans' general refusal to engage with other film traditions. Do Studio Ghibli fans care to know what Miyazaki's favorite films are? I guarentee almost none of them are anime or even animated
It's a bit of a different story, right?
Hollywood live-action movies and animation have been mainstream entertainment in Japan for a very very very long time. It's almost so obvious and overt that it can be difficult to discuss. With movies like Terminator and Star Wars playing to packed theater audiences in Japan, it would be more of a story if a Japanese animator was somehow not influenced by such imported media!
It's quite a contrast to how anime infiltrated the minds of American artists. Anime (at least in original and uncut form) was far from mainstream. For decades it was traded peer-to-peer on VHS tapes and such. It was far from a given that any particular person knew about it. It was quite a niche interest even among geeks and artists.
(Not that I wouldn't love an article full of Japanese animators discussing the topic!)
Some US movies made it big in Japan; others didn't, or never went there for whatever reason. (Hell, I grew up in the UK and there are plenty of american cultural touchstones that sank without trace there, or bands that are known in one country for something that's an obscure deep cut in another). And those movies that did make it into pop culture in Japan were generally dubbed and may even have been cut. So I think it's pretty much the same situation; after all, Robotech was on TV in the US since what, the '70s? And conversely there were certainly plenty of nerdy collectors passing around pieces of obscure cinema (whether US, French, Soviet...) on tape in Japan.
I think what I'm trying to say is that anime is just one of dozens of influences that go into any given project. A director (animation or large-scale live-action) will use dozens of films and film scenes for references in planning scenes or art direction. None of the 90s directors' films in the article have that much to do with anime besides The Matrix. Deeming anime 'the root' of all current film or animation is going way too far. Especially when you can scratch the surface of any famous anime and find Hollywood again (as well as dozens of other influences of course).
I agree with everything you just wrote about influences. =)
But, I think we read the article a lot differently. I didn't feel the author meant to claim that anime was the only influence, or even the biggest influence, on western animation. Certainly, I'd agree with you that such a claim would be junk.
From the article:
This is probably the strongest claim and also... kind of the weirdest and most ambiguous.If they said "anime is the root of blahblahblah", that's a pretty unambiguous (and blatantly wrong IMHO) claim.
But what does, "western animation is attached to anime at the root" even mean? Are we saying that one grew from the other? Are there also lots of other things attached to these roots? It's sloppy writing.
However, taken in context, I think the author has a reasoned and informed view. The influence of anime is darn near universal, although I think that's definitely not to say that it is the biggest or only influence.
The author doesn't address all of the things that influence anime, such as western animation. Which is fine. That's a big topic in and of itself. Would have added another zillion words. I think they made the correct choice.
I always felt The Matrix borrowed more from John Woo-type HK live action movies than anything else. Second on the list for me would be video games or maybe Neuromancer-style classic hard cyberpunk. Or PK Dick. Or... probably a few more other things before anime.> I always felt The Matrix borrowed more from John Woo-type HK live action movies than anything else. Second on the list for me would be video games or maybe Neuromancer-style classic hard cyberpunk. Or PK Dick. Or... probably a few more other things before anime.
I'm sceptical about a lot of the article, but the directors were very explicit about taking inspiration from anime. Ghost in the Shell in particular is a clear direct influence on both the general look and the famous lobby gunfight conclusion.
> It was far from a given that any particular person knew about it
Indeed. In the 70s, Star Blazers and Speed Racer were broadcast in my area (USA). No one called it anime. But we knew it was different because of the style, and I really didn’t like it at the time. The eyes, the expressions, the language… I wish I had gotten past that for the stories, but I didn’t.
In my location in the US in the 70's we had poor TV reception for the station that carried Star Blazers and Speed Racer. (Some combination of our antenna quality and our location.)
It wasn't until cable TV reached my area in the early 1980's that I finally got a taste of anime, in the form of Robotech. Catching every single episode was a priority, because if you miss one, it could be years until you had another chance to see it. (I wasn't rich enough to buy VHS tapes for the series, even if I could find them.)
Robotech was even tougher because there were so many episodes, since it was three totally different series stitched together hahaha. You miss one, you're waiting a looooong time.
It's funny.
Speed Racer was absolutely bizarre to me as a kid. It still is, really. The art style, the voices. It feels like some kind of postmodern absurdist art. I like it in a way but, man, wow.
Star Blazers always just felt normal to me. The designs and dialog were more grounded in reality. I realize "reality" is a relative term here, since we're talking about a space opera starring a WWII battleship (lol) but it definitely aspired to some sort of a "hard sci fi" aesthetic. Like a Robert Heinlein novel or something.
If you look at isolated cels or something they're pretty close, and of course they share aesthetics like "big anime eyes". But man, they hit me completely differently.
The English dub voice acting for the first two seasons of Star Blazers was actually pretty admirable in places. They hired non-union, off-Broadway actors as opposed to hiring the typical kids' cartoon actors such as the Speed Racer dub gang. Both as a money-saving move and because they wanted people that would try and take the roles seriously.
The first few eps are tough but once the actors settle into their roles, there are some really credible moments. The overall result is highly uneven but I think it was revolutionary in its own way.
Hilariously, for the third season of Star Blazers, the original cast had scattered to the wind so they hired the Speed Racer cast lol. The results are a farce.
At least in the case of Star Wars, the inverse happened, too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/olliebarder/2015/12/21/understa...
Japan has been in a dialogue with Europe for a long time regarding anime and manga. Anime has been huge in Western Europe since probably at least the 70s. France and Italy commissioned some in the 70s to cut on animation costs and it worked so well that it spiralled into a ton of imports. France is still the second largest market for manga in the world in front of the USA despite having a sixth of its population. Strangely I think France and Japan are culturally a lot more permeable than the USA and Japan are.
> Do Studio Ghibli fans care to know what Miyazaki's favorite films are? I guarentee almost none of them are anime or even animated
Miyazaki got part of the King and the Mockingbird by Grimault actually printed to study them when he was a student. It’s notable because the movie was written by a famous French poet and screenwriter from the poetic realist movement and you can some the influences that had on Miyazaki career are fairly obvious.
Basically every cyberpunk anime from the 80s through today is at least a stylistic nod to Blade Runner. Sometimes the references are more explicit, like Bubblegum Crisis featuring a band called Pris and the Replicants.
The interesting thing about Blade Runner and almost all modern sci-fi and cyberpunk is that they all took their influence from one single comic, The Long Tomorrow, by Dan O'Bannon and Jean Giraud (aka Moebius).
Dan and Moebius were working on Jodorowsky's Dune. During a slow period, Dan was bored and started drawing a comic. Moebius saw this and offered to rework it a bit. Their collab appeared in Heavy Metal (Metal hurlant) magazine. Ridley Scott used this comic as visual inspiration for Blade Runner. William Gibson even credits this comic for Neuromancer. Other movies influenced by this comic, or the art of Moebius include Tron, Heavy Metal (based on the magazine comics), The Fifth Element, and The Abyss. And, of course, pretty much everything else that came later such as The Matrix or video games like Deus Ex.
It's crazy to think about all the what-ifs with Jodorowsky's Dune. If he did not bring Dan and Moebius together, we wouldn't have Blade Runner (or a vastly different one). If Dune didn't fall apart, Dan wouldn't have gone and written Alien. If Alien didn't happen, Ridley Scott may not have known about Dan O'Bannon or Moebius, and never have done Blade Runner.
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind was also influenced by Moebius, according to Miyazaki. Look at Azrach (again, Metal hurlant magazine) and the similarities are obvious. The French were really ahead in illustration and animation at one point, and don't often get the credit they deserve. Go and look at what René Laloux was doing with Fantastic Planet, Time Masters, or his short films. Some of this stuff still blows my mind.
>The very first anime took their inspiration from Disney
That's not true, are you referring to: Momotaro: Umi no Shinpei?
If everything is Anime, isn't the term meaningless ?
Also I think this article misrepresents anime's increasing super popularity.
The most popular anime (and even light novels) lately are wish fulfillment fantasies. People who are losers in our world, end up in another world where they are special and valued. They find friendship, adventure, and love.
Russia even banned Isekai animes a while back to prevent kids from committing suicide. https://comicbook.com/anime/news/russia-anime-ban-isekai-rei...
https://boundingintocomics.com/2021/05/04/russia-bans-severa...
My theory is people are unhappy with the increasing competition in their lives. We compete with more people than ever in the globalized economy for jobs.We compete with other people for relationships on Tinder/OkCupid/etc. Not everyone can be a winner.
I also think this explains why so many people are snapping when their last refuge of fiction(video games, movies,tv) get altered not to their preference.
Yup, we also have to keep in mind that Japan's culture is reflected in their media, so their competitive school and work culture work leads to anime and manga that give people an escape from reality and makes them feel good.
And that's why anime is so popular, everyone experiences the same types of stressors an average Japanese person would have (although maybe not to the same degree).
While I don't disagree with the idea that anime has been very popular and influential in recent years, this author makes the argument that it is a completely one sided arrangement, that anime is the complete soul of the vast majority of creative works today, not a global exchanging of ideas. Yes, many pre-eminent filmmakers love anime and have for decades, but animation and cinema did not begin with Studio Ghibli. Modern anime was inspired by early manga like Astro Boy which was inspired by animated Disney and Warner Bros which was inspired by newspaper cartoons and so on and so forth. I've seen this argument in my friends who are big fans of anime, and it can be very exciting to see an art form you're so fond of get widespread recognition, but it seems meaningless and a bit dishonest to frame it as the end all and be all in a global world.
It's only a short article, it's not trying to be a definitive history of animation. And it still references that the influence went both ways with Zaslove's comment that he felt Miyazaki was watching their stuff.
> Astro Boy which was inspired by animated Disney and Warner Bros
More the Fleischer Bros than the brothers Warner, but your point still stands.
I wouldn’t say I’m really into anime though I’ve probably watched a lot more than the typical American. I find it really difficult to find new content that is interesting and not filled with awkward pedophillic undertones, jokes about boob size, or the typical annoyances.
Much to my surprise, Netflix is turning out to be a pretty great curator and creator for anime.
The content range is very wide, and some of the most popular anime's/mangas are geared towards pre-teens.
But there's plenty of art that has no match in any other field. A list of my favorites if you want to test them out, that don't include "fan-service" (most of what you mention).
Wolf's Rain
Fullmetal Alchemist
Evangelion (includes some pandering, but the content is way too original to care)
Berserk (recommend manga over anime)
Vagabond (manga)
Death Note
Attack on Titan
Utena (old, but a very strong story about grooming and abuse)
And these are the popular ones. If you start going deeper and branching out you can find jewels, specially in manga.
What about Spice and Wolf? There is some nudity (Holo's a wolf after all) but it doesn't interfere with the story.
Putting Evangelion in a list of anime without fanservice is almost comical.
Did we watch a different series? Sure, it's a very original take on Super Robot but it's chock full of fanservice.
Read again
Oh no, I saw that you described the fanservice in that series as "some pandering".
I don't appreciate that the "pandering" is sexualisation of 14 year old girls.
I agree with grandparent, as they mention it's hard to find 'new content'.
Unfortunately pretty much most of what you listed _are_ old.
Not hard at all.
* Demon Slayer
* Vinland Saga
* Dr. Stone (I'm sure HN would love this)
* Ascendance of a Bookworm
Very recently, SPY X FAMILY finished its first cour and its second will start this autumn.
Like most things in life, it pays to do a little looking.
If by any chance you have not watched "Arcane" I very much recommend it. Haven't seen much anime apart from the classics (cowboy bebop and the like) and never played League of Legends myself, but found Arcane's whole story, cinematography and action just riveting.
How in the world is Arcane considered anime? It wasn't written or produced in Japan, nor does it have the anime style.
GP commenter never claimed it was. I imagine they recommended it based on what GGP commenter seems to like.
I think it's fair to say it's not anime, but if you were to recommend the show to someone and give a brief description or comparison, I think it definitely shares more stylistic elements with anime than it does with other cartoon media.
Arcane's visuals are indeed stunning, but I strongly disagree about story, mainly because the characters have zero depth.
Vi and Jinx are defined by childhood trauma and little else. Jayce is a charming inventor. Viktor is trying to cure himself. Caitlyn is rich. Etc.
Their origin as video game cardboard cutouts is plain to see. The more interesting ones are originals created for the show (Silco, the cops, a couple others), but they're quickly killed off.
Worst is that all the dramatic moments in the story are triggered by miscommunication between these shallow characters. It's lazy.
The show needs better writing.
Not an anime fan, but some of my brothers are, and years ago the times they were watching it was the time I was supposed to be sleeping (opposite schedules are great) and it just ruined it for me...
Half of the shit they watched seems like it was written by some timid teenage boy with a romance fantasy. If that's what you like, it's not really my concern, but I found them too cringey and repetitive in a way that could challenge Hollywood. There were some ok ones, I didn't mind a lot of mainstream stuff or things that had a particularly interesting or unique premise, but for most the plots were just too easily predictable (an issue that some shows seems to have in general regardless of genre).
> I find it really difficult to find new content that is interesting and not filled with awkward pedophillic undertones, jokes about boob size, or the typical annoyances.
I agree. But luckily last quarter's "Spy x Family" was the exception, I recommend it (nice animation, light and funny, story ok).
>..difficult to find new content that is interesting and not filled with awkward pedophillic undertones, jokes about boob size, or the typical annoyances.
Try these Steins' Gate, One Outs, Dr. Stone, Made in Abyss, one punch man, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Goblin Slayer, Hajime No Ippo, Parasyte
Fan service can seriously destroy a show for me. If you haven't watched it yet, Legends of the Galactic heros, both the original and reboot, are great
Agree about Netflix. Thermae Roma was a lot of fun.
Well most anime is for teen boys. Japanese adults don't really watch anime, and if you do you are considered weird.
Now some animes are more akin to peanuts or Garfield which is more socially acceptable.
For adults,most people work alot of hours and many businesses have forced socialization. So when you do get some free time, you might watch an episode of something but not in way Americans obsess over it . There's so much anime,manga being produced, and alot of it never makes it to the West.
The irony is that Disney is the great copycat. First they copied classic stories like Snowwhite and Cinderella, now they do the same with anime style storytelling. And all this while reaping enormous benefits from copyright law.
> Is anime a new status quo that will, one day, be upturned by films equivalent to My Neighbor Totoro and Akira — but in a style we can’t imagine yet?
Not that it radically created a new style, but I think the sheer excellence of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse goes to show that the current superhero renaissance/overload misses out on the core strength of the source material- the power of animation. Perhaps when more of those comic book movies actually resemble comic book art can there be a challenger from American animation traditions against the anime status quo.
I'd say anime's influence is because how experimental, cheaper to produce and accessible it is.
Movies are ungodly expensive to make, so only sure-fire hits are green lit. Books have always been more niche so inspiration from them remains niche.
Also the lamentation that China is losing animation to Pakistan is amusing. By all rights that shouldn't be possible, the market is huge. I theorised it's because Chinese gov interference, https://langsoul.com/blog/the-potential-collapse-of-chinese-...
> Satoshi Kon, the director of Perfect Blue and Paprika
(Perhaps these examples were saved for the subscribers-only section) Quite notable is the influence of those two films on later Western films--elements shots in Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream match those in Perfect Blue; the same for Inception and Paprika.
Relevant Every Frame a Painting video essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz49vQwSoTE
> He was blown away, as well. Obviously it influenced us when it came time to create TaleSpin.
Kinda interesting given how many similarities there are in the setting of talespin and Porco Rosso. But talespin predates porco rosso by 2 years.
When I first watched porco rosso I thought “man talespin really copied this one!” And only later learned of the time line. Now I can’t help imagining Miyazaki watching talespin and get inspired - although realistically they probably both draw from the same, third source of inspiration.
Also transformers and Gundam. There has got to be a connection there.
Miyazaki's family owned an airplane parts manufacturing company during WWII. In the 80s he contributed manga and illustrations of airplanes and tanks to a hobby magazine Model Graphix. One of these short manga, published 1989, he adapted into Porco Rosso. I don't know if the creators of Talespin would have had access to it but it is possible
TaleSpin was inspired by old adventure movies. The whole tiki-bar culture, scruffy cargo pilot thing was a vibe back then.
Transformers has a much weirder cycle. They were a collection of different transforming toy lines from Japan that U.S. companies wanted to sell to children here. They divvied them up based on criteria: road vehicles largely became good guys, weapons and planes largely became bad guys. They wrote some comics around a concept of a giant war, made some animated films as a sort of pilot, and went to town.
Jetfire (IIRC) is actually a Macross figure.
Gundam is Gundam. I think that's just a Japanese series that is also popular in the U.S.
To me some of the main characters from transformers really looks like gundam. That’s what I meant with “there must be a connection”, as I thought transformers was an American invention and assumed heavy inspiration from gundam.
As much as any mecha is inspired by any other mecha.
Go Lion, Albegas, Dairugger, Super Sentai, Macross, Gundam, they're all the same and they're all different. I think it all comes down to "Giant robots are fucking cool"
Transformers were Japanese toys ported to America. I don't think there's a direct connection other than Japan's fascination with mecha, which predates both Gundam and Transformers.
I had no idea. That makes it seem like an even bigger omission.
Transformers was really big and the Michael Bay reboot movies made the franchise huge again and it’s all basically Anime.
While it's true the Transformers toys were made in Japan the old Transformers cartoon which ran in the U. S. was American made and an American company owns the western rights to the toys.
From the Wikipedia article about the show
>The series was produced by Marvel Productions and Sunbow Productions in association with Japanese studio Toei Animation
Toei Animation, the studio that made Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon, seemed responsible for the animation in the first two seasons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transformers_(TV_series)
That's interesting: it seems the writers were American and the animators were a Japanese studio.
In Japan, everything is anime, literally. Even the public sector's PSA-like subway posters and TV ads are using Anime characters, and it occasionally creates some conflicts.
Anime tends to have gender bias, which is kind of fine , but sometimes it is not the best tool to convey the public service messages. But people didn't notice until feminists get really mad. This is the result of the ultimate penetration and of the anime culture, and fascinating to observe. It's a skewed twin of Japanese culture after all.
Do you think women haven't noticed because they've been quiet about it until more recently? Japan is infamously challenged with sexism and oppressive to women, and women have struggled to have a voice on these topics
More than a "gender bias", the issue has been hyper sexualization in public/professional spaces
You mean women haven't been noticed? Anyways, I think you're right about hyper sexualization. I wrote "gender bias" to keep the post from being too political. Gender in Japan is like Race in the US. It's hard to keep it nuanced.
Anime isn't that mainstream in Japan. Lots of people watched anime as a kid then stopped.
At least all the Jap people I talked to at hostels were like that. Was very weird.
Why does anime have a gender bias?
If this piece was to highlight anime to show us that it's not underground, they're about 30 years too late. Almost all entertainment was borrowed from other pieces of art. Anime isn't immune from it. The detailed styling of anime can be accredited from manga. Manga flourished under Osamu Tezuka, the god father of manga, especially with Astro Boy - which was influenced by Disney.
> Or is there no “next thing” this time, like when sound came to film?
I have an answer: "not for the time being" - and it's not even about the style itself.
The reason is in the market that creates it: when it comes to anime series at least, they rarely start as such and they're not designed to make money by themselves. Usually the source material comes from printed media - be it a manga or a so-called light novel. Prospective stories are selected and then turned into a single 12-episode season (made at a loss). In the meantime a line of plastic figurines is released becoming the main source of revenue over time along with DVD releases and such because they fetch the highest margins. If the show is successful, more seasons are produced.
Sometimes the source material is a video game. With the rise of mobile gaming some of the more successful titles include a mobile gacha game.
Overall it's a massive factory of content with multiple selection steps along the way - much like a startup scene. Hard to beat such a process.
Yeah, this is the exact path described by the TMNT creators. First comics, then came the cartoons and actions figures, later the movie deals.
I don't know, seems to be a cultural US thing. I live in the EU and I have a hard time finding anything even resembling anime on the TV and any public media.
> I live in the EU and I have a hard time finding anything even resembling anime on the TV and any public media.
What does "I live in the EU" mean specifically? I grew up in Italy and I can 100% guarantee you that most Italians (and from what I heard Spaniards and French too) are very familiar with anime. Anime is *huge* in Italy (at least it was 30 years ago). I grew up with Ranma 1/2, Sailor Moon, Dragonball, Evangelion, GTO, and a lot of other older "Italian-ified" anime that I don't even know the proper name of (because they got translated into Italian). Italy is home to the world's second largest anime/comic convention after Comiket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucca_Comics_%26_Games). I live in Japan now, and I don't know what kids these days watch on TV in Italy (if they even watch TV) but every single one of my peers is familiar with anime as a medium and has watched several dozens of series growing up (and some of us still watch them today). All of this from public TV and public media.
EDIT: https://www.otaquest.com/anime-in-italy/ good article about it actually
> at least it was 30 years ago
It was but I’m not sure it still is. I’ve not been following the scene in a very long while, but anecdotally I’ve not heard any of the nieces and nephews mention anything which sounded like anime, it’s all 3D/CGI american animation, with the odd Chinese stuff: paw patrol, blue’s clues, bubble guppies, deer squad, blaze and the monster machines, ...
My feeling is that anime / manga is more popular than ever. Kids in my 8 yo nieces and 10 yo nephews class are crazy about Pokemon, Naruto (both seem to be still around...), Haikyuu and My Hero Academia. They are even wearing Haikyuu shirts for PE class. They also have all Yotsuba books and loved reading it. (I read the first two books with them together and it indeed is really fun!)
It would be interesting to have some data on that, but seeing all this anime content on social media and explosion of anime convetions i'd be surprised if there was no huge rise in popularity for both anime / manga.
I think anime is more popular in the teen demographics, as it is seen as the "cooler"/"edgier" stuff compared to US animation. I am not familiar with the most recent stuff, but for instance Naruto and One Piece are both huge in Italy, as were Death Note or GTO when they came out. Plus, there are cult shows that are still loved by a lot of people, such as Lupin III and Dragon Ball which are still frequently aired on national TV.
This thread is interesting! Thank you all for sharing!
How do Italy people get animes? Through some online subscription service (like US's crunchyroll) or cable?
> How do Italy people get animes? Through some online subscription service (like US's crunchyroll) or cable?
When I was a kid they were just broadcast on normal national TV. In the morning we'd have some kid friendly shows (like pingu, power rangers, etc) then we'd go to school and come back around lunch time and we'd get to watch Sailor Moon, Dragonball, One Piece, etc (depending on your generation, in order those were the big 3 "main" ones from 80s, 90s, and 00s kids). Every day we'd get new episodes (unlike in Japan where each series is weekly), so it became a part of a shared cultural phenomenon. We had lots of toys and we'd play with our friends and every day we'd discuss the previous day's episodes. For the more "grown up" kids (teenagers and up) you'd get more mature shows like Hokuto no Ken, Evangelion, etc on a different channel, not cable (it later became MTV channel) and those were usually weekly rather than daily. At least I remember watching GTO, Evangelion, Trigun, etc every Tuesday evening from 9pm to midnight.
I only realized they were "Japanese anime" by the time I was a young teenager watching Evangelion because that's when I started having access to the internet and my friends and I would look up lore and hypothetical storylines of the show and we'd stumble upon English and sometimes Japanese websites. Until then everything was properly dubbed in Italian, names of characters and shows translated/adapted to Italian, the songs (OP and ED) were sung in Italian as brand new original songs, etc so most people don't even realize they are "Japanese anime". We wouldn't make a difference between Sailor Moon or Tom and Jerry as far as country of origin went.
These days though I imagine most people watch them online using viz or netflix or similar sites, but I don't live in Italy anymore and most of my friends just pirate stuff so I don't know.
Haha "through pirating" might be the answer then ;-)
You're welcome :)
I really don't know the current trends, but anime have always been a staple of free-to-air television. It all started with regional channels in the early 80s; national channels (most famously, Italia 1) followed suit a few years later. Italia 1 still does feature several "oldies" shows daily, and recently aired Dragon Ball Super (as I said, Dragon Ball is wildly popular).
I don't think we have an anime-only service à la crunchyroll yet, but most streaming services feature anime as part of their offer. A controversial new dub of NGE by Netflix Italy even raised a minor commotion among fans.
Italian too,40something. I never ever hear about Anime,from anyone.
That's because they aren't called "anime", they are "cartoni animati". You are a 40 year old Italian and never heard of Cristina D'Avena? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristina_D%27Avena) She'd literally fill stadiums with her concerts all over Italy, she sung most Italian "anime" songs (sigle dei cartoni animati) from the 80s/90s/00s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_theme_songs_recorded_b...).
When I was a kid in the 90s and 00s our TV program was always full of "cartoni animati" (telemontecarlo, which later became MTV I think, and also on Italia uno). I don't think there exists *any* Italian that grew up in the 80s/90s that doesn't know shows like Sailor Moon, Power Rangers (not anime, but still), Sanpei, Ken il Guerriero (with one of the best non-Japanese openings *ever* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Crm94eMuPE), Holly e Benji (Capt Tsubasa), Lady Oscar, Mila e Shiro, Dragon Ball, Ranma 1/2, Nadia e il mistero della pietra azzurra, Mazinga, E' quasi magia Johnny (Orange Road), Lupin, etc. These were all parts of the communal zeitgeist when I was in elementary school in the 90s, and my sister who's a bit older than me (about your age I imagine) also had the exact same experience (we often watched them together).
At least in the U.S., I get the sense that people increasingly rely on streaming services rather than broadcast/cable TV. So for many of us, what really matters (I think) is that we're able to access Crunchyroll and (for now) Funimation.
My point is simply that I suspect fewer and fewer people (at least in the U.S.) are limited by what's available via public broadcast.
That is why I specified "any public media". I know maybe 1 or 2 people who once told me they watch anime, and that's it. Never ever hear about it in any conversation.
Part of the point of the article is that even if you've never seen anime, you've likely seen lots of things directly influenced by it.
Ulysses 31? The Mysterious Cities of Gold? Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds?
More recently:
- Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Chat Noir
- Winx Club
- LoliRock
(All aimed at children, admittedly.)
Austrian, born in 97, here. RTL 2 used to have some anime in the oughts/early tens. But yeah, nowadays, almost nothing on tv. Pretty sure the high amount of people who just pirate it is a factor.
I "grew up" on Digimon, One piece, shaman king and the like.
Is TV still relevant in 2022 to determine a country's cultural baseline? I don't mean to say television is irrelevant, I'm saying the Internet is these days the biggest contender for people's attention.
My impression is also very different. Preteens losing their mind over korean bands like BTS and big on japanese anime, due to the internet. The same all over the world.
TV? Like Cable TV is your metric? Come on its the wrong century for this.
People aren’t going to lead with their counter culture obsession but there are other ways look.
Where in the EU do you live that you don't get Cartoon Network? Also when I was a kid the most popular cartoon that was not on cartoon network was a locally produced Japanese anime called Alfred Kwak. I imagine kids these days have access to many more anime and anime inspired cartoons.
Finland got Cartoon Network at 2017, and I'm not sure if anyone paid for cable TV at that point. Back in the day there were lots of European-produced shows that had production outsourced to Japan, but the content was still very European. The anime boom really took off here only at 2000s.
I think you are right but I have observed that many young people are into anime. Our of touch maybe?
Just for the record: I've been out of touch for a while
At least a while back the people in Anime weren't watching it on TV, but pirated shows and currently probably Crunchy Roll. Not that there wasn't some shows shown like Dragonball, but not too many. Not sure what is the current state, I haven't watched TV in years.
I’ve also noticed declining popularity in Europe, it peaked in the 90s and early 2000s
> As the magazine Keyframe pointed out a few years ago, the influence of anime predates the current moment. It touched Steven Universe, How to Train Your Dragon and Teen Titans — but predated them, too.
I guess that this is written for a young audience. Getting close to 50 and having grown with Mazinger Z the examples seem childishly recent. If you look back before I was born you will also find the West being inspired by Japan and the other way around.
> "The Great Wave is one of the most reproduced and instantly recognizable artworks in the world. It has influenced several notable artists and musicians, including Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Debussy, Claude Monet, Hiroshige and more." The Great Wave off Kanagawa. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Influence is tending to meaninglessness as content is tending to infinity.
That was a Pixar thing in their heyday. When they'd get stuck, they'd go watch some Miyazaki as a group to get inspiration.
But now? Here's the chart for the just-finished spring quarter of anime.[1]
[1] https://anichart.net/Spring-2022
Sturgeon's law applies of course, and not everyone can be Miyazaki, but I think Attack on Titan is a masterpiece of the 21st century and will definitely be inspiring western directors.
Not sure what you’re trying to imply since you’re not actually saying anything.
Miyazaki makes movies, not TV series. And while TV/movie crossovers are very common in Japanese animation they’re still very different contexts.
I'm interested in writing a comic book. What are the open-source tools/software that i need?
Krita for illustrations maybe?
https://krita.org/en/
recently read the idea that a lot of anime contains sequences that are specifically crafted to be enhanced for viewers that are under the influence of nitrous oxide. something about its legality in Japan where other substances are strictly forbidden and taboo. I haven't tested out the theory but it sounds plausable
What are you smoking? I'd like to see where this idea came from.
it was a post on the shroomery titled the perfect guide to whippets. not sure how or why I got there, and it's not the most reputable source as far as science goes, but then again, maybe it is...