Anime is a kind of animation that originates from Japan. In Japan, the term anime is used to describe all animated works, no matter what their style or origin is. Outside of Japan, anime is used to refer to a specific style of Japanese animation.
Animations have been coming out of Japan for over one hundred years and anime shows and movies were seen as niche for much of that time. However, in recent years, anime has turned into a global phenomenon.
You can find high school and college anime clubs all over the world, as well as thousands of forums and fan wikis.
Crunchyroll, one of the world’s largest online anime libraries, currently has over seventy million subscribers around the world. And three million of those have paid subscriptions.
And now, anime has truly entered the big leagues. Starting soon, students will be able to major in anime and manga at a Japanese university.
Are you looking to know more? If you are, then keep on reading and we’ll take you through everything you need to know!
Contents
The History of Anime
So how does a style of animation become so important in today’s culture that young adults can now major in the subject in college? To answer that question, we should first look at how anime began and how it got to the point it is at today.
The first animated film made in Japan was created in 1907. The film was titled “Activity Photo” and it was only first discovered in 2005. The film was composed of fifty stenciled frames that were drawn directly onto celluloid film.
The first animated film made in Japan to be publicly displayed premiered in 1917. Prior to 1917, animated films that were shown in Japan were produced in countries like France or Germany.
Animators who were making films before the Second World War faced multiple issues. First, they had to compete with foreign companies like Disney. Because foreign films already made a profit before entering the Japanese market, they could be distributed in Japan for relatively low costs.
This forced animators in Japan to work for extremely low wages so that they could compete in the marketplace.
Before the 1930s, Japanese animators usually used cutout animation because it was cheaper than drawing on film. While this cutout style was originally seen as a detractor, it was soon viewed as a powerful aesthetic choice.
World War II
During the Second World War, cultural nationalism was being enforced by the government in Japan. This lead to a lot of control and censorship of all of the media in Japan.
Many animators needed to make films that enforced the national affiliation and spirit of the Japanese culture. Some films were shown in newsreel theaters and filmmakers were even given money from the government to make propaganda movies.
This helped to strengthen the Japanese film industry and led more film studios to make animated films.
A lot of reorganization happened in the industry too during this time. By the end of the war, there were really only three major production companies making full-length movies.
Post-War
In 1958, Mushi Product and Toei Animation created the first color anime feature film. It was released in the United States three years later. The film was so successful that Toei Animation went on to release a new full-length anime annually after that.
At Toei, each animator would bring their own personal style to the production. The most extreme example of this is Horus: Prince of the Sun (1968). This film is seen as the point where anime became more of an auteur’s medium.
One of Toei’s biggest stylistic contributions to anime was its development of the “money shot.” This is a cost-efficient method of animation that lets the filmmakers place more emphasis on important shots. It does this by animating those shots with more detail than less essential shots.
1960s
The 1960s was a big decade for anime. This is when anime finally entered the world of television and also made its way to America.
Osamu Tezuka’s Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy) is one of the first anime TV shows. It was extremely influential on other anime shows of that decade and was followed by many other anime shows about space and robots.
Sazae-san is an anime series that premiered in 1969. The show has broadcast thousands of episodes and continues to air to this day.
1970s
Anime space operas first came into being in the 1970s with the premiere of Space Battleship Yamato. During this decade, the Japanese film industry shrank because it was receiving more competition from TV.
Many production companies either scaled back dramatically or went bankrupt. This time also led to a lot of young animators taking on the role of director for a variety of productions.
Also during this decade, Japanese animation finally started to make waves in continental Europe. And these productions were mainly aimed at Japanese as well as European children. France, Spain, and Italy all saw a growing interest in Japanese animation, which was exported to those countries at low prices.
By the end of the decade, there were dozens of anime shows airing on TV.
1980s
The 1980s saw more of a shift to the space opera genre. This was helped by the success of the Star Wars films. The success of these space operas is seen as the start of a new anime boom, which is cited as “Japanese Cinema’s Second Golden Age.”
A subculture, referred to as otaku, started to form in Japan. These young people were able to bond over anime magazines.
During this time, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), one of the most influential anime films of all time, was released. The film garnered even more acclaim for anime thanks to its experimentation. This acclaim helped director Hayao Miyazaki and his longtime collaborator Isao Takahata start their own studio.
That studio would become known as Studio Ghibli, currently the most well-known anime production company in the world. The studio’s first release was Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), one of Miyazaki’s most-ambitious movies.
Dragon Ball was another hugely successful anime program in the 80s.
During this decade, anime was also introduced to the home video market. Now, anime productions that were less marketable could be released directly to consumers.
Near the end of the decade, there was an increasing number of experimental and high-budget anime films. Grave of the Fireflies was released in 1988 and is seen as one of the greatest war films ever made. That same year, the wildly expensive and popular Akira was released.
Studio Ghibli released Kiki’s Delivery Service in 1989 and it earned more than $40 million at the box office.
Even though Akira was a commercial failure in Japan, it helped to bring a much larger international fan base to the genre. When it was shown overseas, it became a massive hit and became the symbol for anime in the West.
1990s
In the late 1990s, Princess Mononoke from director Hayao Miyazaki became the most expensive anime film up to that time. It cost more than $20 million to make.
Miyazaki himself personally checked each of the 100,000 frames in the film and redrew several thousand of them.
By 1998 there were more than one hundred anime shows airing on TV in Japan. That included the extremely popular television series that was based on the Pokémon video game franchise. Pokemon has gone on to become the largest media franchise in the world.
The success of other anime shows, including Digimon, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball Z, helped anime reach new audiences and planted the seeds that would lead to a new boom for anime years later.
2000s
The 2000s saw the start of a new art movement thanks to Takashi Murakami. The style combined Japanese pop-culture with postmodern art called Superflat. The movement has been seen as an analysis of post-war Japanese culture through the eyes of the otaku subculture.
Murakami’s desire was to get rid of the categories of low and high art that make a flat continuum.
In addition to these experimental trends, the 2000s also saw an increase in bishōjo and bishōnen character design and moe-style art. There was also a growing popularity and presence of genres such as slice of life, harem, and romance.
Many shows would be adapted from manga comic books and small novels. One of the most popular was Yu-Gi-Oh!, which premiered in 2000. They have all kinds of interesting and cool merchandise for this show, which fans can find at the Anime Store, Otakuchan.
The 2000s also saw more emphasis given to the otaku subculture.
However, there were also more productions of late-night anime that appealed to a non-otaku audience. These shows were meant to appeal to young women who were in college, which is a demographic that rarely watches anime.
During the 2000s, anime films would be nominated for major awards. Studio Ghibli released Spirited Away in 2003 and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The film was the highest-grossing anime movie until Demon Slayer premiered in 2020.
Anime also got a major boost from the Toonami programming block on Cartoon Network. Shows in this block include Samurai Jack, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Boondocks.
2010s
In 2012, Toonami was rebranded to be more oriented towards adults. In 2014, Miyazaki announced his retirement and Studio Ghibli temporarily halted production.
Streaming services in the West, including Netflix and Amazon Prime have started streaming classic anime shows and also producing their own original content. In 2015, there were more than three hundred anime television series airing.
A College Degree in Anime
Kaishi Professional University recently announced that they are creating an anime and manga department. The department was officially approved by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology. Kaishi Professional University is located in Niigata Prefecture.
This private university first opened in April 2020 and has a business creation department and also an information studies department.
The anime and manga department at this school is supposed to launch in April 2021 and will be accepting around eighty students.
These students will learn about the theory as well as the practice that’s needed to create anime. They’ll receive more than 600 hours of education from leading manga and anime creators. These professional creators will come from positions like:
- animators
- manga artists
- illustrators
- game creators
- animation directors
- character designers
Students will also learn from manga and animation researchers. If you’d like to apply to the program, then you need to apply by Tuesday, December 1, 2020. The first entrance exam for this course will take place on Saturday, December 19, 2020.
Who Is a College Anime Degree For?
If you’re someone who is totally fascinated with anime and manga and you want to work in the field, then this is the degree for you. With this major, you’ll be able to immerse yourself in the world of Japanese anime and manga and learn from the leaders of the industry.
Hopefully, after reading the above article, you now have a better sense of the history of anime and how it got to the place where it is now. Anime has influenced much of today’s culture and is only going to become more mainstream as the years go on.
If this is an industry that you would like to work in, then there’s really no reason to not apply for this college anime degree.
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