Production
how has anime changed over the years/ developed into what it is today?
This is one of my first drafts which is still a working process In this essay, I would like to explore the history of anime and how it developed into what it is today, as today it is popular all over the world and enjoyed by all ages. The first few paragraphs will be about the history when it started and the style of early anime, what early anime looked like and then the last couple of paragraphs will be about how anime got from the early stages to where it is today. To start off this essay I will get into early anime and its style. The origins of anime date back to the early 20th century, the earliest film being in 1906. These films were animated by the first generation of animators, including Ōten Shimokawa, Jun'ichi Kōuchi, and Seitaro Kitayama, more commonly referred to as the fathers of anime. During the second the second world war propaganda films were made including titles such as Momotarō no Umiwashi in 1943 and Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei in 1945 the last-mentioned film being one of the first anime feature films. In the 1960s anime started to develop into its unique style of characters with large eyes, big mouths, and big heads. During the 60s an anime called Astro boy, by Osamu Tezuka was one of the first anime to be shown to western audiences, mostly in the U.S. this is when anime started to be noticed overseas. Anime studios started to see anime as a commercial success even though anime wasn’t shown on major U.S. broadcasting programs through the late 60s and late 70s. In the 70s anime started to develop its own genres such as mecha and super robot separating it from animation and other genres at the time.How anime developed into what it is today
In this essay, I would like to explore the history of anime and how it developed into what it is today, as today it is popular all over the world and enjoyed by all ages. The first few paragraphs will be about what anime is then I will go into the history of it, when it started to gain popularity and when the style of anime came about, and then the last paragraph will be the conclusion and summary of the essay.
To start off this essay, I thought it would be a good idea to get a short understanding of what anime is. The word anime comes from the English word of animation. Anime refers to animation made in Japan with a distinct style that usually being characterized by disproportionate bodies and facial features. The style of anime first came about in the early 1960s, created by Osamu Tezuka. The style soon spread throughout the industry and became what signifies anime from animation today. Each anime has its own unique style, but all have the same characteristics of large facial features and disproportionate bodies. Anime is a diverse form of entertainment as it puts together graphic art, cinematography, characterization, and other forms of creative and unique techniques. Anime can be original but is mostly adaptations of manga which is a Japanese comic. Anime is also adapted from other forms of media such as light novels, visual novels, and games but often anime is adapted from manga, sometimes manga can be adaptations of anime such as the anime Steins;Gate was adapted from a visual novel then after the anime was made the manga was adapted. For decades it was only produced in Japan but over the past forty years as it got popular overseas it started to be produced internationally, the same style of anime being called anime-influenced animation. Some examples of anime-influenced animation would be Avatar: the last air bender, RWBY, and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir.
As now we have a clear understanding of the definition of what anime is I would like to get into the history of anime and how it came about and started to become popular overseas. The earliest anime can be dated back to late 1916 to early 1917 it was made by Shimokawa Oten. The film was made on a chalkboard, between each take some of the frames would be erased and re-drawn to animate the characters and objects. These were silent films but had music to accompany them and they were usually less than five minutes long. During the war in the 1930s through to the 1940s animation studios got bombed and they lost most of their reels of animation. The industry suffered but still got through the war barely. Two good things that happened during this time for the anime industry was the first voiced anime was released in 1933 after being in production for a year, just after that in 1934 the first anime to be made using all cels was released, A cel is a transparent sheet on which objects are drawn on and layered over each other and used for hand-drawn animation, this was a vast improvement from chalk-drawn animation. Funding for animation studios, during the war, started to scares but they had creative ways of gaining funding. Animation studios would create and animate military propaganda films for the government during the war and would make educational films for schools and children too. They would also create television advertisements; all these forms are still used today. During the war animation studios got big funding from the government to make propaganda films, some of the titles are Momotarō no Umiwashi released in 1943, and Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei released in 1945.
=After the war more animation studios started to come about, some that are still recognized today such as Japan Animated Films in 1948 or rather known today as Toei. They released hakujaden in 1958 which was the first feature anime film to be made in colour. This movie was then a couple of years later released to the US in 1961which sparked the early fans of this kind of animation in the western world. The earliest animation to air on Television was Mogura no Adventure. This anime was made in colour, used paper cut-outs, and was only nine minutes long. Two years later in 1960, an experimental anime anthology called Mittsu no Hanashi, was made by and aired by NHK as a special. It was made up of three ten-minute parts telling fantasy stories, it would be released to the United States the following year, where it was the first anime to be shown on American television. In 1963, Osamu Tezuka and his own animation studio Mushi Pro put out the very first anime TV series being the same length as anime usually is today, around twenty-five minutes called Tetsuwan Atom. Based on one of Tezuka’s most popular manga, the show starred a robot boy who lived with humans and battled crime, aliens, and other robots. Anime this length had not been tried before because of costs and deadlines Tezuka used what is called limited animation, he would reduce the number of frames per second of film re-use some of the cels and put different parts of the character in the frame so only some of the motion like the head or arms, needed to be animated in each scene. He also saved time by using his original manga panels as storyboards, leaving out most of the writing process and layout of each individual episode. After this anime was aired, it proved that anime could be made for television and be profitable so many animation studios followed suit, and throughout the 60s anime studios made stylistic anime to be shown on TV and still is today even more so.
Tezuka left Mushi Pro in 1969 and found Tezuka productions. His previous animation studio without its founder ran into budgetary issues and closed in 1973, some of the animators from the studio went on to found their own animation studios, Some of these studios are still recognizable today two of them are called Madhouse and Sunrise, both founded in mid to late 1972. Anime continued to grow and define itself throughout the 70s, especially the science fiction genres. The first space-opera series, Uchu Senkan Yamato, aired in 1974 from Group TAC. The anime had a complex story which then influenced later Japanese sci-fi anime. In 1979, it was released to the US as Star Blazers. By the end of the 70s, anime was fully cemented as part of Japanese popular culture. Animage was an anime and manga magazine which was published in July 1978, giving fans a place for the latest news about their hobby. The term otaku soon came about to describe people who were big fans of anime.
The 80s was considered the golden age of anime and saw a big surge in genres and interest throughout Japan and some of the western world too. Many things contributed to this, including the introduction of VHS and children who grew up watching Tetsuwan Atom becoming nostalgic for their favorite anime shows. VHS and similar devices were coming onto the market at this time and anime were at the forefront. Urusei Yatsura was available on VHS in late 1983, and the OAV was invented in the same year, which was Japan’s version of straight to DVD. No one was too interested in the first OAV, Oshii’s Moon Base Dallos, but it did not take long before more popular titles began to rise in popularity. Another technological first in 1983 was CGI, studio TMS’s Golgo 13 used CGI in a couple of its scenes. It was one of the first times for CGI to be used in animation not only in Japan but everywhere.
In 1991 japans economy crashed and budgets were cut, so animation studios were struggling, and some did close due to the recession, however, entertainment was still popular so many still managed to survive through the 90s. Ghibli studio’s only making it off their recent release at the time called kiki’s delivery service. TV continued to be a steady source of funding for the animation industry, for example, one of the big commercial successes such as sailor moon was released in 1992. Anime was continuing to develop and diversify. OAVs could be whatever writers could dream up them to be. Late-night anime like Serial Experiments Lain in 1998 dipped into serious philosophical themes with stylish and sophisticated animation. Studio Bones was founded in 1998 by Sunrise staffers, and their first project was in partnership with Sunrise to make the jazzy space romp Cowboy Bebop: Tengoku no Tobira.
Since the mid-30s anime had only been made using cels but with the coming about of computers they could manipulate images which would make it easier to animate. In the 90s CGI became more of a common aspect of anime. The very first completely computer-animated anime was called A.LI.CE. and was released in 1999. As this was still early CGI it didn’t look the best and by this point, in time the style of anime we associate with today was clearly shown. As more and more animation studios began making use of the new digital technology, most of them chose ways that blended well with hand-drawn cels eventually though as the new digital technology got better and cheaper cels got replaced altogether. In this method, after each frame is drawn it is scanned into a computer, then colored and composited digitally instead of being transferred to cel and colored and composited by hand as it would have used to have been done. Being able to use a computer to quickly handle tedious work was popular, and most studios had made the switch as soon as 2005. The last studio to switch to digital was Eiken with Sazae-san, the longest-running animated show in the world. But even Sazae-san eventually went to digital in 2013.
Anime over the last almost century has developed a lot into what it is today, compared to what it was at the start of 1900. At the start, it was very time-consuming to draw each frame and change it a little each time that is why they were so short to start off with. But as technology got better the process and length got easier and longer. To start off anime was not really for entertainment but after the second world war and all the studios surviving barely, it started to become a form of entertainment especially in the 60s when the first anime. that is today’s usual length. was released and really got the industry going not only in Japan but eventually in the western world too with anime being made by non-Japanese animators called anime-inspired animation. Anime started to get popular amongst Japanese audiences during the 60s and as anime started to develop and gradually got released more and more to the would, in the US too, it started to gain fandom overseas as well. in the western world, today it is very popular and loved and enjoyed all over the world by all ages and backgrounds. The distinct styles and storylines and its unique genres of anime are what make it so popular not only that but the community that comes with it being able to buy merchandise of your favorite character and cosplay as them at conventions makes people happy and invest more into characters as they watch it letting them identify with the characters almost or being able to distract themselves from their lives for a short while. When anime was starting to get popular it was seen as weird to watch and like it but today it is so popular that everyone has at least watched one anime and possibly didn’t know it was one until someone told them or they look into it themselves as they get more into it as they want to watch and learn more about it.
In conclusion, I went over what anime is and the history of it too, I found out how anime developed over the past century and how it started to become popular. It didn’t start up as much but as technology advanced so did animation going from chalkboard to transparent paper to digital all over the space of almost less than 100 years. It gained popularity quickly considering it’s kind of fairly new in the grand scheme of things.
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