![]() “Such export enthusiasm in its early days was based on the worldwide success of Disney’s animation films, as well as upon the assumption that animated films would have a better chance of succeeding in the West than live-action films featuring Asian actors,” said Morikawa.īut while “Astro Boy” sparked a mid-century anime boom in Japan, it would take a few more decades for the genre to sweep America. In the 1950s, Toei Animation studio (where Tezuka had worked before establishing a rival company, Mushi Productions, in 1961), set its sights on becoming the “Disney of the East” and started exporting animation films to America. Inside one of Japan's oldest animation studios “The image of Japan in the West (in the 1980s and early 1990s) was composed of two extremes: that of the orientalized, feudal Japan depicted in samurai films with ninjas and swordfights, and that of hypermodern Japan where economic animals are crammed into trains and pump Walkman and Toyota to the world,” said Kaichiro Morikawa, an anime expert at Tokyo’s Meiji University, in a phone interview. ![]() ![]() Commercial hits like “Pokémon” and “Dragon Ball Z,” meanwhile, projected a new image of Japan to the world. Touching on themes as disparate as sex, death, science fiction and romance, manga and anime catered to all ages and tastes. The film is now widely considered a cult classic that expanded anime’s reach in the US and Europe. In 1988, Otomo released “Akira” as an anime, a film so detailed and intricate that it took animators years to hand-paint each of the single shots used to bring the story to life. The story follows biker gang leader Shotaro Kaneda as he battles to save his friend from a secret government program that conducts tests on psychic children. ![]() The Japanese "demon of painting" who invented manga in 1874Ĭompared to DC Comics and Marvel, “Akira” felt subversive and different. ![]()
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