Anime Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
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- This article is about Japanese animation. For the oleo-resin, see Animé.
Terminology
The word anime appears in written form in three katakana characters a, ni, me (アニメ). Japanese pronunciation is /ɑnimɛ/, but in the United States speakers typically pronounce the word as /ˈćnɪˌmei/ and in England it is generally pronounced /ćnɪmi/.
The English word transliterates a Japanese term. The etymology is generally traced to an abbreviation of the Japanese transliteration of the English word "animation" (shortened, as many foreign words appear in Japanese). Some non-Japanese fans claim the word comes from the French animé ("animated").
Internationally, anime once bore the popular name Japanimation, but this term has fallen into disuse. It saw the most usage during the 1970s and 1980s, which broadly comprise the first and second waves of anime fandom. The term survived at least into the early 1990s but seemed to fade away shortly before the mid-1990s anime resurgence. In general, the term now only appears in nostalgic contexts.
The term Japanimation is much more commonly used in Japan to refer to domestic animation. Since anime or animeshon is used to describe all forms of animation, Japanimation is meant to distinguish Japanese work from that of the rest of the world.
The voice actors for anime usually bear the Japanese equivalent designation, seiyuu.
Characteristics
series Astro Boy.]]
Anime features a wide variety of genres and a unique artistic style. It can have as many genres as live action cinema, including adventure, science fiction, children's stories, romance, medieval fantasy, erotica (hentai). Most anime includes a variety of thematic elements. For example, it is not uncommon for strongly action-themed anime to involve humor, romance, and even poignant social commentary, and romance-themed anime may involve a strong action element.
Anime has become an expressly commercial art form; producers and marketers aim for very specific audiences, with well-defined categories for shonen (boys) and shojo (girls) genres, as well as for teenagers and adults.
Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified many Disney animation precepts to reduce the budget and number of frames. This was intended to be a temporary measure to allow him to produce one episode every week with inexperienced animation staff. Anime studios have since perfected techniques to draw as little new animation as possible, using scrolling or repeating backgrounds, still shots of characters sliding across the screen, and dialogue which involves only animating the mouths while the rest of the screen remains absolutely still, a technique not wholly unfamiliar to Western animation. The overall effect of these techniques—reduced frame rate, many still shots, scrolling backgrounds—has led some critics to accuse anime of choppiness or poor quality in general. (See Cheats, Cliches, Cartoons, Anime....)
However, there are often scenes where the frame rate of the animation far exceeds the norm of the rest of the work. These are commonly called "money shots", where more effort is put into the animation of one scene to give it emphasis over the rest of the work. Animator Yasou Otsuka was the pioneer of this technique.
Exceptions to these rules are big budget films, often from Studio Ghibli. These movies have much higher production values, due to their anticipated success at the box office. Some animators in Japan can overcome production values by using different techniques than Disney or the old Tezuka/Otsuka norms of anime. Directors such as Hiroyuki Imaishi (RE: Cutey Honey, Dead Leaves) simplify backgrounds so that more attention can be paid to character animation. Other animators like Tatsuyuki Tanaka (in Koji Morimoto's Eternal Family in particular) use squash and stretch, an animation technique not often used by Japanese animators; Tanaka makes other shortcuts to compensate for this. Some higher-budgeted television and OA series also forego shortcuts found in most other anime. The 2003 version of Astro Boy, despite being a Tezuka creation, was also very well animated as Sony claims to have spent three times as much per episode compared to other series.
In short, anime tends to be dominated by a school of animation thought that emphasies direction over character motion as means to save money. Other schools of thought in animation do exist in Japan but these works are less common.
Traditionally, boys and young men comprise the main audience outside Japan, so most translated anime tends to belong to the shonen style, such as Tenchi Muyo and Gundam. However, shojo anime has had some recent success in the West in the form of series like Sailor Moon. The recent success of anime in mainstream film awards, such as Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away winning the 2002 Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and the featuring of at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, have helped spur mainstream and critical acceptance.
In the 1970s and '80s, European companies collaborated with Japanese animation partners (notably Nippon Animation and its predecessor Zuiyo Enterprise) to produce European-themed works for a broader audience. Examples include Vicky the Viking (1974, Wickie in German), Dogtanian (1981, Spain), and The Mysterious Cities of Gold (1982, France).
In Europe, public interest in anime is growing rapidly. Television companies are embracing anime, providing mostly older series. Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Ranma ˝, and Sailor Moon are popular series. Anime and manga conventions are celebrated with an increasing rate of attendance.
The Pokémon anime arrived on North American televisions in 1998, as part of the launch of the video game series on which it was based. The explosive growth in popularity—resulting from the interacting popularities of the games, television show, and trading cards—was evident when the first Pokémon movie was released in the United States. It made $10.1 million in ticket sales on its first day, setting a new record for a Japanese production being shown in the United States, and ending up making $85.7 million, the highest gross any anime movie has ever attained.
Since then, anime TV series and movies have begun to creep slowly onto the American screen, and have slowly been welcomed, especially by television networks and production companies, for several financial reasons. First, the average number of episodes made for U.S. or European animated series is 26, while Japanese companies tend to make 52 to 150 episodes. An American company can simply purchase rights to the series and only has to re-dub the voices. This cuts production costs down to less than a quarter of what it would take to make the cartoon from scratch. This is especially attractive to newly formed networks. Another high point for investors was anime's marketability. In Japan, nearly every show has hundreds of other goods that go along with it.
In North America, public reaction to anime remains mixed, with lingering negative memories of television series like Speed Racer combining with sensationalized reports of the more risqué adult entertainment productions. However, anime series have gradually become a staple of cable television such as the Cartoon Network for both children's and adult programming blocks. Local networks in the United States, such as Fox and the WB, have (dubbed) Japanese series in their Saturday morning children's television. The Action Channel frequently shows anime movies. YTV and Teletoon in Canada also have a few anime programs on their schedules. The Video on Demand service "Anime Network", the first channel in North America wholly dedicated to anime, started operations in late 2002 and later spun-off into a 24/7 cable format in mid-2004. Some cartoon shows are even imitating the style of drawing in what is known as amerime.
One cultural theme in futuristic anime is apocalypse, often including the destruction of Tokyo. Anime also tends to shy away from clear happy endings. Instead, failure seems to be accepted as a part of life. Some have identified this tendency as a result of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in World War II. Whether or not this is the case, it marks a distinct difference in thought between Japanese culture and the modern optimism of the West. While such a view of life in the West has previously been unpalatable, anime's growth in the West could be seen as indicative of a change as such outcomes seem to appeal to the growing Post-Modern mentality. Failure is now often seen as "more realistic".
Anime has in the last few years become an extremely strong seller on home video, with many major retailers now carrying and displaying anime as a distinct genre. Strong North American sales of anime (such as Spirited Away) have encouraged Disney to make home video releases of other Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli features to which it owns distribution rights. Manga is also appearing quickly as more and more companies start releasing their own lines. Among the most popular companies are Viz and Tokyopop.
Print publications focused on the world of anime have also become increasingly popular in the United States, with Newtype USA (the English-language version of the Japanese magazine Newtype) the circulation leader.
Today, many of the more serious anime films and series, and many of the direct-to-video productions—called OVA (Original Video Animation) or OAV (Original Animation Video)—originate with an American anime fan audience in mind. In Japan these more mature series lack the popularity of the more child-focused productions, although adults also greatly appreciate the seemingly child-oriented series.
Anime conventions form an important focus for the anime fan base. Often annual, these conventions allow fanss of anime to come together and socialize on a large scale. Many conventions invite guests from overseas. Some of the longer-established and larger conventions include:
The following section is devoted to those artist who made an impact through direct contributions to anime as opposed to other artists who were in manga and other fields that had an impact on the development of Japanese animation.
The work of prominent manga (Japanese comics) artists often has an impact of anime, even when they are not themselves directly involved in anime.
Shoujo anime is intended for girls. Most anime is assumed to be shounen, intended for boys, so it is usually not necessary to label it. While seinen (intended for men) and josei (intended for women) anime does exist, anime that fall specifically and exclusively into those genres is rare. The only one of these terms in common use is shoujo.
This is an Article on Anime. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Anime Outside Japan
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Growth in North America
Individual anime shows have been shown in America since the 1960s' Alakazam the Great, but with no more popularity than other cartoon shows in the US. Anime as a genre was not clearly recognized in America until the 1990s. In a recent issue of Animation World Magazine, Fred Patten explains that anime began with a cult following, available only through mail order video and comic book stores. Then, in 1994, the Sci Fi channel began showing mature-themed animated movies from Japan. These were classics, such as Akira and Vampire Hunter D, that had done well in Japanese box offices. Soon anime series directed at pre-teens were being shown alongside American cartoons in the Saturday morning line up. Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon were among them.
While American consumers aren't as big on plushies or themed candy, other merchandising is quite successful. The Pokemon series has spun off more than a billion dollars in merchandise, in the U.S. alone.Notable names in anime
Production of anime
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Others who have influenced anime
Types of anime
Production types
Most anime can be categorized as one of three types:
It is very common for one title to spawn several different releases. A title that starts as a popular television series might then have a movie produced at a later date. A good example is Tenchi Muyo—originally an OVA, Tenchi Muyo spawned three movies, two television series, and well as several spinoff titles and specials.By target audience
Genres
The following are genres and designations that are specific to anime and manga. (For other possible genres, see list of movie genres.)Several well-known Japanese animation studios
List of non-Japanese anime distributors
See also
External links