What is Anime?

Anime is short for "Japanese Animation." According to Fred Patten, columnist for Animation magazine, the first anime to be broadcast on television was the groundbreaking series Astro Boy in 1963, and its success opened the doors for this new style of artistic expression. Anime has grown increasingly popular ever since, both in its home nation of Japan and overseas.

People often recognize anime due to its unique style: characters tend to have large eyes and generally appear western rather than Japanese. In addition, anime is sometimes associated with jerky animation, particularly around the mouth. However, the quality of anime has improved along with technology. Today, anime is considered by many to be an art form and is a huge industry in Japan. Many shows have extravagant budgets with exquisite animation.

Unlike American animation, which is primarily aimed at a youthful audience, anime is created for audiences of all ages. While many series and movies are created with children in mind, others are made for teenagers and others for adults. The wide variety of content in anime series has led American distributors to label their releases with ratings similar to those given to major motion pictures.

Manga

Comic books are a massive industry in Japan. Japanese comics are called "manga" and are incredibly popular among Japanese citizens of all ages. Unlike America, where such forms of entertainment are viewed as juvenile, in Japan it is perfectly normal for a Japanese businessman to read manga on his train ride to and from work.

Giant collections of manga the size of phone books are released weekly or monthly and generally contain several different manga stories. The individual stories are later released in volumes called "tankoubons" that have the appearance of small novels. They are much thicker than American comics, averaging over one hundred pages. Most anime series begin as manga. Popular manga series are then licensed and animated. Fushigi Yuugi, the series seen in the images above, is an 18-volume manga series that has been adapted into a 52-episode television series.

Although similar in appearance, it is easy to tell anime images apart from manga images. Manga is generally a softer image in pastel colors or in black and white while anime images are sharper and brighter. This is illustrated by the two images above. The image on the left is a manga image, while the one on the right is an anime image.

Anime Terminology

TV Series - As the name implies, a syndicated television series. A typical season is approximately 26 episodes long.

OVA Series - Sometimes called OAV series, it stands for Original Video Animation. These series are released directly to home video. They tend to be higher quality than TV series. They are also shorter than TV series, usually consisting of fewer than ten episodes.

Movie - Again, just what the name implies. Anime movies, like animated films in America, tend to be of the highest quality. Popular anime series will often spawn movies.

Subtitled - The Japanese language track is left in tact and the English translation is displayed as text at the bottom of the screen. This option is generally viewed as more accurate and true to the director's vision, as the voices, inflections, and actual words are left unaltered.

Dubbed - The Japanese language track is removed and the dialogue re-recorded using English-speaking voice actors. Sometimes, dialogue is changed to match character mouth movements more accurately or to be more easily understood by Americans. No matter how careful or accurate a dub director attempts to be, small changes such as these will alter some of the intended meaning in the original. Sometimes more extreme changes are made, removing or altering important elements of the plot. For these reasons, hardcore fans tend to prefer subtitled anime.

Dubtitled - A hybrid term referring to anime that has English subtitles at the bottom but instead of literally translating the dialogue the altered dub track is instead used. Hardcore fans are usually strongly opposed to this language option as it eliminates the option for a purer translation.

Genres of Anime

Shounen - These shows are generally aimed at a male audience. Examples of story content that would fall into this category are action and adventure, fighting, and sports.

Shoujo - These shows are generally aimed at a female audience. Examples of story content that would fall into this category are romance and fantasy.

Magical Girl - A sub-category of shoujo anime, magical girl series have a strong female character who is typically bestowed with the ability to transform into a crime-fighting superhero. Sailor Moon is probably the best-known example of this genre.

Mecha - Anime involving large machines controlled by a human pilot, generally used as weapons of war. Gundam Wing is a well-known example of this genre.

Keep in mind that the above genres are very broad categories and that series are not limited to the brief descriptions mentioned. Any topic or genre of American films or novels has at some point had an anime series modeled after it.

Anime In America

It's very likely that you have seen an anime series before. Cartoon Network's popular series Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z, and Gundam Wing are all examples of anime. The overwhelming viewer support of these shows led Cartoon Network to add more mature anime series to its "Adult Swim" time slot. In addition, the SciFi Channel periodically shows anime science fiction films.

Anime is becoming increasingly accepted and mainstream in America. Stores like Suncoast and Best Buy have entire sections dedicated to it. Animation giant Disney has acquired the rights to a number of anime films released by the prestigious Japanese animation studio called Studio Ghibli. Mononoke Hime was the first of these to be released theatrically, followed by the recent critic favorite Spirited Away, which won an Oscar for "Best Animated Film" in the 2003 Academy Awards. Anime is even achieving popularity in the world of retail merchandise: characters are becoming plush toys, action figures, t-shirt images, and video game heroes.

Numerous American-based companies release hundreds of anime titles in America each year. Some companies are in fact common household names, such as Bandai and Pioneer. You can purchase anime in a variety of formats, including DVD, subtitled VHS, dubbed VHS, and older series can even be found on laserdiscs.

If any of this information is incorrect please contact me