- This article is about Japanese animation. For the oleo-resin, see Animé (oleo-resin).
Anime (アニメ) is Japanese animation, often characterized by stylized colorful images depicting vibrant characters in a variety of different
settings and storylines, aimed at a variety of different audiences. Anime is influenced by the drawing style of manga, or Japanese comics.
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 and the United Kingdom, speakers typically pronounce the word as /ˈćnɪˌmei/.
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") or "les dessins
animés" (animated drawings.) Occasionally in English the word is
seen written as animé, with an acute accent on the final e to
let one know that it is pronounced, but this follows no standard transliteration scheme for Japanese.
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.
In more recent years, anime has also frequently been referred to as manga by many, a
practice that may stem from the Japanese usage. In Japan, manga refers to both animation and comics. Among English speakers,
manga usually has the stricter meaning of "Japanese comics". An alternate explanation is that it is due to the prominence of
Manga Entertainment, a distibutor of anime to the US and UK
markets.
The voice actors for anime usually bear the Japanese equivalent
designation, seiyū.
History
- Main article: History of anime
Though filmmakers in Japan had been experimenting with animation beforehand, the first widely popular anime series was
Osamu Tezuka's Astro
Boy in 1963. During the 1970s, anime
developed further, separating itself from its Western roots, and developing unique genres such as mecha. Notable shows in this period include Lupin III and
Mazinger Z.
In the 1980s, anime found itself accepted in the mainstream in Japan, and experienced
a boom in production. The start of the Gundam franchise, and the beginnings of Rumiko Takahashi's career have their roots here. Akira set records in 1988 for the
production costs of an anime.
The 1990s and 2000s saw the increased
acceptance of anime in overseas markets. Cowboy Bebop was widely
popular in Japan and attracted attention in the West. Spirited
Away shared the first prize at the 2002 Berlin Film Festival and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003, and Innocence: Ghost in
the Shell was featured at the 2004 Cannes
Film Festival.
Characteristics
Anime features a wide variety of genres and unique artistic styles which varies from
artist to artist. It can have as many genres as live action cinema, including
adventure, science
fiction, children's stories, romance, medieval fantasy, erotica (hentai),
occult/horror, action. 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 is often an explicitly commercial art form; producers and marketers aim for very specific audiences, with focused
categories for shōnen (boys) and shōjo (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 also limited
animation.)
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 Yasuo 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 OVA series also forego
shortcuts found in most other anime.
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.
Anime has been available in the North America and Europe for some time. Anime releases there are usually dubbed into the language of the country in which they are released. Anime series are also sometimes edited by
Western distributors to remove what they feel local audiences would
consider to be objectionable content. This is especially true with series that are marketed to children, such as the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime (Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel
Monsters in Japan) produced by Nihon Ad Systems and Pokémon. In other cases, editing is done to change content to make it easier for
Western viewers to understand. Some anime enthusiasts object to one or both forms of editing. Those viewers often watch anime
titles in DVD format, because DVD releases are typically unedited and often include both the
dubbed audio and the original Japanese audio with subtitles. Another advantage of
DVD releases is that there are no commercials, unlike in
television releases. Although it is a violation of copyright laws in most countries, some fans also watch fansubs, recordings of anime series that have been subtitled by fans. The ethical implications of producing,
distributing, or watching fansubs is a topic of much controversy. See fansub for
further discussion of those ethical issues.
Mainstream anime is often very stylized. Because of this stylization certain features or concepts have become so common that
they have been given names of their own. Often in comedic anime, characters that are shocked or surprised will perform a "face
fault", in which they take an extremely exaggerated expression. Angry characters may exhibit a "vein" effect, where four lines
vaguely in the shape of a pair of crossed veins will appear on their forehead. Angry women will sometimes summon a mallet from
nowhere and strike someone with it, leading to the concept of Hammerspace.
Embarrassed characters will invariably produce a massive sweat-drop, which has become something of a stereotype of anime.
More auteuristic schools of anime don't use such shorthands or find different but similar ways to express the same thing.
FLCL is known for more wild exaggerated stylized emotions than in most mainstream works. In
contrast an Isao Takahata film like Only Yesterday takes a much more realistic approach emphasizing realism over stylization.
Another unique aspect of anime not found in other commercial animation markets is the lack of a directoral system. In most
animation produced around the world animators are all forced to conform to a set style by the director or animation director. In
Japan starting with the animation director Yoshinori Kanada (as a means to save time and money) each animator brings his/her own style to the work.
The most extreme exampels of this can be found in Mindgame or The Hakkenenden. The Hakkenenden is particularly extreme showing constanly shifting styles of
animation based upon the key animator that worked on that particular episode. This approach combined with Otsuka's "money shots"
make key animators important individuals in the style and production of an anime film.
Many non-Japanese cartoons are starting to incorporate mainstream anime shortcuts and symbols as a result of the tremendous
growth of the form.
Notable names in anime
The following section is devoted to those artists 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.
Production of anime
- Shōji Kawamori is a
renowned mecha designer, having received awards even from Japanese industries and
companies.
- Shinichi Watanabe, also known as "Nabeshin", directed and
appeared in the popular parody anime Excel Saga, and is well-known for
his gonzo animation style.
Manga artists
The work of prominent manga (Japanese comics) artists often has an impact of anime,
even when they are not themselves directly involved in anime.
- Akira Toriyama is the author of the Dragon Ball manga, which was later adapted into the incredibly popular Dragon Ball and
Dragon Ball Z anime series. He is also known for his character
design in Chrono Trigger. His work has also inspired other manga
artists in their creations.
- Go Nagai's contributions to anime and manga compare with Jack Kirby's work in comic books.
Nagai pioneered several genres and for years many producers imitated his style. His action-packed science fiction series featured among the first anime widely broadcast in the United States (under
the American titles Force Five and Tranzor Z). Most of these works were originally written by Nagai as manga.
- Rumiko Takahashi, one of the wealthiest women of Japan, is the
mind behind the popular Maison Ikkoku, Ranma 1/2, Urusei
Yatsura and InuYasha manga. These titles were brought into anime to
enjoy even more success. Nearly all of her series are long-running, spanning many volumes and episodes upon television
adaption.
Others who have influenced anime
- Satoshi Tajiri's game series, Pokémon, inspired the famous anime series of the same name, with over six seasons on television and seven
movies. Pokémon has also spawned an entire genre of imitators to cash in on the success of the series.
Types of anime
Production types
Most anime can be categorized as one of three types:
- Films, which are generally released in theaters, represent the highest budget
and generally the highest video quality. Popular anime movies include Akira and Spirited Away. Some anime films
are only released at film or animation festivals and are shorter and sometimes lower in production values. Some examples of these
are Winter Days and Osamu Tezuka's Legend of the Forest.
- OVA (Original Video Animation; sometimes OAV, or Original
Animated Video) anime is often similar to a television miniseries. OVAs are
typically two to twenty episodes in length; one-shots are particularly short,
usually less than film-length. They most commonly released directly to video. As a general rule OVA anime tends to be of high
quality, approaching that of films. Titles tend often have a very regular, continuous plot which is best enjoyed if all episodes
are viewed in sequence. Popular OVA titles include Bubblegum
Crisis and Tenchi Muyo.
- Television series anime is syndicated and
broadcast on television on a regular schedule. Television series
are generally low quality compared to OVA and film titles, because the production budget is spread out over many episodes rather
than a single film or a short series. Most episodes are about 23 minutes in length, to fill a typical thirty-minute time slot
with added commercials. One full season is 26 episodes,
and many titles run half seasons, or 13 episodes. It is common for subsequent episodes to be completely unrelated to each other,
so viewers can enjoy the show even if an episode is missed. All TV series anime episodes will have opening credits, closing credits, and often an "eyecatch", a very short scene, often humorous or silly, that is used to
signal the start or end of the commercial break. "Eyecatch" scenes are only found in TV series anime. Opening credits may be
found in OVA releases, but that is not a certainty. These features are not found in movies.
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, three television series, and several spinoff titles and specials.
Other types of releases include compilation movies,
which are television episodes edited together and presented in theaters for various reasons, and are hence a concentrated form of
a television serial. It may, however, be longer than the average movie. The reverse, an
anticompilation movie, is simply an exploitation
of the characters. These are of lower quality and of shorter length than a feature film.
By target audience
Shōjo anime is intended for girls. Most anime is assumed to be shōnen, 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 shōjo.
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
References
- Clements, Jonathan and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 2001. ISBN 1880656647.
- Poitras, Gilles. Anime Companion. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 1998. ISBN 1880656329.
- Poitras, Gilles. Anime Essentials. Berkeley, Calif.: Stone Bridge Press, 2000. ISBN 1880656531.
External links
- Anime News
Network (http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/): one of the premiere anime news
sources on the net. Also has weekly columns, an extremely extensive encyclopedia of series, companies, and industry
professionals, lexicon, forums and a chat room.
- Anime on DVD (http://www.animeondvd.com/): a site with extensive reviews of anime DVDs. Their web forums
are also frequented by industry professionals.
- Anime News
Service (http://www.animenewsservice.com/): news site dedicated to offering
news items, press releases and interviews.
- AniDB (http://www.anidb.net): database of anime series, files (hashes), fansub groups, DVD rips,
etc.
- Crystal Acids:
English Voice Actor & Production Staff Database (http://www.crystalacids.com/database/): database logging the English production staff who
work on anime titles.
- Anime Tropes (http://tvwiki.sytes.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AnimeTrope): common cliches and visual
cues.
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