Early days of Anime

As soon as we talk about anime, the name of Japan instantly comes to our mind! It is quite natural though as the birthplace of anime is none other than this ‘Land of the rising sun’. Thus, it all started during the 1900 when Japan’s own film industry was created. Now anime has become one with the cultural features of the country. So, let us know about anime in greater details.

    Technological up-gradations

Initially, anime was dependent upon traditional techniques of animation like sketching directly on the films and moving them, making chalkboard graphics, creating series of paper layouts and flipping them sequentially to make an impression that they are moving, etc.

Researches were made in anime in the later stages to fine tune the works even more. Thus, the black and white world of anime gradually became colorful. Sound was incorporated into anime films and videos. Multi-plane camera technique was introduced to add depth and dimension to anime sequences and the revolutionary cell animation was used in anime productions to make anime movies and videos more realistic. Software like render farm and all are used today to make the outputs even more polished.

    Transitional role of anime

Today anime is one of the traditional yet modernized mediums of entertainment in Japan as well as all over the world. Anime films and anime movies attract audience of different sexes and ages. But things were a bit different during the time of World War II. During that time anime served as an important tool to propagate nationalism among the Japanese population. Thus, anime was the exclusive property of the government organizations and commercial institutions till the end of world war. It was a medium of propaganda that was used to make campaigns on several issues.

    Phases of development

Around the year 1998, the first attempt was made to give anime a different dimension. The effort was made by Toei which was a theatrical company that was set up in the same year and was exclusively devoted to entertainment.

The first animated film that was featured was one of the Walt Disney productions as it always had a permanent worldwide acclaim. A typical Japanese anime that was created and released in the United States in 1961 was Shōnen Sarutobi Sasuke, a movie based on ninja and sorcery. However, it could not hit the box office at all!

This made Toei think in terms of popularizing anime through TV series. Hence, during 60s Toei involved itself full-fledged in anime TV shows. ‘Sally the Witch’ by Mitsuteru Yokoyama was adapted for television by the firm. Following this, another heavily influential anime ‘Cyborg 009’ of Ditto Shotaro Ishinomori was also adapted for television by Toei. TCJ/Eiken now joined the bandwagon with the TV adaptation of Tetsujin 28-go.

Later on, anime transcended the borders of Japan and successfully casted its foothold in the Western World with works like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashōmon, Astro Boy, Tezuka’s Kimba the White Lion, etc.