American Nazis and Benevolent Japanese: A Comparative History of Animation and Comics (Part 2)Jun 15 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line The Second and final part of my series, covering from the end of the 1970s to current times, and future trends.
This is the second and final in my series about the development of animation/comics here and over in Japan. It is recommended that you read the first part which can be found at http://www.epinions.com/content_1674813572/tk_~CB003.1.2, simply copy this into your address bar and you will be all set to read part one. Part two will discuss animation/comics from the Late 1970s to current times. The Late 70s: The Rise of Giant Robots, and About Leji Matsumoto The Giant Robot, a huge genre of anime and manga these days, actually had a rather modest start. Giant Robot shows can be divided into three major groups, The Power Ranger like shows (known as sentai), the Post Gundam war epics (such as Gundam, and Macross), and most recently Post Evangelion shows (Gasaraki). The giant robot shows started with the sentai genera, where there would be one indestructible robot, and he would always save the day. None of that material was ever aimed at anyone over the age of 11. Then in 1979 Yoshiyuki Tomino and the rest of Studio Sunrise (a bunch of disgruntled animators from Toho) came up with a new series, Mobile Suit Gundam. Gundam was initially unsuccessful, and was canceled early, but on its second and third run it began to draw a huge following. Eventually 3 movies (that were a digest of the series) were released and it was wildly successful, spawning what has now been twenty years of Gundam related series, and transformed the Giant Robot genera, making it more experimental, so such later shows like Patlabor and Evangelion could be made. The Space Opera that was Gundam was influenced by an earlier manga-ka name Leji Matsumoto. Leji Matsumoto was one of the pioneers in Japan of animation not solely aimed at children. With his sprawling space epics that dealt with very complex issues he became (and still is) one of the most famous manga-ka in Japan. One of his series, Space Battle Cruiser Yamato was sold over here as StarBlazers. StarBlazers was quite monumental for anime in the United States, it was the first series where very little editing had been done to it and much of the original storyline was kept intact. StarBlazers had developed a large cult following of mostly high school aged people in America, but sadly the excellence of the US presentation didn't last. In the final season the voice acting was reduced to a lot of familiar names from Speed Racer and more was cut out of the story thus losing its large following. The 1980's: The Golden Age of Anime Japan's economy in the 80s had reached a new high, many people thought that Japan's economy would be unstoppable (30 years of growth). This growth in the Economy caused a boom in anime. Among the things that this growth produces were more and more theatrical releases and the OVA (Original Video Animation) was developed. The OVA market began with Mamoru Oshii's (Ghost in the Shell) first work, as writer and director Moon Base Dallos (Sadly, butchered in the United States by the idiots at Best Video, the company that turned Macross: Do You Remember Love? into the hideously dubbed and edited Macross: Clash of the Bionoids). This first OVA didn't sell very well, but what really caused the OVA market to take off was a series called Megazone 23. This made for video movie was a smash hit, and caused the OVA market to have much high quality animation, some which are superior to TV series. On the flip side it created many notorious animation, such as a new genera that often featured schoolgirls being raped by tentacle monsters. This anime pornography became known as Hentai (Japanese for pervert). Mostly unknown in Japan, hentai, gave anime a horrible reputation in the fledgling US anime market. Movies became more diverse, with films such as Angel's Egg. Angel's Egg was an art film by Mamoru Oshii, that featured very little dialogue and a very personal story about how he had rejected Christianity. Mamoru Oshii had led the way by transforming a goofy anime by Rumiko Takahashi (Urusei Yatsura) in to a philosophical film (that was still quite funny) about dreams (Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer). Other artists began to experiment, these included the people of the soon to be established Studio Ghibli and Studio Gainax. The Rise of Studio Ghibli, Japan's Premiere Animation Studio After doing the final episode of the last Lupin Series, Miyazaki had something brewing in his mind. That something you could see very clearly starting to emerge in Castle of Cagliostro. This something was a new manga that he was working on, and is considered today to be the greatest manga ever written Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind(Cagliostro featured many things that reminded me of Nausicaä, in particular Princess Clarise, a near clone of Princess Nausicaä). The manga was so popular that Tokuma Shoten (the publisher of Animage, the magazine that it was featured in) decided to have Miyazaki make a film based on it. Miyazaki accepted the offer and had Topcraft (the animation studio, that did the animation for The Last Unicorn and The Hobbit) be the animation studio. The Nausicaä movie came out in 1984, and was fairly successful. So after producing Nausicaä TopCraft, formed the basis of the new Studio Ghibli, whose first film was Laputa: The Castle in the Sky. This film was very successful and led to the production of one of the most gut-wrenching movies Grave of the Fireflies and one of the most upbeat My Neighbor Totoro, which were both shown as a double feature. Ghibli continued to make very high quality productions that after Totoro consistently beat Disney movies at the Japanese box office. Studio Gainax: Young Obsessed Fans Make A 8 Million Dollar Movie Studio Gainax got its start at Japan's largest sci-fi convention, DaiCon, where they produced "DaiCon Films" a famous series of very popular fan produced anime. DaiCon Films as they came to call themselves, wanted to do something that only Ghibli had done before them. Create a feature length anime that featured a completely different world, and was not based on a manga. This film became known as Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise. Daicon Films, now calling themselves Studio Gainax, had a hard time getting this film off the ground. The budget was an unheard of $8 million dollars, but after showing the short film version to Bandai, they were able to get distribution. Unfortunately despite the incredible amount of work put into Honneamise (Miyazaki was reportedly even impressed) it tanked at the Box Office, causing Gainax severe money problems. Although unsuccessful in its initial run it has received a lot of critical acclaim both in Japan and abroad, as one of the first truly sophisticated anime productions outside of Ghibli. Akira and the End of the Golden Age Budgets for Theatrical anime kept getting bigger every year. The largest of this time period was Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira. Akira beat Honneamise with a budget of over $10 million. This budget combined with the amazing amount of work one can get out of the Japanese, produced a film that was technically (Frame rates, etc) comparable to a Disney movie, but content wise was still very much anime. Akira didn't do well in Japan, or during the initial theatrical run in the United States (this was the first anime to receive a theatrical release in the states). But in the US Akira became a cult classic, and is somewhat the basis of the current anime market over here. Akira was also a kind of turning point, after its production, the Japanese bubble economy burst, and the amount of TV series, OVAs, and movies being produced dropped. In fact in the early 90s there was an anime bust, where many companies had gone under due to lower sales. Gainax managed to revitalize the television market by releasing the TV series Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (Nadia bears a strange resemblance to a recent Disney flick, Atlantis: The Lost Empire only time will tell if the two are similar only by coincidence). This series was very popular in Japan, and managed to save the almost bankrupt Gainax. TV series began to be produced in a larger number thanks to the success of this series, but the 1990s would prove to be not a good time for anime in its native country. What about America? While a tremendous amount of advancement was happening in Japan, the United States was still dominated by Disney and superheroes. Their were a few developments though, that began to widen American's view on animation and comics. The first started with Matt Groening's the wickedly funny, alternative comic strip Life in Hell. James L. Brooks the producer of The Tracy Ulman Show had read Groening's comic and liked it so much that he asked Groening to do a Life in Hell short before every commercial break. Matt didn't want to give up the rights to Life in Hell, so he quickly produced a family known as the Simpsons. The Simpsons was very successful (and possibly the only reason many people, including myself, watched the show) on the Tracy Ulman Show so successful that they had their own Prime Time animated series by 1990. The Simpsons generated a huge amount of controversy. Here was the first animated series that was aimed at adults (even epinions has a problem, they put The Simpsons under kids and family) in almost 30 years (most people had forgotten that The Flintstones was originally aimed at adults). Parents had complained bitterly that animation was for children and The Simpsons was totally inappropriate for them. Luckily The Simpsons has been an incredible success, becoming the longest running Prime time animated series in American television history and spawning a trend in alternative animated series on American television (although no where near the 40% of Japanese television that is animated). On the side of comics, things looked much worse. The mainstream market was dominant over all other markets, and even that one was failing. Alternative comics were still very small, and didn't have too much support. Then came a fluke. In 1989 Neil Gaiman released The Sandman. Originally supposed to be a remake of an old superhero The Sandman became much more than that. It became a philosophical journey through time and dimensions, into the human spirit, and even to hell, it became a rare comic that was actually valued more for its writing than its collectablity. Amazingly The Sandman was very successful and became the start of DC comics alternative division DC Vertigo, whose titles are among the most popular of the alternative market. The 1990s: Anime's Emergence in America, and Slow Decline in Japan In the early 1990s the anime market had turned south. Not to say that their still weren't successful or artistically expanding anime still being produced (such as Mamoru Oshii's two Patlabor movies, movies that were thoughtful and philosophical about a lot of different topics, including even the bubble economy in Japan). Less risky series and movies were being produced. Although Akira was not very successful in Japan, Katsuhiro Otomo continues to work on sophisticated projects. One of these was the excellent Memories movie anthology, that featured Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue) writing the first and most critically acclaimed segment. (If epinions had a review slot for memories, I would give it 5 stars; it is one of my favorites!) Oddly Memories is one of the few big budget releases not released in America in the last 10 years. Most big budget releases these days go to the United States. One of the most successful of these was Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell, a film that was partially funded by British company Manga Entertainment. This release became one of the most popular and highly regarded anime, and a sequel is in the works from the same team. Other releases include Satoshi Kon's excellent physiological thriller Perfect Blue, which is completely different than any other anime around. Another milestone was the release of Princess Mononoke, which actually featured famous actors playing the voices of the characters, which brings me to my next section. Disney and Studio Ghibli As I stated earlier films from Studio Ghibli, have consistently beaten out films from Disney released at the same time. As a response to this, Disney has bought worldwide distribution rights of most of Studio Ghibli's work. Many people in the anime community are puzzled by Disney's distribution, on one hand they do high quality adaptations, on the other they don't even market them. Here is a company that can re-release old movies and still make good money on them in theaters, a company that can make garbage like Pearl Harbor be the top grossing film for several weeks. Yet when they get a truly excellent movie like Princess Mononoke, they can't market it worth anything, they don't even try! Mononoke did horrible in the US Box Office only earning $5 million (compared to $193 million in Japan, which I have read is comparable to $400 million in the US box office). Some believe that Disney is doing it simply for to have dominance in the Japanese market, and completely ignore fans elsewhere in the world. Others think that because Ghibli presents so much of a threat to Disney that they are willing to crush Ghibli films in the United States. Whatever the problem may be, the anger from fans continues to mount because of practices such as with Castle of the Sky which was supposed to be released in 1999! It is 2001 and I am still waiting for my copy. During the 1990s the manga market continues to expand into new territory. I have heard of manga for everything from books about the world economy to cooking. In 1994 Hayao Miyazaki finally finished Nausicaä after 12 years of work. Masamune Shirow, is very popular for doing sci-fi, such as Ghost in the Shell and his still uncompleted Appleseed. The thing that is unique about Shirow is that he is so popular that he is one of the few manga-ka that has color pages. In fact GITS2 is reported to have the first 60 pages in full color. Some Hope for America During the 1990s there has been some growth in animation. Many non-children shows are beginning to air (in part because of the success of The Simpson's) such as South Park, a crudely animated series with crude, but often hilarious humor. Cartoon Network (GASP!) a couple of days ago announced an adult block every Thursday and Sunday after 10 PM starting on September 3rd. Most of the adult oriented animation in America are comedies. Dramatic series such as Steven Spielberg's Invaision America Failed. (What is interesting about Invaision America is that it received decent ratings, but the WB network dropped it out of prime time, edited the objectionable content, and had it rebroadcast during their kids lineup, much to the dismay of the series fans) Most of these comedies were unsuccessful, but some such as South Park have been successful enough to have a movie made out of it. One thing is sure, the viewpoint of animation is gradually changing, with the insurgence of Cartoon Network's Toonami line up, more and more people are being introduced to anime which could cause more alternative animation to be produced in the US. Several new Saturday morning cartoons have proven to be of interest. The most interesting one was Batman: The Animated Series (unlike many of the Batman comics, this series featured mostly great writing). The Batman series not only attracted children, but a fairly large teenaged audience, due to its sophisticated (for Saturday Morning) writing, good direction, and great acting. The most recent incarnation of this series directed by Paul Dini (also known for work in the very short-lived Clerks animated series) featured heavy influence from anime. It was about a new Batman, going about Neo-Toky.. I mean Gotham, in the 21st century, hunting down the Clown.. I mean, Joker Gang, and passing by enormous buildings with Asian characters written on them. (You might have noticed that the anime that Batman Beyond was blatantly taking ideas from was none other than Akira) All we need is another series that is as popular as The Simpson's and I think animation will be much more diverse. In the comic market things are also looking up. Marvel became the first major publishers to abandon the Comic Code (which is no where near as strict as it was in the 1950s) with their own rating system. Due to the bust in the comic market, Marvel and other publishers are trying to get into the growing alternative market. Another thing that might inspire growth is that every year more and more manga is being imported. In fact I have read that manga is the fastest growing part of the comic market. Although things are looking up, we have a long way to go. The Future The biggest hit in Japan in the last decade was Neon Genesis Evangelion it provided a radically different story from the usual Gundam-based giant robot series and was very popular. Another popular series was Cowboy Bebop a cool, sci-fi film noir western that became the most popular series in 1998. Other than these few flukes, fewer and fewer anime are breaking the mold (particularly in the television market). Most series are done conservatively to save money. On another related topic, the OVA market is practically dead. The only OVA that has sold well over the last five years is Rurouni Kenshin: the Remembrance (probably because it was an excellent addition to a very popular series). What is the reason for this dry up? As Clinton would say, "It's the economy, stupid." According to a recent article in The Economist Japans economic growth has only been 1-1.5% over the last 10 years, making it have the lowest growth out of any of the 7 greatest world powers (G7 economies). The future of anime seems bleak, but that doesn't mean that it is still bad, many sophisticated theatrical releases are in the works. The most interesting of these is the new Vampire Hunter D (2001). Vampire will be released in Japan with a lot of support from American anime companies. The most interesting thing is that it will be shown in English with Japanese subtitles during its release over there. Its primary market will be in America where they are aiming to give it a wider release than Princess Mononoke. This may be the future of anime; more and more American co-funded/aimed projects will be in the works. Conclusion This article provided an in-depth look at how animation evolved both here and in Japan, something that I thought was necessary in order to understand Japanese animation. Thank you for all of the support of this article and I will probably be writing more in this topic eventually. This article was something that was lingering in my head, something that I wanted to make the world more informed about. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed putting the time in to write it! I didn't write this Bibliography formally because I hate doing so, so please don't leave comments about its format Major Sources www.nausicaa.net, Various articles, mostly dealing with Miyazaki or Takahata Animerica Vol. 4 no 2, 4 and 6. A History of Manga. http://gwu.edu/~koulikom/history.html A Brief History of Anime http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~animage/asindex.html A History of Anime parts 1-5. Reinventing Comics Scott McClould. 2000 Completely MAD: A History of the Comic Book and Magazine Maria Reidelbach. 1991 The Economist "Japan's Economy: Chronic Sickness," pg. 71 June 2nd-8th, 2001. With Special thanks to Patach (Patrick Cheng) for his information on the comic/animation industries. And also many other places, article on www.animenewsnetwork.com and many other minor websites and articles that I have read over the last few years. If there are any errors, please point them out  |
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