a preliminary history of american anime fandom

What was the first anime fandom?

According to Japanophile Fred Patten, the very first fan club devoted to Japanese animation was the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization, which began in Los Angeles in 1977.

What was the first popular anime in America?

Astro Boy, created by Osamu Tezuka, premiered on Fuji TV on January 1, 1963. It became the first anime shown widely to Western audiences, especially to those in the United States, becoming relatively popular and influencing U.S. popular culture, with American companies acquiring various titles from Japanese producers.

Has America ever made an anime?

"This is the first time any American-made anime has been marketed to Japan. It definitely usually works the other way around, and we're really pleased about that," said Matt Hullum, CEO of Rooster Teeth. The series will get dubbed for the market and released in the region on Blu-ray and DVD in 2015.

What made anime popular in America?

As the internet and digital distribution began to explode, fans found it even easier to get a hold of original Japanese versions of their favorite anime shows and films. The influx was incalculable as distributors were being held to task for providing accurate adaptations of these shows.

What is the #1 anime?

Anime Top 10Top 10 Best Rated (bayesian estimate) (Top 50)#titlerating1Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (TV)9.082Steins;Gate (TV)9.043Clannad After Story (TV)9.028 more rows

What is the oldest anime on earth?

Namakura Gatana is the oldest existing anime short film, dating back to 1917. The film was lost until a copy was discovered in 2008. What is this? The Dull Sword is one of three works credited as a forerunner of Japanese animation films and is the only one that still exists.

Is anime inspired by America?

While anime is popularly perceived to be a uniquely Japanese art form, it has its roots in American animation of the early 20th century. Even today, some forty-six years after Ozamu Tezuka pioneered the first Japanese animated TV series, Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy), American culture has a heavy influence on the medium.

How popular is anime in America?

According to an article from Share America: “One way of measuring anime's popularity is the massive growth in attendance at anime conventions across the country. In its first year in 2002, the organizers of Anime Boston expected 500 attendees and 2,000 turned out. Recent crowds have consistently surpassed 20,000.”

Is anime popular in America 2021?

Literally the poster child for how popular anime is right now. A recent Bloomberg report revealed that North American demand for Japanese content is higher than it ever has been. NA audience demand for Japanese shows have gone up by 33% since last year in 2020.

What's the most watched anime in America?

What Are the United States' 10 Most Popular Anime?Naruto – 1,970,000.Demon Slayer – 1,510,000.Pokemon – 1,400,000.Jujutsu Kaisen – 1,040,000.My Hero Academia – 1,020,000.Attack on Titan – 817,000.One Piece - 572,000.Sailor Moon – 419,000.More items...•

What are the Big 3 in anime?

The Big Three refers to three very long and very popular anime, Naruto, Bleach and One Piece. The Big Three was a term used to describe the three most popular running series during their golden age in Jump's mid 2000s period - One Piece, Naruto and Bleach.

Is anime more popular in Japan or America?

It's more popular in Japan by a country mile, made by the Japanese for the Japanese. That's the way most Japanese things work, they're very focussed on what their own country's consumers want first, everyone else comes a very distant second.

What was the industry of anime in the 1990s?

It’s impossible to catalog the numerous series and films that made their way overseas in the 1990s. Anime was a fertile market for American distributors whose only production costs involved re-recording/rewriting dialogue as well as editing content and timing. Many television stations like the Sci-Fi Channel and Cartoon Network would run anime shows in specialized blocks aimed at older children and teenagers. Of these, Cartoon Network’s Toonami was the most influential in bringing several action-oriented anime shows to the widest possible audience.

What was the golden age of anime in the 1980s?

The 1980s – Robots, Robots, and More Robots (and Akira) The 1980s would become the golden age of anime as clear fandoms for the art form began to arise. In Japan, the otaku subculture started to grow.

What was the success of Astro Boy?

The success of Astro Boy led to a surge of anime shows being repurposed for American audiences. Fred Ladd also adapted another of Tezuka’s works, Kimba the White Lion , in 1966. Many have cited Kimba and its success as a potentially unintended inspiration for Disney’s The Lion King.

What was the last anime of the 60s?

The final big anime hit of the ’60s in America was Speed Racer in 1967. Producer Peter Fernandez, who had ghost-written American scripts for Astro Boy and Gigantor, took over adaptation duties and provided a number of voices for the characters.

What were the biggest anime hits in the 1990s?

The 1990s also provided Americans with their biggest anime cultural effects. Shows like Sailor Moon , Dragon Ball Z , and Gundam Wing were not only big hits in Japan but in America as well. The influx of other elements of Japanese pop culture began to take hold.

What anime was released in 1984?

Anime movies in Japan were taking off and the ones that made their way to America changed the game. Hayao Miyazaki was coming into his prime, though his big film, 1984’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind , would first see distribution in the states as a heavily edited version called Warriors of the Wind.

What was the most popular anime of the 70s?

The other seminal anime series for American audiences of the ’70s was Battle of the Planets ( Science Ninja Team Gatchaman in Japan). The superhero/sci-fi series was immensely popular and was re-adapted in the 1980s as G-Force.

1917: A Century Ago

The first animated film released in Japan, and therefore the first anime, was probably released in late 1916 or very early ‘17 by Shimokawa Oten, made with chalk, and less than five minutes long. The uncertainty comes from the fact that most early Japanese films were dismantled after the reels were finished.

The 1950s: Some Familiar Names Appear

After the war, we begin seeing names recognizable to even casual anime fans today. Japan Animated Films was founded in 1948, but you probably know them as Toei, the film company which bought Japan Animated Films in 1956 to create an animated division. They released Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent) in 1958.

The 1960s: Television

Prior to 1958, if you wanted to see animation, you had to go to a theater or have a wealthy friend with a projector and access to reels. Television changed that. The earliest animation to air on the fledgling medium was Mogura no Aventure (Mole’s Adventure). It was in color, used paper cut-outs, and was nine minutes long.

The 1970s: Robots, Literature, And Art

Tezuka left Mushi Pro in 1968 to found Tezuka Productions. Mushi Pro, facing budgetary difficulties and without its founder, closed in 1973.

The 1980s: The Golden Age

The 1980s are considered the “golden age” of anime and saw a huge explosion of genres and interest. Many factors contributed to this, including the introduction of VHS and children who were inspired by Tetsuwan Atom twenty years ago, growing up and becoming nostalgic for their favorite shows.

The 1990s: Crash

Budgets never go up indefinitely, of course. Japan’s economy crashed in 1991, and budgets were cut back and many anime film and OAV studios closed. Even in a recession, however, entertainment is always popular.

The 2000s: Computers And A Bubble

Since the mid-1930s, anime had been almost exclusively animated on cels. During the ‘90s, CGI became increasingly commonplace as a supplemental technique.

What was the first milestone in anime?

Some experts, such as Susan Napier, a Professor of Japanese Language and Literature, say that Akira marked the first milestone.

What year was Akira made?

The film Akira, which played in art theaters in December 1989 , produced a cult following that Poitras names the "Akira Generation". Akira inspired some to move on to other works but stalled many becoming an isolated work in their eyes, overshadowing the creative context of anime and manga it represented.

What is the anime and manga portal?

Anime and manga portal. v. t. e. Fan community. Anime and manga fandom (otherwise known as fan community) is a worldwide community of fans of anime and manga. Anime includes animated series, films and videos, while manga includes manga, graphic novels, drawings and related artwork.

What is manga and anime in the classroom?

Teaching anime text in an English classroom setting is something to be experimented to see how it shapes the relationship between teachers and students. Manga and anime texts are new in Western education.

What is an otaku?

Otaku is a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests, including anime, manga or video games . In its original context, the term otaku is derived from a Japanese term for another's house or family ( お宅, otaku ), which is also used as an honorific second-person pronoun. The modern slang form, which is distinguished from the older usage by being written only in hiragana (おたく) or katakana (オタク or, less frequently, ヲタク), or rarely in rōmaji, appeared in the 1980s. In the anime Macross, first aired in 1982, the term was used by Lynn Minmay as an honorific term. It appears to have been coined by the humorist and essayist Akio Nakamori in his 1983 series An Investigation of "Otaku" (『おたく』の研究, "Otaku" no Kenkyū), printed in the lolicon magazine Manga Burikko. Animators like Haruhiko Mikimoto and Shōji Kawamori used the term among themselves as an honorific second-person pronoun since the late 1970s. After its wild spread usage by other Japanese people, however, it became pejorative and increasingly offensive in the 1990s, implying that a person is socially inept. Otaku can be seen as being similar to the English terms geek or nerd .

What is fan service in anime?

Fan service is material in a series which is intentionally added to please the audience. Although fan service usually refers to sexually provocative scenes, it also refers more generally to events of little plot value designed to excite viewers or simply make them take notice, such as big explosions and battle scenes. When anime and manga are translated into English by U.S. companies, the original work is often edited to remove some of the fan service to make it more appropriate for U.S. audiences. Mike Tatsugawa explained this change as a result of a difference between cultural values of Japan and the U.S. In fact, some anime seem to feature little else other than fan service as their selling point. Some believe that the prevalence of fan service indicates a lack of maturity within the fandom; an editor of Del Rey Manga joked that manga Negima!, which contained fan service, should be rated as "for immature readers 16+" rather than for "mature readers 16+".

What is Crunchyroll?

One such outlet is Crunchyroll, a streaming service that lets users view popular anime from the past and new anime episodes released to the website. Crunchyroll was created in 2006 as a distribution outlet for anime. Crunchyroll has since evolved into becoming something more for fans in the anime community. They have added an addition to their website that allows anime and manga fans to get news about anime releases, events, and topics related to the community. This has also evolved to the creation of the Crunchyroll Expo. This exposition is a large scale event in San Jose, CA that allows anime and manga fans to connect. The streaming service also features a store where you can purchase anime related products such as: figures, Japanese snacks, apparel, posters, video games and manga.

When did the fandom start?

Fans of the literary detective Sherlock Holmes are widely considered to have comprised the first modern fandom, holding public demonstrations of mourning after Holmes was "killed off" in 1893, and creating some of the first fan fiction as early as about 1897 to 1902.

When was the term "fandom" first used?

Merriam-Webster's dictionary traces the usage of the term back as far as 1903. Many fandoms overlap. There are a number of large conventions that cater to fandom such as film, comics, anime, television shows, cosplay, and the opportunity to buy and sell related merchandise.

What is a fandom in comics?

A fandom is a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of empathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significant portion ...

What is the movie Slash about?

Slash is a movie released in 2016 about a young boy who writes slash fanfiction.

How did the rise of the internet affect the Grateful Dead?

This began with early engineers trading Grateful Dead set lists and discussing the setup of the band's concert speaker system , called the "Wall of Sound," on ARPANET, a precursor to the Internet. This led to tape trading over FTP, and the Internet Archive began to add Grateful Dead shows in 1995. Online tape trading communities such as etree evolved into P2P networks trading shows through torrents. After the birth of the World Wide Web, many communities adopted the practices of Deadhead fandom online.

When did science fiction fandom split from media?

Media fandom split from science fiction fandom in the early 1970s with a focus on relationships between characters within TV and movie media franchises, such as Star Trek and The Man from U.N.C.L.E..

When was the World Science Fiction Convention held?

Fans have held the annual World Science Fiction Convention since 1939, along with many other events each year, and has created its own jargon, sometimes called " fanspeak ". In addition, the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medievalist re-creation group, has its roots in science fiction fandom.

When did anime start?

and Canada began when the Japanese animated TV program Raideen (Yuushu Raideen; Brave Raideen) began to be broadcast on American Japanese-community channels, in February 1976.

What did the Japanese S-F animation show?

The Japanese s-f animation showed that somebody could still make animated cartoons that teenagers and young adults would be interested in. Second, they were before the Christmas 1975 introduction of the home video cassette recorder.

Who is the monkey punch?

A rare non-giant-robot favorite was Lupin III, a crime-caper-comedy from Tokyo Movie Shinsa based upon a manga by Monkey Punch. Monkey Punch was Kazuhito Kato, the first Japanese professional cartoonist after Osamu Tezuka to become friendly with American fans.

Who is the star child in Star Child?

Chobin (Hoshi no Ko Chobin; Chobin, the Star Child) was about a young alien prince (he looked like a short stalk of celery) who came to Earth near a forest, and made friends with Rori, a young human girl, and several talking forest animals. All the others were for little children.

Who killed the father in the movie?

The teenage hero’s scientist father is killed by evil space aliens (invariably shown with a demon’s horns; “foreign devils”) who plan to conquer Earth. The father had just invented, or found in the ruins of a prehistoric civilization, a mighty giant robot warrior which only the hero could “fade into” and pilot.