Japanese Anime

Description

Anime is a type of Japanese animation that is both hand-drawn and computer-generated. Anime is a term used outside of Japan and in English to refer to Japanese animation, notably animation created in Japan.

Early anime films were largely aimed at the Japanese market, and as a result, numerous cultural allusions specific to Japan were included. The huge eyes of anime characters, for example, are often regarded in Japan as multidimensional "windows to the soul."

However, anime (a term derived from a contraction of the English word animation) refers to any animated works, regardless of style or origin, in Japan and in Japanese. Anime-influenced animation is a term used to describe animation created outside of Japan that has a similar style to Japanese animation.

Although anime is primarily aimed towards children, mature themes and subject matter can occasionally be found in anime films. The foundation of Mushi Productions by Osamu Tezuka, a prominent character in contemporary manga, the rich, novelistic Japanese comic book form that contributed substantially to the aesthetic of anime, began in 1956 and reached enduring popularity in 1961.

Anime like Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (1997) is the modern counterpart of Japanese masters like Mizoguchi Kenji and Kurosawa Akira's epic folk adventures. With the Pokémon television series and films like Miyazaki's Spirited Away (2002), which won an Academy Award for best animated feature film, anime began to gain considerable international recognition around the turn of the twenty-first century, animes like One Piece (you can find some interesting things about this anime here), Naruto or Dragon Ball are examples of popular anime in this century.

License

Public Domain