generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, anime refers specifically to animation produced in Japan.^[1] However, in Japan and in Japanese, anime (a term derived from a shortening of the English word animation) describes all animated works, regardless of style or origin. Animation produced outside of Japan with similar style to Japanese animation is commonly referred to as anime-influenced animation.

The earliest commercial Japanese animations date to 1917. A characteristic art style emerged in the 1960s with the works of cartoonist Osamu Tezuka and spread in following decades, developing a large domestic audience. Anime is distributed theatrically, through television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the Internet. In addition to original works, anime are often adaptations of Japanese comics (manga), light novels, or video games. It is classified into numerous genres targeting various broad and niche audiences.

Anime is a diverse medium with distinctive production methods that have adapted in response to emergent technologies. It combines graphic art, characterization, cinematography, and other forms of imaginative and individualistic techniques.^[2] Compared to Western animation, anime production generally focuses less on movement, and more on the detail of settings and use of "camera effects", such as panning, zooming, and angle shots.^[2] Diverse art styles are used, and character proportions and features can be quite varied, with a common characteristic feature being large and emotive eyes.^[3]

The anime industry consists of over 430 production companies, including major studios such as Studio Ghibli, Kyoto Animation, Sunrise, Bones, Ufotable, MAPPA, Wit Studio, CoMix Wave Films, Production I.G and Toei Animation. Since the 1980s, the medium has also seen widespread international success with the rise of foreign dubbed, subtitled programming, and since the 2010s its increasing distribution through streaming services and a widening demographic embrace of anime culture, both within Japan and worldwide.^[4] As of 2016, Japanese animation accounted for 60% of the world's animated television shows.^[5]

Etymology

As a type of animation, anime is an art form that comprises many genres found in other mediums; it is sometimes mistakenly classified as a genre itself.^[6] In Japanese, the term anime is used to refer to all animated works, regardless of style or origin.^[7] English-language dictionaries typically define anime (/ˈænɪmeɪ/)^[8] as "a style of Japanese animation"^[9] or as "a style of animation originating in Japan".^[10] Other definitions are based on origin, making production in Japan a requisite for a work to be considered "anime".^[11]

The etymology of the term anime is disputed. The English word "animation" is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション (animēshon) and as アニメ (anime, pronounced [a.ɲi.me] (listen)) in its shortened form.^[11] Some sources claim that the term is derived from the French term for animation dessin animé ("cartoon", literally 'animated drawing'),^[12] but others believe this to be a myth derived from the popularity of anime in France in the late 1970s and 1980s.^[11]

In English, anime—when used as a common noun—normally functions as a mass noun. (For example: "Do you watch anime?" or "How much anime have you collected?")^[13][14] As with a few other Japanese words, such as saké and Pokémon, English texts sometimes spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave it silent as English orthography may suggest. Prior to the widespread use of anime, the term Japanimation was prevalent throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the term anime began to supplant Japanimation;^[15] in general, the latter term now only appears in period works where it is used to distinguish and identify Japanese animation.^[16]

History

Precursors

Emakimono and kagee are considered precursors of Japanese animation.^[17] Emakimono was common in the eleventh century. Traveling storytellers narrated legends and anecdotes while the emakimono was unrolled from the right to left with chronological order, as a moving panorama.^[17] Kagee was popular during the Edo period and originated from the shadows play of China.^[17] Magic lanterns from the Netherlands were also popular in the eighteenth century.^[17] The paper play called Kamishibai surged in the twelfth century and remained popular in the street theater until the 1930s.^[17] Puppets of the bunraku theater and ukiyo-e prints are considered ancestors of characters of most Japanese animations.^[17] Finally, mangas were a heavy inspiration for anime. Cartoonists Kitzawa Rakuten and Okamoto Ippei used film elements in their strips.^[17]

Pioneers

Animation in Japan began in the early 20th century, when filmmakers started to experiment with techniques pioneered in France, Germany, the United States, and Russia.^[12] A claim for the earliest Japanese animation is Katsudō Shashin (c. 1907),^[18] a private work by an unknown creator.^[19] In 1917, the first professional and publicly displayed works began to appear; animators such as Ōten Shimokawa, Seitarō Kitayama, and Jun'ichi Kōuchi (considered the "fathers of anime") produced numerous films, the oldest surviving of which is Kōuchi's Namakura Gatana.^[20] Many early works were lost with the destruction of Shimokawa's warehouse in the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.^[21]

By the mid-1930s, animation was well-established in Japan as an alternative format to the live-action industry. It suffered competition from foreign producers, such as Disney, and many animators, including Noburō Ōfuji and Yasuji Murata, continued to work with cheaper cutout animation rather than cel animation.^[22] Other creators, including Kenzō Masaoka and Mitsuyo Seo, nevertheless made great strides in technique, benefiting from the patronage of the government, which employed animators to produce educational shorts and propaganda.^[23] In 1940, the government dissolved several artists' organizations to form the Shin Nippon Mangaka Kyōkai.^[a][24] The first talkie anime was Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka (1933), a short film produced by Masaoka.^[25][26] The first feature-length anime film was Momotaro: Sacred Sailors (1945), produced by Seo with a sponsorship from the Imperial Japanese Navy.^[27] The 1950s saw a proliferation of short, animated advertisements created for television.^[28]

Modern era

In the 1960s, manga artist and animator Osamu Tezuka adapted and simplified Disney animation techniques to reduce costs and limit frame counts in his productions.^[29] Originally intended as temporary measures to allow him to produce material on a tight schedule with an inexperienced staff, many of his limited animation practices came to define the medium's style.^[30]