JAPAN ANIME

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Anime

"Animé" redirects here. For the oleo-resin, see Animé (oleo-resin).

Anime (Japanese: アニメ^?, [anime] ( listen); English ⁱ/ˈænɨmeɪ/) are Japanese animated productions usually featuring hand-drawn or computer animation. The word is the abbreviated pronunciation of "animation" in Japanese, where this term references all animation.^[1] In other languages, the term is defined as animation from Japan or as a Japanese-disseminated animation style often characterized by colorful graphics, vibrant characters and fantastic themes.^[2][3] Arguably, the stylization approach to the meaning may open up the possibility of anime produced in countries other than Japan.^[4][5][6] For simplicity, many Westerners strictly view anime as an animation product from Japan.^[3]

The earliest commercial Japanese animation dates to 1917, and production of anime works in Japan has since continued to increase steadily. The characteristic anime art style emerged in the 1960s with the works of Osamu Tezuka and spread internationally in the late twentieth century, developing a large domestic and international audience. Anime is distributed theatrically, by television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the internet and is classified into numerous genres targeting diverse broad and niche audiences.

Anime is a diverse art form with distinctive production methods and techniques that have been adapted over time in response to emergent technologies. The production of anime focuses less on the animation of movement and more on the realism of settings as well as the use of camera effects, including panning, zooming and angle shots. Diverse art styles are used and character proportions and features can be quite varied, including characteristically large emotive or realistically sized eyes.

The anime industry consists of over 430 production studios including major names like Studio Ghibli, Gainax and Toei Animation. Despite having a fraction of the domestic film market, anime achieves a majority of DVD sales and has been an international success after the rise of televised English dubs. This rise in international popularly has resulted in non-Japanese productions using the anime art style, but these works have been defined as anime-influenced animation by both fans and the industry.

Definition and usage

Anime is an art form, specifically animation, that includes all genres found in cinema, but it can be mistakenly classified as a genre.^[7]:7 In Japan, the term anime refers to all forms of animation from around the world.^[1][8] English-language dictionaries define anime as a "Japanese-style animated film or television entertainment" or as "a style of animation created in Japan".^[2][9]

The etymology of the word anime is disputed. The English term "animation" is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション (animēshon, pronounced [animeːɕoɴ]),^[3] and is アニメ (anime) in its shortened form.^[3] Some sources claim that anime derives from the French term for animation, dessin animé,^[10][11] but others believe this to be a myth derived from the French popularity of the medium in the late 1970s and 1980s.^[3] In English, anime, when used as a common noun, normally functions as a mass noun (for example: "Do you watch anime?", "How much anime have you collected?").^[12] 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.^[10][13] In general, the term now only appears in period works where it is used to distinguish and identify Japanese animation.^[13]

In 1987, Hayao Miyazaki stated that he despised the truncated word "Anime" because to him it represented the desolation of the Japanese animation industry. He equated the desolation with animators lacking motivation and mass-produced, overly expressive products which rely on fixed iconography for facial expressions and protracted and exaggerated action scenes but lack depth and sophistication because they do not attempt to convey emotion or thought.^[14]