zion essay

The Post-War Roots of Anime and Manga
By Lee Zion

The (modern) Japanese comics industry has been tremendous since the 1950s, due to the influence of the post-war, U.S. occupation. In Japan, it is commonplace to see adults reading phonebook-sized comic books on the (commuter) trains. Subject matter varies from children's stories to teen adventures to girl's romance novels to soft porn. Since many Japanese comic strips, or manga, are later adapted into television cartoons, or anime, and many TV series later become comic strips, the history of one is basically the history of the other.

The late Osamu Tezuka revolutionized both industries. As a comic artist, he used American-style pacing and close-ups, as if a movie were unfolding before readers' eyes. Previously, most artists drew the events as if they were unfolding on a stage, and the readers were viewing the action from beyond the proscenium arch. His works became tremendously popular in Japan in the post-war period. In 1963, one of his comics,Tetsuwan Atomu, was adapted for television and became a worldwide smash hit. (Most Americans) would know it by its English-language title: Astro Boy.

For the next quarter century, many Japanese TV shows made it to American shores, but most viewers were unaware of the foreign origin. Kimba the White Lion was originally Junguru Taitei. Battle of the Planets was originally Kugaku Ninja-Tai Gatchaman. Voltron was originally two different shows combined, X-15 and Go! Lions!. Only a handful of college kids saw these in the original (form) in all that time.

By 1988, a more mainstream American audience was beginning to discover truly Japanese animation. The domestic release of many theatrical features around this time fueled an interest: Akira, Robot Carnival, Ghost in the Shell and so forth. Each title opened the door a bit wider for every other title that followed, but it took until roughly 2000 before anime fandom really took off stateside. Several factors were responsible for this. First, the Cartoon Network began showing series that were more for teen or adult audiences, such as Cowboy Bebop and Full Metal Alchemist. Previously, the only Japanese-made material most people got to see on stateside television was kiddie fare such as Pokemon and Sailor Moon. Second, the arrival of the dual-format DVD made it possible for viewers to watch a show both in English and in the original Japanese with subtitles, further increasing interest.

As for American interest in manga, that also took a long time. In the 1980s, a few English-language adaptations of Japanese titles began showing up in American comic book stores. Most of these were titles that Americans were already familiar with, for example, comic-book adaptations of the TV series Robotech or the movie Akira. In the 1990s, several companies sprung up which specialized in Japanese comics, Japanese videos or both. Viz began releasing Ranma ½, both the TV show and the comic it was based on, in about 1993, but it took until roughly 2000 before English-translated manga took off in the United States. That was when companies abandoned the 20-pages-a-month comic book format sold in specialty comic book shops in favor of paperback novel-sized collections sold in mainstream book stores. Interestingly enough, for purists' sake, most of the English-translated manga novels read right-to-left, the same as the original Japanese versions. Previously, they had been "flipped."

Nowadays, it is easy to go into a Barnes & Noble or Borders and find a large manga section, along with a good representation of anime. Similarly, video outlets such as Suncoast and Sam Goody often have a large anime selection and several volumes of manga.

That's about it, but I'll close by mentioning Rumiko Takahashi, the most successful female comic book artist in the world. All of her major strips—Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, Ranma ½ and now Inu Yasha—have been adapted into TV series. Inu Yasha, the serialized adventures of a half-demon dog boy and the woman who loves him, went off the air in October 2004 after a five-year run.