Anime Network

Anime started in the small island nation of Japan and is now widely distributed across the globe, influencing large animation companies across many different countries. A large amount of movies, T.V. shows, and comic books Americans read are heavily influenced by Japanese animation. Despite starting out as a propaganda film, many people would find it surprising how popular anime is today. Anime started as black and white propaganda films for WWII. Today anime is in color, often using CGI animation. New technology, better understanding of animation, and more globalization has made this evolution possible. The first feature length anime was made in 1943 as a propaganda film. This film was called Momotarou and The Sea Eagle, and was directed by…

The first time I ever watched anime was when I accidentally rented a wrong DVD from a rental store. When I realized my mistake rather than returning the CD, I decided to keep it. The show was called Naruto when I first watched Naruto it was dubbed in English. So it was a big surprise finding out when I went to watch the rest of the episodes online they were in Japanese. Since I had never heard or spoke Japanese the first few video I saw I had to guess what was going on plot wise and what the…

Popular culture and worldwide interest in Japanese productions often stems from Japanese television. For instance, the privately owned television network NTV is the highest rated network in Japan and since 2002 has regularly acquired top ratings for the all day, primetime, and golden time. Programming on NTV includes popular anime, dramas, news and games for audiences who are from all the around the world. In addition, in the anime industry, starting in 1989 with the release of Akira, anime has…

for streaming anime. It is “the leading global video service for Japanese anime and Asian media” (Crunchyroll). The company was founded by 3 UC Berkley graduates in 2008: Kun Gao, James Lin, and Brandon Ooi. Originally, CR was intended to be a “YouTube for Asian TV” (Orsni) where viewers would upload shows, without a license for others to watch, but Gao and his partners ended up going to Japan to try and get things done legally. TV Tokyo, the largest anime publisher in the world, accepted an…

Traditionally, Anime is defined as animation only created in Japan. With the creation of Rwby, Rooster Teeth Productions has single-handedly redefined the traditional definition. Rooster Teeth Productions cooperated with Moyreak (Monty) Oum to create Rwby in thus ushering in a new era of Anime. It is a story of four young girls trying to find their place in the world, all while battling monsters, facing their inner demons, and balancing their social lives. The shows main protagonistic team for…

thwarting or at least attempting to thwart a major threat to Japan. In Doctor Akagi this is the potential diabetes epidemic, for Akira it is the re-awaking of Akira and the subsequent threat to Neo-Tokyo. Both movies are fiercely critical of the society in which they are set: the government is corrupt and complacent; the army is dangerous and destructive. Individual freedoms and common sense is subordinated to greater and often quite abstract goals; such as the glorious war victory in Doctor…

three sources of soft power. Firstly, in terms of culture, culture is a piece of art and any other forms of that people can share their values, behavior, norms, language, and even the way people’s live (Defense Language and National Security Education Office, 2016). For a country that has been successfully established soft power diplomacy for long time, Japanese is often identic with manga and anime which became part of Japanese pop culture (Kelsky, 2001, p. 548). Historically, before the term…

Spirited Away, the anime film directed by Hayao Miyazaki, depicts a fantasy story of a young girl Chihiro accidentally enters a town ruled by witches and gods. Chihiro need to find a job in order to survive and save her parents who are turned into pigs. During her stay, Chihiro works hard and finally finds a way to save her parents and go back to the real world. In this essay, I want to discuss how does Spirited Away reflected issues of Japanese society in 1990s. Japan experienced strong…

Hayao Miyazaki, an influential Japanese film director who has produced animated films that still remain popular both in Japan and worldwide. Throughout this essay, one of his most famous animated films “My Neighbor Totoro” will be discussed, exploring the religious elements used in the film, based on a comparison of Shinto and Buddhism. This should help us understand how Miyazaki delivers the message that nature is sacred. To understand the religious elements of the film, we should discuss the…

When you see different TV shows and movies, you tend to notice that they look different. Why does Gumby look different from Bambi? It narrows down to the animation. Films look different because of the style; it differs from artist to artist. Popular varieties include anime, CGI, 2D animation, stop-motion, Paint-on-Glass, and the list goes on. There are several kinds of animation, but the fundamental styles are drawn, cutout, stop motion, and computer. Drawn animation “is a sequence of drawings…