Manga is said to originate from scrolls dating back to the 12th century; however, whether these scrolls are actually manga is still disputed. In fact The Zen cartoons of the medieval period and the ‘comic’ animal scrolls of the tenth century were the very first examples of manga. Later in the thirteenth century pictures of the afterlife and animals started to appear on temple walls, these drawings bared a striking resemblance to modern Manga
The in the 1600s Manga like drawings were drawn on wooden blocks commonly known as edo. Not long after Manga began appearing as ink drawings done with brush and quill. But then came the time were the Government of Japan began to ‘intimidate’ and ‘bully’ artist and writers son Manga production greatly declined. But Manga “hit the big one” when Japanese cartoonist, Osamu Tezuka, known as the God of Manga and Godfather of Anime, invented the distinctive large eyes prominent in both manga and anime. Then he created the manga series, Astro Boy, which went on to become the first Japanese television series that became known worldwide as anime.
Interesting FACT: Astro Boy isn’t the 1st Anime, it’s the second, the 1st was Katsudō Shashin.
(But it’s date and creator unknown)
The first “Anime” released (in Japan, or anywhere else in the world) was released in late 1916 or very early ‘17 by Shimokawa Oten, made with chalk, and less than five minutes long. It was known as Katsudō Shashin. But ther is some uncertainly, the uncertainty comes from the fact that most early Japanese films were dismantled after the reels were finished. What did survive that practice was largely lost. with the destruction of many film studios and theaters in the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, not to mention those destroyed in the bombings of World War 2, or those who simply disintegrated over time.
The first Japanese animated film we know for certain was commercially released was Dekobo Shingacho – Meian no Shippai which was relased in February of 1917
Interesting fact: 1917 also saw the release of nearly twenty short animated films in Japan! It was the midst of World War 1 and animation was a new curiosity.
Manga artists Oten Shimokawa and Junichi Kouchi and painter Seitaro Kitayama “the fathers of anime” were responsible for the Joy that would later become Anime. But the films they made did not look like modern Anime. The Animes of 1917 were exceedingly short, usually in the five-minute range, and they did not use color. These early films were made with chalk on a board, erasing and re-drawing the lines in-between camera takes. But this technique was quickly succeeded by the process of using paper cutouts instead these films were silent, but some were accompanied by live music and by “benshi,” storytellers who stood by the screen and narrated the film for the audience.
Yes the films looked different, the content of these ‘ancient anime’ would be familiar to anyone who watches anime today. These old stories told funny tales about samurai, brought Japanese folk tales to life, and promoted the Japanese mail system.
Another pioneer rose to prominence: Kenzo Masaoka. He debuted the first anime with synced, pre-recorded voices (a “talkie”) in 1933. Titled Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka, it was a rather salacious story about a man having an affair with his secretary after growing tired of his domineering wife. Not long after, in 1934, came Masaoka‘s Chagama Ondo (The Dance of the Chagamas), the first anime made entirely with cels. Animating with cels (characters and moving elements painted on transparent sheets of celluloid layered over each other and a background) was a vast improvement over chalk and paper cutouts, but it was a much more expensive. Studios had to get more creative in finding sources of funding. Many animators turned their hands to propaganda. Propaganda anime hit it’s “home run” during World War II and as result, the film studios grew larger with the additional funding. The first full-length anime film was Momotaro: Umi no Shinpei (Momotaro, Sacred Sailors), and was released in 1945, It was a propaganda film commissioned by the Japanese navy featuring anthropomorphic animals, its underlying message of hope for peace would “move a young manga artist named Osamu Tezuka to tears.”
After the war, the world famous Toei, the film company which bought Japan Animated Films in 1956, appeared. They released Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent) in 1958. With a runtime of 78 minutes, it was the first feature-length color anime film. It would come out in America three years later in 1961.
Interesting fact: Hakujaden was not the first anime to cross the Pacific.
Now By the late ‘50s Osamu Tezuka has become a pretty popular manga artist –he’s now referred to as the “god of manga.” In 1958, he began working with Toei to animate his series Boku no Son Goku (Son-Goku the Monkey King). After his contract expired, he left to found his own studio, Mushi Production, a.k.a. Mushi Pro for short, not long after some of Toei’s best animators came with him. Including the first woman animator in Japan that is know of, Kazuko Nakamura. She would later be the animation director for Ribon no Kishi (Princess Knight).
Interesting fact: Even if you haven’t heard of Mushi Pro, if you’ve seen any anime at all it’s very likely you’ve seen the work of at least one animator who “cut their teeth” at the famous studio.
Prior to 1958, if you wanted to see animation, you had to go to a theater or have a wealthy friend with a projector and access to reels, Television changed that. The earliest animation to air on “TV” was Mogura no Aventure (Mole’s Adventure). It was in color, used paper cut-outs, and was nine minutes long. Two years later in 1960, an experimental anime called Mittsu no Hanashi (Three Tales) was created and aired by NHK as a special. Comprised of three ten-minute segments telling fantasy tales, it would make the journey to the United States the next year, where it was the first anime to air on American television.
In 1961, the anime Otogi Manga Calendar began regularly airing on Japanese TV. Each episode explored “what happened on this day in history,” sometimes its animation was partnered with historical photographs. The episodes were only three minutes long, but the series notched up an impressive 312 episodes during its initial run. But thjat isn’t the same format of today, anime of today runs about twenty-five minutes when did that start happening?
In 1963, Tezuka and Mushi Pro debuted, Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy). Based on one of Tezuka’s most popular manga, the show starred a robot boy who lived with humans and regularly battled crime, aliens, and other robots. Anime had never been tried on TV in a half-hour timeslot before due to cost and deadline concerns. Fortunately Tezuka used what is called “limited animation”: techniques such as reducing the number of frames (images) per second of film, re-using cels, and putting different parts of a character, like the head or arms, on different layers of cels so that only the part of the body moving needed to be animated in each scene. He also saved time by using his original manga panels as storyboards, eliminating much of the need to write and layout individual episodes. Tetsuwan Atom was a huge success with high ratings, merchandise galore, and syndication in dozens of countries.
Many of the features we think of when we think of modern anime were codified by Tetsuwan Atom, including big eyes, robot battles, and stylized hair that is impossible to achieve in normal gravity or have normally.
Tele-Cartoon Japan (TCJ, or Eiken post-1969) jumped on the bandwagon with Sennin Buraku (Hermit Village) in the fall of 1963. Not long after came Tetsujin 28-Go (Iron Man No. 28), also from TCJ (hit the air just a month later in October)
Interesting fact: the first TV anime series for kids, the first TV anime series for adults, and the first giant-robot anime all came out over half a century ago in the very same year.
Jungle Emperor (Kimba the White Lion) debuted in the fall of 1965, the very first color anime TV series and a popular success. Toei put out the first “shojo” (targeted at girls between 6 and 15) and magical girl anime in 1966. Tezuka leaves Mushi Pro in 1968 to found Tezuka Productions. Mushi Pro closes in 1973. Several of its former animators founded studios of their own.
Interesting fact: Madhouse and Sunrise, both founded in fall 1972.
Anime continued to grow and define itself through the ‘70s, especially in regards to science fiction. The first space-opera series, Uchu Senkan Yamato (Space Battleship Yamato), debuted in 1974 from Group TAC.
Interesting fact: It told a serious and complex story and would be a huge influence on later Japanese sci-fi. In 1979, it was released in America as Star Blazers and sparked interest in American fans who liked more mature themes and over-arching plot than their Saturday morning cartoon offerings. By the end of the ‘70s, anime will be forever a part of Japanese culture. Animage, a magazine devoted to anime and manga, debuted in July 1978, giving fans a place to read the latest news and articles about their hobby. Soon, the term “otaku” would appear to describe those who were especially “intense” about their hobby/ anime/ manga.
Not long later two Japanese ‘cultural institutions’ made their appearance in 1979. Sunrise released Mobile Suit Gundam, in which were giant robots,science and politics.
Interesting fact: The show wasn’t actually too popular – until Bandai bought the merchandise rights and started releasing Gundam model kits. Since then, over 70 Gundam series, specials, and movies have been made and hundreds of millions of model kits sold.
Then came the “golden age”. The 1980s are considered the “golden age” of anime and saw a huge explosion of genres and interest.
Reason? There were many including the introduction of VHS and children who were growing up and becoming nostalgic for their favorite shows.
Then came the anime Urusei Yatsura in 1981 for Studio introduced the nowhich practically introduced practice of putting pop songs in the show’s opening and ending sequences.
Around this time (early ‘80s ) VHS and other home recording/playing devices were coming onto the market and anime was going strong. Urusei Yatsura became available on VHS in late 1983, and the OAV (original video animation, Japan’s version of a straight-to-DVD movie) was invented in the same year.
Interesting fact: No one was much interested in the first OAV, (Oshii’s Moon Base Dallos,) intill much later.
Another technological first in 1983 was CGI (computer generated imagery). TMS’s Golgo 13 used CGI in several scenes (most notably to show helicopters circling a skyscraper) It was the first significant use of CGI in an animated film not just in Japan, but anywhere in the world.
The biggest news of 1984 was Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) it was the first film of what would become the prestigious Studio Ghibli. 1984 also saw another first, (Now that people could buy anime and watch it in their own homes) The first “hentai” (pornographic) release.
Interesting fact the first “hentai” (pornographic) release was Lolita Anime, though Cream Lemon from the same year is better known.
Then came the Anime boom, a time of many famous and well-loved Animes:
In 1986, Toei animated Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball.
Akira in 1988
Anime was expanding. Manga, novels, and original stories continued to be incredibly popular, but video games (1986, Super Mario Brothers) and light novels (1988, Legend of the Galactic Heroes) would soon prove popular as well. The types of stories also were expanding. The first BL (“boy’s love,” also known as “yaoi” or “shonen-ai”) anime was an OAV called Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Poem of Wind and Trees) in 1987.
Akira in 1988 was the first anime to use pre-recorded dialog, where the dialog is recorded and then the animators match the mouth movements to the sound
Then came the 1990s. Japan’s economy crashed in 1991, and budgets was cut back and many anime film studios closed. Studio Ghibli survived on the strength of their latest hit, Kiki’s Delivery Service. Toei released Sailor Moon in 1992, which as any anime fan knows was such major hit it became a classic. Then In 1995, Gainax released Neon Genesis Evangelion. it was around this time that ANime expanded it’s markets, once such expand was video games. The first anime based on a video game was Super Mario Brothers: Peach-Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach in 1986, but it wasn’t intill Pokemon in 1997 that it really ‘toke off.’
Then The first completely computer animated anime, A.LI.CE., arrived in 1999, And Anime changed once again. In the early 2000s, anime was once again flourishing. A series of hits buoyed the market both at home and abroad. These included long-runners like One Piece (1999), Naruto (2002), and Bleach (2004) that cross-promoted manga sales, movies, video games, and merchandise with no end to their runs in sight.
The first ONA (original net anime) came out in 2000.
Anime is now, (2010-2016) creating their own online streaming sites, such as DAISUKI.net in 2013, and releasing Blu-rays simultaneously in Japan and North America.
Anime is recognized around the world as a reliable source of entertainment and art. Where early Japanese animators were inspired by the works of Disney, now Western shows are taking their cues from Japan.
Anime World The Land of Manga 
