Frequent visitors to Japan can quickly see how much the Japanese love anime. Anime characters are modeled after posters of buildings, and props sold at convenience stores also have animated characters. In addition, we can easily find characters in advertisements, movie theaters, street video stores, and restaurants. As such, the contents of Japanese animation works are deeply rooted in almost all industries in Japan. As a result, Japanese works have a huge fandom worldwide, so the industrial scale is enormous.
If we look at the history of Japan, we can easily see why the size of the manga, or content industry, has grown. Japan was a country without infrastructure after World War II. Citizens had to fight poverty, and the self-esteem of the Japanese people living in a sterile environment and with the dishonor of being a defeated nation was extremely low, and the social atmosphere was also poor.
However, in 1952, an animation called Atom produced by Dezoka Kimura caused a sensation worldwide, and the history of exporting Japanese contents began. The success of ‘Space Boy Atom’ may have been the beginning of a leap forward for the future and hope for the Japanese who lived in shame at the time (HANZAWA, S. 2004).
The economy that started with ‘Space Boy Atom’ began to grow like a snowball when the Korean War broke out, distributing military goods, and the thick social atmosphere was revived instantly. This served as an opportunity for the Japanese people to have a more favorable view of the manga market (Koyama 2010). There were relatively few regulations on the cartoon market, and active capital was put into investment and human resource development. Of course, the number of people who buy and read manga also increased, and the size of the market naturally expanded.
Universities also played a significant role in talent development. As the demand for comics grew, the university also established an animation department and produced professional human resources. As time passed, these professional talents started submitting masterpieces based on the infrastructure built up by ‘Astro Boy’ in the ’80s and ’90s. For example, works, such as ‘Evangelion,’ ‘One Piece,’ ‘Yu-Gi-Oh,’ and ‘Naruto,’ were exhibited during this period and had tremendous success.
Currently, the Japanese animation industry is predominantly in a period of recession. The current system shows a slow recovery as the aftermath of the Japanese economy, which was greatly shaken by the economic crisis that hit all of Asia in the late 1990s, remains. However, the Japanese animation market, which boasts a considerable market size despite the downturn, has a significant fandom culture. Therefore, since there is enough foundation to grow again, there is a high possibility that it will lead the future culture, starting with numerous masterpieces.
Reference list
. HANZAWA, S. (2004). The Japanese Animation and Home Video Game Industries. Japanese Journal of Human Geography, 56(6), pp.587–602.
Herships (2021). Japanese Anime, Made In China: The Indicator from Planet Money. [online] NPR.org. Available at: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1042060699 [Accessed 26 Oct. 2021].
Koyama-Richard, B. (2010). Japanese animation: from painted scrolls to Pokemon
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Park, G.-R. (2012). Japanese Experimental Animation in the 1960s. Cartoon and Animation Studies, 29(133), pp.37–60.
