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Link to Part I
Link to Part III


Chapter 2 – “Continuity of Art Forms and Their Visualness,” relating anime to other art forms and mediums domestically and internationally
Chapter 3 – “Cultural Thought, Expressing the Self, and Image-building,” which investigates various themes of the self through Japan’s cultural identity throughout its history
Chapter 4 – “Development of Japanese Animation up to the End of the Second World War,” detailing anime’s development through the early 20th century up to the war’s end







At the present time, anime is a global phenomenon, not by virtue of is market only, but of its themes, settings, and styles across time. This is the medium which we can take a peek into a Japan 500 years before Nobunaga, watch passenger train heists in 1920s America, journey through Brazil in the 1980s, take a trip to modern-day London, and experience a futuristic Venice that’s neither polluted nor sinking. Despite all of anime’s visual variations and today’s evolving technology, anime is most recognized by its highly detailed eyes, vibrant color schemes, and a reliance on single-stroke lines used in simplistic, yet expressive ways.

Hu points out the origins of this aesthetic in the Heian period, where emakimono – the picture-scroll – existed as an artistic genre that emphasized the ephemeral nature of the world, rather than the physical world itself. Through abstraction and reduction, emotions and key foci of an illustration garner attention from the viewer. Stylization also helps here in creating a distinct visual appeal. In other words, psychological and ideological elements took precedent over actual realistic details. Minimalistic “hair-thin lines” were used to draw figures, physical objects, and movement. This was also present in facial expressions, where a single straight line would be an eye and a hook would be a nose. This closely mirrors the line-drawing process in cel animation, and as Hu notes, the film My Neighbors the Yamadas has director Takahata Isao (Akage no Anne, Grave of the Fireflies, Princess Kaguya) attributing to this art style. This is more evident in manga, where they are quite literally line illustrations.

Other art forms looked at include chinzō, shōhekiga, and ukiyo-e. For the purposes of this post, the importance lies in understanding anime’s roots in Japanese minimalistic, abstracted, and expressive art.

Later in the Edo period (1603-1868), Westernization brought forth social reconstruction, power struggles, an abundance of amenities and entertainment, a growing consumer culture, mass production of printed material, and a capitalist market economy which helped to sustain the creation and demands of pre-modern anime and manga literature for an increasingly literate public. There also existed an evolution of Japan’s narrative arts, where in the Heian period (794-1185), tragic oral ballads of power struggles between social classes reflected the values and feelings of commoners. In the Edo period, there existed gag stories, topic-of-the-day stories, riddles, parodies of famous people, and battle narratives, all of which can be seen in today’s anime. Hu also notes the representation of Westerners in Japanese art, which were influenced by Renaissance art through the Portuguese. Here, a great amount of attention paid to their clothing, as their clothes were seen to represent their rank and power. He cites The Rose of Versailles as being inspired by European oil paintings, which were introduced by the Portuguese as well.

Eventually, the Portuguese were gradually banned due to missionary activities, whom were replaced by the Dutch. They were given limited residency on the island of Dejima, which faced the coastal city of Nagasaki. Here, rangaku, or “Dutch learning,” became popular and helped to further spread Western thinking. With relation to anime, Western art was studied more seriously during this time, with particular emphasis on realism. To be specific, light and shadow effects, dimensionality, perspective, and the use of color – lessons retained in today’s anime.






The 1600s – 1800s culture blending is actually brought up in Ikoku Meiro no Croisée, but in reverse. Here, Yune originates from Nagasaki and is brought to Paris, whereby she and her host family constantly struggle with cultural differentiation. Looking back, it’s odd to hear people constantly attributing anime’s conception to Osamu Tezuka, particularly Astro Boy. While it’s not wrong, it implies that anime is a purely 20th century phenomenon with little relation to events prior to the Second World War. Perhaps it’s due to the necessity to study Japanese history, rather than strictly the history of anime. This entails understanding not only Japan’s place in time, but the influence of various Western powers and their effects on Japan’s culture.

Also, saying “history of anime” is odd as well, as this in turn implies that anime has enough merit and influence to be studied. As in, has anime been around long enough that it has developed a rich enough history? After all, it’s continuously evolving with both technology and popular trends, so much that the anime of the previous year may no longer relate to present-day anime in terms of how they’re made, whom they’re made for, and what they’re actually about.

That being said, it’s still interesting to note how deeply entrenched anime is in the culture of the world. To the people parading anime as a legitimate art form, this does give them some ammunition.





As a short chapter, Hu tangentially addresses signage, or in other words, the relationship between an image and the viewer. Immediately, he cites Roland Barthes (1915-1980), a French literary theorist who regarded Japan as an “Empire of Signs” – a centerless entity whose transient identity is decided by its consumer market. He then goes into Japanese spirituality influencing self-identity and Western thinking and technology allowing for a variety of methods to express them.








Similar ideas have been brought up in these readings, so instead of rehashing them, I’m instead diving directly into how this relates to anime. Speaking as someone living in Las Vegas, Nevada, signage is a critical element in creating iconography, so while a society may be ruled by signs, underlying ideas remain constant. In essence, build a market, appeal to an audience, and keep them sticking around. This, however, relies heavily on novelty, so even though companies, brands, and even certain anime may pride themselves in being long-standing, they become archaic if they don’t adjust to today’s mindset of “new” and “improved.”

Appealing with novelty is not a phenomenon specific to anime, so addressing it requires addressing the larger problem of the global market. This mindset does, however, give way to a large variety of anime, all trying to appeal to audiences of all tastes and backgrounds. Of course, this haphazard shotgun approach lends many shallow adaptations, rather than all-out investments or investments in original anime. It’s much safer to build off an existing audience, as well as using the anime in conjunction with the source material for a broader appeal.

In this train of thought, what would it be like without this variety? Imagine the anime scene with only a few anime of at least respectable quality released per season. This could lead to a higher standard for anime, as a lot of effort and attention would need to be placed on those few anime. This would, however, limit anime to only be made by studios with more resources. It would also limit experimentation to smaller, privately owned and independent studios. It would be too much of a risk for larger studios to try anything beyond what is tested and proven to work for its audience. And, after some thought, it doesn’t sound too different than what we have today. You still have adventurous works occasionally, such as Ping Pong from Madhouse or whatever Shaft is currently working on, but to deviate from the norm is risky without some sort of safety net, such as another successful ongoing project to fuel experimentation.





“The various countries of the world are perhaps aware that our country is proud of her old civilization of two thousand six hundred years and is at the same time showing brilliantly swift progress in modern civilization, but it is a matter for regret that, due to the peculiar character of our language, customs, etc., the opportunities of having them made accurately known in foreign countries are lacking.

With regard to the motion pictures of Japan, too, notwithstanding they can be compared with those of other countries so far as skill and efficiency of production are concerned, it is exceedingly regrettable that for the same reason the opportunities of having them presented and enjoyed in foreign countries are lacking. However, at the present time, the trend of sending them abroad has at last developed, and we believe that at no distant date in the future they will become a topic in the world market.”
- Kokusai Eiga Kyōkai, International Cinema Association of Japan, 1937

After 80 years, this prediction is in full effect, and it’s constantly growing in intensity and influence. To assess this phenomenon, Hu begins by discussing anime’s performance in the 20th century in spite of the Second World War and the lack of technical knowledge compared to the West.

At this point, I believe it’s relatively common knowledge that anime was influenced by Disney, with Bambi being a notable work due to it featuring large and cute eyes, its connections to nature, and the stark contrast in tones between its lighthearted and serious moments. However, Steamboat Willie – Mickey Mouse’s first appearance – was in 1928, with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit appearing just the year before. In Japan, the appearance of American cartoons, along with the films of other nations, can be traced back to around 1910. For example, the animated film Fantasmagorie (1908) by Émile Cohl and various works of Oskar Fischinger, Lotte Reiniger, and Ladislas Starevich. Also, Katsudō Shashin (c. 1907-1911) exists as the earliest known piece of Japanese animation, predating Disney’s first films by approximately two decades. Even before this, as Hu notes, the earliest film projector created by the Japanese was made between 1901-02, with home-made film camera experiments being carried out three years prior.

The earliest forms of Japanese animation consisted of satires, gag comedies, propaganda, commercials, children’s stories, and educational films. It’s a sizable breadth of genres, but according to the American Eastman Kodak Company, Japan was never really suitable for a film industry. One reason was its comparatively small amount of land to devote to industrial development for materials including print papers, chemicals, glass plates, and negative films. Earthquakes existed as another immediate problem, which hindered development and created concerns for preserving films. The 1923 Kanto earthquake served as a great reminder of this, as it resulted in many animated works being lost or destroyed.

According to photography historian Ina Nobuo, heavy taxes on imported products were implemented in 1924, aiming to reduce the dependency on foreign goods. In turn, this created the necessity to manufacture products, particularly film-related materials, domestically.

Up until around the 1920s, animation was seen as a cheap, low production effort by few people. Parallel to this, animation up to this point had been silent films, and with the advent of Disney films, with Silly Symphonies noted as a primary influence, it created a demand for sound to be incorporated. To create a silent animated film, it would have taken one month compared to an approximate three to four months for an animated film with sound. To alleviate costs, Japanese animators decided to forego producing solely for domestic audiences and instead aim for a global market – the beginnings of exporting Japanese-made animation.

Unfortunately, these developments were stinted due to growing military endeavors. The very same materials used for the film industry were also needed for warfare and espionage. Despite this setback, animation still found value as educational and propaganda films, with an emphasis on nationalistic, pro-military, and pro-right wing messages. This was due to a bulk of animation funding coming from the military. During this time, characters in Japanese animation were predominately animals and mythical creatures, most likely employed metaphorically to create subliminal message. To offset these films, there were also anti-war and leftist animated films created during this time, but they were made with great caution. For example, Entotsuya pero (Chimney Sweeper, Pero) was regarded as memorable anti-war film with a strong message against imperialistic war ideologies. As a result, it was listed as “a wanted film” by the police and was eventually lost to time before its reels resurfaced in 1986.









I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen an anime that dealt specifically with modern-day politics. I mean, I’ve seen space politics, fantasy politics, and historic politics, but never modern-day. Perhaps it’s too heavy a subject, one that is neither fun nor safe to bring up. Because of this, my knowledge of Japanese politics consist only of what I’ve been able to research on my own time.

Anyways, thinking of animation as a way to send messages to viewers isn’t foreign to anime. This can range from the messages of friendship and hard work in Yu-Gi-Oh to the message of co-existence between humanity and nature in Princess Mononoke. However, has there ever been an anime in recent times which had potentially dangerous political messages?

I would be quick to name shows such as Death Note, Terror in Resonance, and Eden of the East as the closest popular examples, as they deal with modern times and involve subjects akin to terrorism, if not outright terrorism. They have a multitude of other underlying messages, though they’re not important to this post. The point is that people have watched these shows and received messages from them. Furthermore, they involve great societal changes in a modern-day Japan, brought about by disastrous events. Also, in the latter two anime, they do not involve magical powers, so the acts in those anime could potentially be accomplished with means currently available.

This begins to go into rights of free speech and press, as well as if works of literature can influence people to do harm to others. These are extremely huge and touchy subjects, of which have been the core of censorship debates over the decades. Controversy exists in anime through various forms, such as the link between real life child abuse and anime/manga dealing with lolis viewed through the BBC and CNN, the attempt at banning Death Note in Albuquerque in 2010 as one of the many Death Note fiascos in the US, and just recently, China blacklisted 38 anime for reasons ranging for violence, sexuality, and anti-government messages, so the issues are still ongoing. It’s quite fascinating, but it’s beyond the scope of this part which deals with political messages. I may come back to these controversies at a later date, but for now, it’s only important to note this point as how this formed the roots of anime.







tl;dr – Summaries of the summaries of Part 2

Chapter 2 – Anime finds its visual roots in Japan’s art history, which dates back, which could arguably date back to the 9th century.

Me – Anime has history and identity, yet the topics it can cover are immune to those very attributes.

Chapter 3 – Japan, as an “Empire of Signs,” is much like any other developed nation which is structured around appealing to consumers.

Me –Anime is a consumer product, and as such, despite how we may think or want as fans, profits and the ways to get those profits are necessary things to consider.

Chapter 4 – Anime up until the end of the Second World War existed, but were experimental and while they were governed by militaristic and political interests, had a number of genres that continue to exist today.

Me – Censorship over violence, sexual content, religious beliefs, and general moralities persist in anime, but censorship over political ideologies is something I’ve never considered.


Source: Hu, Tze-Yue G. Frames of Anime Culture and Image-building. Hong Kong: Hong Kong UP, 2010. Print.