Explore the Many Different Types of Anime Figures

Anime is a form of animation, but it is also an art form that incorporates many genres that can be found in other mediums. Because of this, anime is often wrongly categorized as a genre on its own. 

The term “anime” is used to refer to any and all forms of animation in Japanese, irrespective of their country of origin or specific style. The definition of anime that is most commonly found in dictionaries written in English is “a style of Japanese animation” or “a kind of animation that originated in Japan.” 

According to certain definitions, the term “anime” can only be applied to works that are produced in Japan. This makes the country of origin an essential qualification for the term.

There is some debate on the origin of the word “anime.” Some sources assert that the term originates from the French phrase animation dessin animé, which translates to “cartoon” but literally means “animated design.” 

Other sources believe that this is a myth that developed as a result of the growing popularity of anime in France during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

When functioning as a common noun in English, anime typically serves the same purpose as a mass noun. Along the same lines as a few other Japanese words, such as “sake” and “Pokémon,” English texts may spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final “e” to signal to the reader to pronounce the letter, as opposed to leaving it silent as English orthography may suggest. 

This is done for the same reason that a few other Japanese words, such as “sake” and “Pokémon,” may do the same thing. Throughout the decade of the 1970s and the decade of the 1980s, the word Japanimation was widely used prior to the proliferation of anime. 

Beginning in the middle of the 1980s, the term Japanimation was gradually replaced by the term anime. These days, the term Japanimation is generally only used in older works where it is used to differentiate and identify Japanese animation.

When Japanese filmmakers first began experimenting with animation techniques developed in other countries, such as France, Germany, the United States of America, and Russia, the country’s animation industry was just getting started. 

“Katsudo Shashin,” a private work created by an unidentified creator around the year 1907, is often cited as the first example of Japanese animation. Animators such as Ten Shimokawa, Seitar Kitayama, and Jun’ichi Kuchi, who are regarded as the “fathers of anime,” began producing numerous films in 1917. 

Of these films, “Jun’ichi Kuchi’s Namakura Gatana” is the oldest one that has survived to the present day. The first works that were created for professional use and displayed in public venues appeared in 1917. 

As a result of the Great Kant earthquake in 1923, Shimokawa’s warehouse was destroyed, taking a large number of his early works with it.

By the middle of the 1930s, the animation industry in Japan had become well-established as a format alternative to the live-action sector. It was subject to competition from international manufacturers like Disney. 

Many animators, such as Noburufuji and Yasuji Murata, continued to work using cutout animation rather than cel animation because it was less expensive. Other producers, notably Kenzō Masaoka and Mitsuyo Seo, still achieved considerable leaps in technique, benefiting from the support of the government, which paid animators to produce educational shorts and propaganda. 

In 1940, the government of Japan formed the Shin Nippon Mangaka Kykai out of numerous artist organizations that it had previously disbanded. The earliest talkie animation was “Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka” (1933), a short film produced by Masaoka. 

The first feature-length anime film was “Momotaro: Sacred Sailors” (1945), created by Seo with a sponsorship from the Imperial Japanese Navy. The 1950s witnessed a boom of short, animated advertising developed for television.