Animation: The Evolution Of Japanese Anime From Taisho Period To Heisei Period (1912-2018)

The epitome of Japanese society and culture: The evolution of Japanese anime from Taisho period to Heisei period (1912-2018)

Every country has their own unique culture identity and features. For some Asian countries, such as China, there are long and spectacular histories. For some other western countries, there are cultures influenced by religious beliefs. Likewise, not only is the Yamato traditional culture an original part of Japan, but anime has also created a culture of its own in Japan – and all over the world since it became popular globally.

When people talk about Japanese culture, the first thing that comes to mind is Japanese anime. Japanese anime is very popular in the world and spread through modern media and other kinds of medium to express the good, bad, beauty, ugliness and characteristics of different people. However, after watching lots of Japanese anime, it is not hard for anime lovers, even for ordinary people, to wonder about what may be hidden behind anime: are these stories connected with Japanese people and society?

Japanese anime has approximately one hundred years of history. It has influenced many generations, and it has changed a lot since its beginning. Throughout different time periods, it has been influenced by Japanese society, presenting different topics that are relevant to current events and culture in Japan. In fact, Japanese anime implicitly illustrates many social phenomena of Japan and reflects Japanese people’s values and their society.

Japanese anime is very popular in the world. The Japanese anime market is stable because it has a relatively fixed strategy to effectively produce anime, which includes the sale of related products and merchandise to boost the anime’s promotion. Every year the light novel market publishes new books, if a book gets a good reaction from audiences, it will have the chance to be drawn into a manga and sold again. Then, if the manga gets a good reaction as well, a studio will consider making it into an anime – where it is “animated”. In Japan, many studios will produce one or more productions every year and send them to a TV station to be played on TV. If production gets a great reaction from audiences, the studio will expand the franchise, such as creating character figures or stages where the soundtracks are performed live. If fans want to see more stories, the studio may decide to make a movie edition. Currently, the Japanese anime market is stable and following this process so anime fans will see diverse productions every season that deal with all kinds of topics.

In fact, Japan did not have any method to make and produce anime by itself long time ago. According to records, the very first Japanese anime was made in 1907, called “Katsudō Shashin” [footnoteRef:1](Clements &McCarthy, 2001). It was a three-second animation, and it showed a boy writing “Katsudō Shashin” in Kanji on a blackboard, turning around and removing his hat, and bowing to the audience. The producer and maker are unknown, but this was the first anime made in Japan and it has been a huge building block for Japanese anime. [1: Clements, Jonathan and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation since 1917. Rev. & expand ed. Berkeley, Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2006.]

When people talk about Japanese anime, it is difficult to describe briefly because of its long history. Actually, the one-hundred-year history of Japanese anime can be divided into four main stages: the germination period (1917-1945), the exploration period (1946-1973), the maturation period (1974-1989), and the stable period (1990-now). Each period has different influences on Japanese people and society and vice versa.

Back in the germination period, after the first short film made in Japan in 1907, At that time, Japan did not have any foreign influences, coupled with the relatively high cost of anime production, they were unable to make any anime at that time, and citizens were somewhat indifferent to anime as well. After several years, in 1914, a batch of high-quality animated films had been exported from Britain and the US to Japan. [footnoteRef:2](Clements &McCarthy, 2001). The Japanese population had never seen such good animation in their country, and that foreign anime received a huge reaction. Because of the strong reaction from citizens and the active demand, on the one hand, some rich people saw good benefits from making anime and want to produce a new product, on the other hand, those active reactions and demands enhance people’s positive identity and recognition of anime. Therefore, more and more Japanese people want to make their own anime instead of limited by foreign anime. “In 1921, the Japanese government began to recognize animation as a category of filmmaking”, [footnoteRef:3]Mio Bryce wrote in his book, (Bryce, 2012, p. 73). After several tough years, the first publicly displayed anime was done, called “Hanawa Hekonai meitō no maki”, produced by Jun’ichi Kōuchi. It described a short story about a Samurai who was trying to test his new sword and failed. Then, in the same year, another two anime “Saru kani gassen” and “Imokawa Mukuzō Genkanban no Maki” were produced by Seitarō Kitayama and Ōten Shimokawa respectively but all of them were silent films. Those three animators have done huge and laid the foundation of Japanese anime. [2: Ibid] [3: Bryce, Mio and Jason Davis. mechademia 4: War/time. Vol. 36. Nathan: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2012, p73]

After received big success from these anime, some producer started to make more vivid anime. However, because of the limited technology, Japanese producer didn’t have the ability to make anime with sounds until 1933. In 1928, the first anime film with sound that directed by Walt Disney came into being, called Steamboat Willie. Later, this film spread into Japan in 1929.[footnoteRef:4] (Clements &McCarthy, 2001). This was the first time that people can see anime with sound, and it opened Japanese people’s eyes, so Japanese producer tried to learn and followed the example of it and made their own anime with sound. Through thick and thin, the first Japanese anime short film with voiceovers was finished by Shochiku in 1933. It talks about a husband has a very tall and strong wife, he cheated his wife and felled in love with another woman in his company, then his wife noticed that and rushed into his company. After this voiced anime, Japan started to make more and more anime with sound, they have found inspiration from making anime. [4: Ibid]

Nevertheless, good times didn’t last long. The world second war broke out in later 1939 and Japan joined the war. Japanese producer didn’t have enough time and resource to make new anime. In order to cater to the political condition, anime industry and producers were forced to shift its focus, author Denison mentioned in her book. [footnoteRef:5](Denison, 2015, p74). Due to the war, culture cannot avoid serving the war, so the normal Japanese anime was going to be less and started to face a negative direction. and this was reflected in the change of topics and subjects. Anime directors had to produce anime about militarism thought and the war. One of the most typical examples was an anime directed by Mitsuyo Seo in early 1944, called “Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei”. In this anime, it talks about some unnatural animals and a Japanese soldier, they went to a small island, working with other animals on the island, and then joined the war and fight together. Denison also writes, “The Momotarō films likewise made use of animal characters to mask the nationalism and racism at work in these war-time propaganda films” (Denison, 2015, p74). The characters in this anime looked weird but it was the first Japanese feature-length animated film. Before this anime was done, the director Mitsuyo was ordered to make an anime about war by Japanese Naval Ministry. So, unfortunately, this anime was forced to be propaganda for Japan to show off their militarism thought and encouraged more people to join into the Navy during the second world war. At that time, this anime had influenced Japanese citizens and society a lot. Due to anime was going to become popular at that time, it was easier for citizens to receive and accept militarism thought, meanwhile, this anime also beautified Japanese militarism, advocated aggression and the war. Consequently, it helped the Japanese government to gain more soldiers to join the war and advocated citizens to help with Japan. Things behind the success of this anime were quite complicated but easy to explain and it enhanced two aspects of Japan. The first one was about social and human influence. It reflected one of the most important aspects of Japanese people which is unconditionally support. When a country wants to join the war and fight, the most important part of winning is its moral and supportive citizens. If a country loses its support and morale from people, obviously it will be defeated. If Japanese people thinking from a rational perspective, they will find that it was a huge problem to start the war and the best way to stop the war is to resist the militant idea. However, although to start the war was wrong, the majority of Japanese citizens still support their country and send more and more soldier to join the war, and it may be their constant that led to the following consequents. This phenomenon reflected the national identity of Japanese people and the unconditional support to their country, even it is wrong. Meanwhile, it shows the pride and unyielding feature of Japanese people. Unless they have irresistible factors, Japanese people will not give up gaining the thing they want to get or to surrender. This social phenomenon still exists in nowadays Japanese society but less than before. Sometimes even the Japanese government does unfair or wrong choices for another country, some Japanese citizens will still support the government and show off this kind of thought. The second one was about anime. During the second world war, due to most of the anime was about military and war, therefore, a large number of scenes about explosion, movement and background transformation were needed. Hence, it asked anime director especially the drawer to have higher drawing skill to make vivid and actual background because all of the anime at that time were based on hand-drawing. In some words, the demand for martial topic anime helped Japanese making new advances in hand-drawing. [5: Denison, Rayna. Anime: A Critical Introduction. London; New York, NY;: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015, p74]

After Japan was defeated in the war, Japanese anime entered into the next stage, which is the exploration period. Due to the failure of the war, some Japanese people were gradually aware of the danger of war, and then, Japanese producers started to make some anime that related to anti-war in order to heal and help citizens recover from nervous, failure, and fear. After that, because of the failure of the war, the economy in Japan was depressed, and there were lots of new and old ideas mixed, most of Japanese people were extremely confused so they need something to heal them. Therefore, on the one hand, Japanese anime continued to be used as a tool of propaganda. On the other hand, the demand for anime market also increased because of Japanese people’s hunger for these “anime food” in the special period after Japan defeated. In Japanese historian, Ito’s article, he illustrates that anime that emerged after the Second World War reflected Japanese current society at that time, which were about chaotic politics, the depressed economy, and ethnic relations[footnoteRef:6] (Ito, 2005). After that, in 1947, something became famous. It was like a pamphlet with a red cover, and people called it “red book”. Actually, this red book was written by Osamu Tezuka who was an important manga drawer to Japanese anime history and the red book was the first origin of the manga. Osamu’s book was extremely popular and motivated people’s demand for anime and manga again. It changed Japanese people’s opinion about anime that the story cannot only be played on the screen but on the paper as well, and the epoch-making progress has been made. After Japan recover from the Second World War, their anime industry, which was slightly depressed during the war, revived again. Because of Japanese anime was going to be more enterprise after the Second World War, some famous anime companies came into being and one of the most successful company was “Toei Animation”. Toei Animation was established in 1948 by Kenzō Masaoka and it has many famous anime productions such as Saint Seiya, Digimon Adventure and One Piece, all of them were produced in Toei Animation. However, Toei Animation was called Toei Company until 1956 because it didn’t have too much chance to produce anime because of the cost and human resources. But after that, in 1956, it purchased Nichido film Cooperation and then renamed Toei Animation Cooperation and started to make anime. After two years later, Toei made the first color anime featured film in Japan “Hakujaden” also can be called “The Tale of the White Serpent”[footnoteRef:7]. It talks about the episode based on a Chinese traditional story. Although it only took eight months to finish this anime, it cost lots of human resources and brought Japanese anime’s technology to its extreme and it was very successful. [6: Ito, Kinko. ‘A History of Manga in the Context of Japanese Culture and Society.’ The Journal of Popular Culture 38, no. 3 (2005): 456-475.] [7: Ibid]

On the other hand, as the popularity of Osamu’s red booklet rose, more and more people were willing to see manga, and Osamu started his new production “Astro Boy”. Astro Boy began to be serialized in 1952. Due to the characteristic of Astro Boy, as soon as it released, it has gained extremely high popularity at that time, every child wanted to be a good person like Astro Boy, smart, strong, and brave. Nevertheless, a seemingly easy story, in fact, potentially reflected something about Japanese society and Japanese people’s current status. The Astro Boy tells a story about Dr. Tenma manufactured a robot in order to replace his son who was died in an accident. However, the robot doesn’t have heart and cannot grow up, the Dr. Tenma became sorrowful and abandoned the robot into the trash bin, but then, the robot was found by another Dr. Ochanomizu and given a name “Astro Boy”. Japanese people are good at expressing their feeling with some mediums instead of directly say. According to a Japanese historian’s article, he mentioned that Japanese people would rather use more implicit, and ambiguous words in the context and their productions instead of explicitly, clearly, tell or use straightforward text [footnoteRef:8](Ito, 2005). This could be reflected in Osamu’s manga. As a matter of fact, through Osamu’s setting of Astro Boy, we can clearly see the current situation of Japanese people society. Japan just defeated and recover from the war, and at that time, the whole society in Japan was shrouded in the pain of losing relatives. Coincidently, in this story, Dr. Tenma corresponds to the parents who lost their children in the war. In other words, the Astro Boy who was created by Osamu, is a kind of fantasy of parents for their died children. Parents like Dr. Tenma were trying to make a substitution of their kids through their hands and heads, but this kind of substitution only has capable of distinguishing the good and bad instead of responding human’s emotions. The fantasy is still the fantasy, similar to the soldier that passed away, lying in the mud. People can cherish them, but they will not be able to respond. This is the reason why Dr. Tenma abandoned Astro Boy because he did not want to keep depressed in the accident of his son’s death. Astro Boy was strongly popular at that time in Japan, not only it helped Japanese people swept away the depressed atmosphere after the war because the society needed new power, but also it promoted Japanese people’s understanding of distinguishing the good and evil. Osamu Tezuka and his Astro Boy have made a huge contribution to Japanese people and society. [8: Ito, Kinko. ‘A History of Manga in the Context of Japanese Culture and Society.’ The Journal of Popular Culture 38, no. 3 (2005): 456-475.]

Japanese thought about war has not ceased. After the success of Astro Boy, another famous story was released in 1963, called “Tetsujin 28-go” (Iron man number 28). In this story, the Japanese Iron man becomes a hero to save Japanese people from danger. Interestingly, the character in this story was very similar to the atomic bomb that bombed in Japan, Nagasaki. It seems like Japanese producer tried to use the anime as a tool to call the anti-war at that time.

With the recovery of economic and industry, after that, Japanese anime continued to entre to the next stage, the maturation period. During this period, many anime productions and genius directors came out. Some famous production, such as The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, One Piece, Doraemon and Dragon Ball. And some significant directors and manga drawers such as Miyazaki Hayao and Takahata Isao. During this time, excellent Japanese anime emerged in endlessly.

When the Japanese anime industry became more stable, studios and directors were willing to try a different type of anime. And themes were becoming more and more widespread. In fact, such diverse theme is more reflective to Japanese society and Japanese people’s value. For example, the most common type is about doomsday, and one typical anime is Neon Genesis Evangelion (also called EVA). Japanese people have experienced many facets of the war and now they are producing anime based on their own stories[footnoteRef:9] (Kovacic, 2014), the author Kovacic argues in his article. In EVA’s story, it creates the Savior, which is the main character, overcame psychological barriers and burst out with enormous energy, and they saved relatives, friends, parents and himself. This kind of theme which has many similarities with the present situation in Japan since the war reflected Japanese society and people: under the control of the United States, even Japan is no longer as strong as before, it still wants to do self-redemption and become more powerful. So does the Japanese people, they do not want to live under the control of others but want to become stronger. In addition, the setting of the characters coincidently corresponds to Japanese people at that time: timid and confused. Another common topic is about “technology”. One of the famous anime about future technological society is “Akira”. It talks about in a high technologized world, Japanese people are developing a kind of technology to improve human’s ability, hoping the new human race can lead others to a brighter road, and make Japan become a powerful country again. This story deeply talks about technology, psychology, human beings, and the future. Deeply, what Japanese people thinking is reflected in Akira. This anime is full of Japanese people’s thinking about the post-war and future: how to rebuild Japanese society after the war and how to use science and technology appropriately. It was that Japanese people know the war, and now they are considering why the war happened. If the technology cannot be used appropriately, a new inevitable war will happen again. Apparently, they are trying to make a new beautiful world in the story. [9: Kovacic, Mateja. ‘The Many Faces of Popular Culture and Contemporary Processes: Questioning Identity, Humanity and Culture through Japanese Anime.’ IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities 2, no. 1 (2014): 17-35.]

The one-hundred-year history of Japanese anime is completed and various. Through the evolution of Japanese anime, it not only tells about how Japanese anime changed in different period but also shows people the thing that behind the production of Japanese anime: the war, the humanity, the psychology, the technology and the future. Back to the present, Japanese anime industry is stable and the subjects are widespread. Meanwhile, Japanese anime becomes more reflective to Japanese society and people. It is not only an entertainment in free time, but also a cultural carrier and a media of ideas.

Bibliography

1. Bryce, Mio and Jason Davis. mechademia 4: War/time. Vol. 36. Nathan: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2012.
2. Clements, Jonathan and Helen McCarthy. The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation since 1917. Rev. & expand ed. Berkeley, Calif: Stone Bridge Press, 2006.
3. Denison, Rayna. Anime: A Critical Introduction. London; New York, NY;: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2015.
4. Ito, Kinko. ‘A History of Manga in the Context of Japanese Culture and Society.’ The Journal of Popular Culture 38, no. 3 (2005): 456-475.
5. Kovacic, Mateja. ‘The Many Faces of Popular Culture and Contemporary Processes: Questioning Identity, Humanity and Culture through Japanese Anime.’ IAFOR Journal of Arts & Humanities 2, no. 1 (2014): 17-35.