Japan is a country that is isolated from the rest of the world, geographically, culturally, and linguistically, yet it is still a wonder that the first thing that comes to mind when mentioning Japan is anime.
We can trace the globalisation of anime to the late ’90s and early ’00s. Japanese anime industry never intended to release anime outside of Japan. In fact, it was something that animation studios didn’t even think or consider in the first place. Instead, the people responsible for internationalising anime were the fans and a bit of piracy. In the early 2000s, three of the biggest anime of all time, One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach started their broadcasts. They became instant classics with their popularity soaring throughout Japanese media and reaching an episode count in hundreds each.
This popularity led to Japanese fans creating fansubs and fandubs that were being pirated through torrents and websites across the globe. Around the same time, YouTube started gaining traction, and a small community of anime YouTubers began growing. Besides reviewing anime, these YouTubers also created abridged versions of many popular anime. They ended up curating small communities and networks to spread the knowledge of Japanese animation.
The rise and popularity of anime abroad through piracy made the Japanese investors realise the potential of an overseas market. Eventually, anime began releasing overseas via official partnerships with overseas broadcasters and official home media releases outside Japan.
Publishing giants like Kodansha, Kadokawa, and Shueisha also began releasing official English translations for the source material, i.e. manga and light novels. These light novels and mangas now began competing in the field of comics that had been long dominated by Marvel and DC. Manga brought a fresh outlook to the overseas comic industry. The unique Japanese art style helped them stand out, and the black & white format helped on the financial front.
Even though the Anime industry had taken steps to make it more accessible overseas, piracy still existed, and it still wasn’t available in many countries. The final hurdle was tackled with the rise of streaming services like Crunchyroll and Funimation. These streaming services made anime more accessible as well as led to a decrease in piracy. They have a vast library with simultaneous releases of new anime at the same time as Japan. Since the majority of the profits that these services made went directly to the creators, it helped the mangaka and the animation studios. The digitalisation of the animation making process has also helped the anime industry by making the process faster. It has helped the studios by decreasing the workload on the animators and at the same time allowing them to create more series for fans to enjoy. Even Netflix has taken significant steps to make anime more mainstream by commissioning multiple new anime series and licensing pre-existing anime series.
On the cinematic side of things, Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away winning an Oscar was what brought the spotlight towards anime films. Spirited Away‘s animation studio, Studio Ghibli instantly rose to fame outside of Japan, and their movies reached out to a broader audience than intended.
Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai are two other directors who enjoyed great success overseas with films like The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Wolf Children, Your Name and Weathering with You to name a few of their works.
The globalisation of anime has helped save Japan’s underpaid anime industry and also made Japanese culture and literature more accessible to outsiders. Anime has come a long way from being Japanese entertainment to being appreciated by people from different cultural beliefs to becoming one of the largest revenue earners for Japan’s economy.
Written by Harshaj Sood for MTTN
Featured Image by Shenelle Mathias for MTTN
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