How anime influenced the world?

Anime is a term used to describe the style of Japanese animation and has been around since the early 20th century. Now, anime and its comic book counterpart, manga, are hugely successful in Japan and beyond with an industrial worth of over 15 billion US dollars. Anime does not only include TV series for children, but also adult’s TV shows and even movies. A few examples of blockbuster anime movies include Studio Ghibli’s highly acclaimed Spirited Away (2001) or the recent popular hit Your Name(2016).

How Anime Influenced Japan?

Japanese culture can be seen in many anime TV shows. High schools are similar to that in real life, and characters often eat with chopsticks and stay in traditional ryokan inns. Popular anime characters can be seen all over Japan on toys, t-shirts, accessories, and stationery. Some restaurants, such as Coco Ichibanya, have even created their very own anime-style characters to promote their children’s meals

 

How Anime Influenced the world, especially the western countries

Anime has become one of the best resources nowadays to tell stories in an animated form, with freedom of expression in any genre and for any audience, which contrasts against traditional cartoons which are generally aimed at children. Anime gained success in other countries when early series such as Dragonball, Astro Boy, Sailor Moon, and Slam Dunk aired. There are many people who started to become interested in Japan after watching some of these shows. Sometimes, they are even inspired to learn Japanese. As a result, in 1984, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test was created.

The early 1990s served as what was known to be an “anime boom”. Due to this, anime culture further evolved when anime conventions started taking place. Anime conventions are large gatherings that may take place over a period of days, in order for fans of anime and manga to show their passion and dedication. These have even incorporated industry talk panels where voice actors and anime creation staff can meet at the event to talk about their shows, and fans can have a chance to meet them. Fans can also gather to buy merchandise and try “cosplay”. The term “cosplay” is derived from the words “costume play”, and it is when fans dress up as their favorite character from a series and impersonate that character for the day. Cosplay is not restricted to anime but has also crossed over to western characters from comics, cartoon series, Hollywood movies, and video games.

Another popular aspect of anime is the art style. The style that stems from the anime genre is unique, characters generally sporting big eyes and unique hairstyles. Western countries have also developed series using that particular style. One of the more popular series which has adapted this art style is the Avatar: The Last Airbender, which has gained international success. A sequel was also made entitled The Legend of Korra.

So how has anime influenced the world? This multi-billion-dollar industry has certainly influenced modern cartoons in different countries as well as attracting many fans to Japan. It caused people from all over the world to decide to learn Japanese, leading to the creation of the JLPT. It could be said that this industry, then, was great for promoting tourism to Japan as well as influencing a lot of pop culture we see today.