Anime and manga a research on why it is so
addictive
Markbell university.
Department of pop culture and global trend history
Prof. Festus Blessed Chide r B.A history B.A international
relations Bsc Philosophy M.A Global pop culture and histor
Abstract
This paper is to explore the question why is the japanese style of cartoons so popular and
addictive that it has gained many fans. The research includes a definition of what anime and
manga is an historical overview of how it became a global pop culture why it is addictive and
why people think it is addictive as well as then most popular animes, the highest rated. this
research methods includes askinng many die hard anime fans called oatakus questions about
anime.
Introduction
Anime is a japanese world refering to animations of all types, But in the western world it is used
as a form of media made in made in japan using colourful and vibrant graphics with expressive
characther and an overexagerated plot it has many genres including shounen action scifi slice of
life shoujo sports etc with shouen being the most dominant genre
Similary manga refers to Japanese comic and is the source of most animes today
Genres of anime
1 Shounen
Shounen is a type of genre of anime typically targeted at young male between 10 and 18 but it
is enjoyed by all age due to its expressive storytelling the most popular shounen anime today
remains dragon ball, one piece, hunter x hunter, attack on titan and naruto however ovr the years
attack on titanaot has been debatd wether it should be shonen due to its mature themes and dark
fantasy
2 seinen
Is a genre of anime typically targeted at older men with more mature theme the 3 most popular
remains vinland saga beserk and vagabond
3 Shoujo
Anime typically aimed at young girls the most popular being sailor moon, carcaptor sakura and
revelutioanry girl utena
4 slice of life
A type of anime that is set on real life issues the most popular being violet evergarden
History
The Dawn of Japanese Anime
Japan began producing animation in 1917—still the age of silent films—through
trial-and-error drawing and cutout animation techniques, based on animated shorts
from France and the United States. People started talking about the high quality of
Japanese “manga films.” But Japanese anime were costlier to produce than Western
animations and were overshadowed by the popularity of Disney cartoons. They
faced an uphill battle from the start.
One of the things that helped them find their niche was anime production for public
relations and publicity campaigns by public institutions. Domestic anime production
was beginning to develop a small but solid foundation when Tokyo and the
surrounding area suffered catastrophic damage in the Great Kantō Earthquake in
1923. The anime industry was forced to start over from scratch.
The industry continued to struggle, unable to respond adequately to successive
innovations, including the appearance of the first talkies in 1929 and color film in
1932. During this period, Ōfuji Noburō won international acclaim for Bagudajō no
tōzoku (The Thief of Baguda Castle), which he made by cutting and pasting
chiyogami (Japanese colored paper). His film is remembered as the first to make its
presence felt outside Japan.
Many other promising anime artists appeared one after another, but with war
approaching, goods were in extremely short supply as the national mood turned
militaristic. Even film was not easy to get hold of. It was in this context that the first
full-length theatrical film in the history of Japanese anime was released. Momotarō:
Umi no shinpei (Momotarō’s Divine Sea Warriors, B&W, 74 minutes), produced by
the navy, came out just before the end of the war. This was a propagandistic film
designed to lift morale and commitment to the war effort.
Soon after the war ended, the General Headquarters of the Allied occupation (GHQ)
brought together 100 anime artists in the bombed-out ruins of Tokyo to form the
Shin Nihon Dōgasha, or New Japan Animation Company. The aim was to make it
easier to spread occupation policies by having the artists produce anime in praise of
democracy. However, many of the artists were fiercely independent and territorial,
and the company was riven by disagreements from the outset. The project strayed
off course, and eventually disbanded. Even GHQ threw in the towel. It seemed the
switch from militarism to democracy was not going to be so easy.
The Start of Tōei Dōga (Now Tōei Animation)
It was during these years, as Japan began to recover from the disastrous war, that
Ōkawa Hiroshi, president of the Tōei film company, saw Disney’s Snow White
(1937). He was overwhelmed by the gorgeous color of the film. In 1956, he built a
modern studio—a white-walled palace with air conditioning, as people called it—and
founded Tōei Dōga (now Tōei Animation). His ambition: to become “the Disney of
the East.”
Tōei Dōga’s first full-length film, Hakujaden,
was released in October 1958. It was based on a Chinese tale. Miyazaki Hayao, who saw the film
during a break from studying for his college entrance exams, was astonished by its quality. © Tōei
Tōei Dōga chose Hakujaden (The Legend of the White Snake) as their first film. They
sent a research team to the United States and invited several experts to travel to
Japan as mentors. As a result, they were able to master the Disney system of
“assembly-line production.” They hired a team of new employees who honed their
skills while they produced the film under the supervision of veteran animators like
Mori Yasuji and Daikuhara Akira.
With jobs hard to come by in the postwar Japan, the new company was able to
attract an outstanding team of young talent happy to work for relatively low starting
salaries. It was a typical labor-intensive company. However, as the government’s
drive to double people’s incomes started to take effect, wages shot up and the
company soon found itself in the red. Attendances at the World Masterpiece Fairy
Tale Anime Series, a “manga festival” held every year during the springtime school
holidays (and, in later years, during the summer vacation as well), were falling. The
company’s financial future was uncertain. The labor movement was also gaining
momentum, bringing frequent labor disputes and labor-management clashes.
Takahata Isao and Miyazaki Hayao, now with Studio Ghibli, began their careers at
Tōei Dōga (Takahata entered the company in 1959, Miyazaki in 1963). Both were
active members of the labor union, Takahata serving as vice-chairman and Miyazaki
as secretary-general.
Tetsuwan Atomu: The First Japanese Television Anime
On January 1, 1963, Fuji Television broadcast a 30-minute animated television
series called Tetsuwan Atomu (better known in English as Astro Boy). The show
became a surprise hit, starting an anime boom and a period of intense competition
for TV audiences. The success marked the beginning of a new kind of anime
industry.
The low franchise fees paid to the studio for Tetsuwan Atomu (created by Tezuka
Osamu, the president of Mushi Production) meant that the company needed to
come up with a way to drastically cut production costs. They ruthlessly cut the
number of drawings, trimmed the number of lines in each image to the bare
minimum, and took to using more still images. They worked to make the storylines
quicker and devised clever ways of simulating movement, from sound effects to the
dialogue.
The company offset its losses with copyright income—licensing the rights for the
Atom character to their corporate sponsor, confectionary maker Meiji Seika, who
used the character on a popular brand of chocolates. When the company still posted
a loss, Tezuka decided to invest his own income from manga publishing. It was a
generous gesture typical of the man they called the “god of manga.”
The Wilderness Years and the Appearance of a Blockbuster
Merchandising became entrenched as part of the basic business model for all the
television anime that followed. The most popular genre dealt with science fiction
and space, followed by shows about girls with magical powers. In 1968, the popular
baseball-themed Kyojin no hoshi (Star of the Giants) began, followed in 1969 by the
first episode of the family drama Sazae-san, which continues to this day as the
longest-running series in anime history. But not every series could be a winner, and
with a glut on the market competition intensified.
At Tōei Dōga, which continued to run a deficit due to high production costs, labor-
management relations deteriorated, leading to a lockout and layoffs in the summer
of 1972. Mushi Production went bankrupt in 1973 (although the labor union later
took over from Tezuka, the founder, and has led the company until the present
day). The anime industry went into recession. Behind this recession were larger
economic issues, such as the Nixon Shock in 1971 and the 1973 oil crisis.
When an animated television series ended, the staff was disbanded. Tōei’s
seniority-based employment system fell apart, and they switched to a system of
performance-based pay. They were required to change to a corporate style that was
more compatible with the shrewd programming policies of television stations.
Amidst the recessionary mood of these bleak years, a new work appeared that
challenged the idea of anime as simply children’s entertainment. Uchū senkan
Yamato (Space Battleship Yamato), released as a TV series in 1974 and a feature
film in 1977, became a social phenomenon, tremendously popular with millions of
young adults.
However anime did not take full stage until 2020 during covid 19 lockdown the
entertainment industry was hit badly but anime offere an alternative to this it was
free affordable and after covid 19 left it bcame a pop culture. In the end anime
popularity can be attribute to many factors listed and some not listed including
vocaloids like miku.
The Proliferation of “Japanimation” Fans
Meanwhile, Japanese television anime began to become popular among young
people overseas. In some countries, adults rejected it, calling it “Japanimation” and
criticizing it as cheap, violent, and sexually explicit. When Kyandi kyandi (Candy
Candy) was broadcast in France, young girls were glued to the television screen.
Some parents resented this, claiming their children were being corrupted by a
strange culture from the Orient. Nevertheless, the anime fan base continues to
grow around the world, mostly among young people. Some fans even wonder, “Why
can’t our country create works that surpass Japanimation?” Today, “Japanimation”
means something quite different from the negative connotations it used to have.
Although the number of television anime gradually recovered after the collapse of
the bubble economy in 1992 and the economic slump of the 1990s, the industry as
a whole has never recovered the pomp of its golden years. A slump in advertising
revenue, dwindling birthrates, and the popularity of alternative forms of
entertainment like video games and cell phones have led to sluggish prime time
ratings and a decline in the number of anime since the peak in 2006. Although there
are fewer anime on the main commercial stations today, other channels have
remained anime-friendly: TV Tokyo chief among them, followed by local and
regional stations, satellite channels, and other communication systems.
Unfortunately, these smaller channels tend to have smaller budgets than the main
stations, with predictable consequences for production costs.
Methodology
In a study cut across country we asked 2,456participants from the USA 3010 from
Japan 1,167 students from nigeria and 2,777 paricipantsf from france gav ethem a
paper on why they like anime among the us citizens 1,250 were below the age of 18
the rest where above the age of 18 all of them were anime fans in nigeria 1,167 of
them were university students in japan 1,400 of them were below age 18 and 1,610
of them above 18 in francne 1452 were below 18 and 1rest were above. we gave
them questionnaires and reviewed their mental healt. The questions askd were top
10 animes and or manngas, when they started watching anime, theiir first anime
Results
Among the nigerians one piece came out the most cited 99% of the time of the top
10 favorite anime similary death note, attack on titan demon slayer, toky ghoul also
consitently made it to the top 10 avatar also was mentioned many times sailor
moon appeard on 55 peoples top 10 in total in nigeria the top 10 was 1 one piece 2
death note 3 demon slayer 4 tokyo ghoul 5 attck on titan 6 naruto 7 bleach 8 blue
lock 9 sailor moon 10 pokemon, among thos below 18 from the usa one piece
came out 99% of the time aot also came out 99% of the time the top 10 which
came out the most among those below 18 in usa 1 one piece 2 attack on titan 3
dragon ball 4 demon slayer 5 death note 6n naruto 7 bleach 8 Hunter X Hunter 9 My
hero academia 10 jujutsu kaisen amng those above 18 this list was also the list for
them for those in japan attack on titan and full metal alchemist came out the most
1 attack on titan 2 full metal alchemist brotherhood 3 code geass 4 neon genesis
evangelion 5 one piece 6 steins gate 7 Hunter Hunter 8 Naruto 9 Bleach 10 My hero
academia among the french one piece once again dominated the list 1 one piece 2
attack on titan 3 full metal alchemist brotherhood 4 code geass 5 naruto 6 Bleach 7
demon slayer 8 dragon ball 9 sailor moon 10 avatar.
In nigeria about 50% participant first anime was Pokemon 20% bakuga 10% dragon
ball the rest stated other animes in usa Pokemn was 30% dragon ball 25% attack
on titan 25% sailor moon 5% t one piece 5% in Japan about 80% was pokemon 4%
attack on titan 5% dragon ball the rest stated others in france about 50% was
pokemon 10% dragon ball 15% attack on titan the rest stated lots others
In nigeia 70% became fans watching after or durin 2020 while 30% before 2020 in
japan the case was reversed 70% starnted watchig before 2020 30% after in usa it
was divided equally in france 55% became fans before 2020 45% became fans
afterwards
In japan about 82% were found to be dealing with one mental health issue or the
other especially among those above 18 which result was closer to 95% in usa
similar issues were foud 65% were dealing with mental issues with the result being
75% for adults, in france 55% suffered mental issues and for the adults the result
was 69% in nigeria only 20% seemed to suffer from mental health issues
Discussion
During the expirement we discovered that one piec and attack on titan are the
single most loved anime then death note bleach and naruto however usa france and
nigeria were almost united results in the experiment but japa differe greatly also
Japan anime fans seemed to be more of depressd or umentally well durign mental
evaluation same as in usa and france this seems a underlying problem of mental
health whereas in nigeria mental health was more stable among fans
