Source Entry 1

The first mangas were written and drawn by Osamu Tezuka, often referred to as the “god of manga.” He used comic strips to show movements while his genres offered a wide range of stories making mangas open to anyone who wished to take part in reading. In 1963, “Tetsuwan Atom,” also referred to, “Astro Boy,” in America, was launched and brought much popularity to this genre of work. This piece of work had widely spread through more and more countries, bringing in revenue for Japan. In addition to this, Japanese animators began to sell their products overseas due to low production budgets that were needed to meet. 60 anime production companies provide products in 112 countries, reaching 87.2% of the world’s population. In 2008, the total sale of anime products sold overseas reached 13.3 billion yen. Anime has reached tons of popularity overseas that there is a bookstore in Geneva which contains and sells over 11,000 mangas. Over the years, anime productions have began to have a decline in the money made. This is due to the illegal upload of anime files on the internet.

Overall based on my research question, I believe that this piece of work helps me to better understand my question due to finding out the beginning of anime and how it has come to grow into one of the largest industries. Seeing how the first anime grew into popularity over a range of countries allows the reader to see and understand that hard work and money had to be put into this industry for it to thrive. “Because of the high costs associated with producing animated films, Tezuka limited the characters’ movements as much as possible. Instead, he placed emphasis on the quality of the story line, another possible reason that many ensuing Japanese anime works had complex plots.” I believe that the basis of this has allowed many mangas and anime in the future to be able to grow and follow in the same footsteps of having a complex plot within the work in order to captivate an audience. For example, One Piece is a anime and manga which contains at least 900+ episodes and chapters. This allows the audience to continuously follow the story without getting bored and has a very thorough story line to follow. “The decline is partly blamed on the illegal free uploading of anime files flooding cyberspace, new entertainment venues, including the Internet, and the nation’s long-standing economic slump.” Being an anime watcher myself, I believe this is truly unfair to the industry as well as the writers and all the workers that work on the pieces. Uploading illegal copies of their work allows them to make less of a profit, while I believe that they should be compensated for all the hard work that is put into making the anime. However, by uploading illegal copies this allows for a range of anime to be spread more evenly to those who may not be able to purchase copies or afford to watch these animes for free.

“According to the Association of Japanese Animations, 60 member anime production companies now provide products in 112 countries, reaching some 87.2 percent of the world’s population.”

“Total overseas sales in 2008 reached ¥13.3 billion.”

““Many young people in other countries grow up with Japan’s anime,” said Sakurai. For instance, he said there is a bookstore near Lac Leman in Geneva that has about 11,000 Japanese comic books.”

“Many fans overseas fans of anime say the story lines in Japanese works are hard to predict, in a good way, according to Sakurai.”