A new work by an energetic scholar that explores how Japanese anime built its current status and was embraced by the world. The author analyzes 85 years of Japanese anime history along two axes symbolized by the “Tezuka vs. Miyazaki” conflict.
My book, Nihon no animēshon wa ika ni shite seiritsu shita no ka (How Japanese Animation Was Created), covers a period of almost 100 years, starting with the Meiji era when foreign animation was first screened in Japan. I focus on animation located at peripheries and boundaries, and I examine how the concept of animation was created and developed in Japan. I wish to provide a list of books, perhaps arbitrarily, that, I believe, can be used as references in terms of the history of animation in Japan; I combined with my own book.
This history of Japanese animation unfolds with two great masters, Osamu Tezuka and Hayao Miyazaki, each working from his own axis. The text’s most important contribution is its telling of history as if from one perspective. Other individual animation creators are mentioned as well, but that part of the book is weaker.