20 results for "Japan"
In 1983, the word "otaku" was a polite second-person pronoun used ironically among anime fans. By 1989, it had become a term of social stigma. By 2010, it was a badge of pride worn by millions worldwide. Here's how that transformation happened.
2 months ago
Takehiko Inoue's Slam Dunk ran for only four years, but its impact on Japanese basketball — and on the sports manga genre — has lasted thirty. Here's how a comic changed a sport.
8 days ago
From Oishinbo to Shokugeki no Soma, Japan has produced a genre of manga devoted entirely to food — its preparation, its history, its cultural significance, and the drama of competitive cooking. Here's why the genre exists and what makes it work.
4 days ago
In Japan, the voice actors who bring anime characters to life are celebrities in their own right — with solo music careers, touring concerts, and dedicated fan bases. Here's how this uniquely Japanese phenomenon developed.
2 days ago
France is Japan's second-largest manga market in the world, ahead of the United States. Per capita, the French read more manga than any other non-Asian country. Here's how that happened.
2 days ago
Makoto Shinkai made his first short film alone in his apartment in 2000. Sixteen years later, Your Name earned $380 million worldwide and briefly surpassed Spirited Away as Japan's highest-grossing film. Here's how he got there.
14 days ago
Doraemon has been Japan's most recognized fictional character for fifty years. His story — a robotic cat from the future helping a failing child — contains a quiet utopian vision that has shaped how generations of Japanese children understand kindness and aspiration.
about 2 months ago
Demon Slayer sold 150 million copies in a single year. Its theatrical film made more money in Japan than any film in history. Here's how Koyoharu Gotouge's story of a boy who kills demons became a cultural supernova.
2 months ago
In 1957, Yoshihiro Tatsumi coined the term "gekiga" to describe darker, more realistic comics for adults. The movement he launched changed manga's possibilities forever.
about 1 month ago
China is the world's largest market for anime content. It is also increasingly a producer of animation that competes with Japanese work globally. Here's how China's relationship with anime shifted from consumption to creation.
27 days ago
Anime tourism — traveling to real-world locations depicted in anime — is a significant and growing segment of Japanese tourism. Here's why fans make the journeys, what they find when they get there, and how the industry has responded.
2 months ago
When Crunchyroll launched legal simulcasting in 2009, it offered subtitled anime within hours of Japanese broadcast. The fansub community largely dissolved within years. Here's what changed and what was lost.
2 days ago
Kyoto Animation built a reputation as the most technically accomplished and employee-friendly studio in anime. On July 18, 2019, an arsonist killed 36 of its staff members. Here's the studio's history, its work, and what happened after.
about 1 month ago
The Original Video Animation format, sold directly on VHS without TV or cinema release, gave 1980s anime studios a creative sandbox with no censors, no broadcast restrictions, and no rules.
25 days ago
Manga's roots stretch back to 12th-century picture scrolls, but it took Osamu Tezuka, weekly anthology magazines, and the tankōbon format to turn it into a global industry.
about 1 month ago
Boys' Love manga — romantic and erotic stories about male characters, written almost exclusively by and for women — is one of the most commercially significant and least-discussed major genres in manga. Here's its history and global reach.
about 2 months ago
Hayao Miyazaki has retired three times and returned each time with a new film. The studio he built with Isao Takahata is the only animation studio in the world whose name alone is sufficient to guarantee an audience.
20 days ago
In the late 1990s, the anime industry expanded at an unsustainable pace, fueled by merchandise revenue, the Pokémon boom, and speculative investment. What followed reshaped the industry's structure permanently.
21 days ago
Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 adaptation of his own manga was produced at a scale and technical ambition that had no precedent in animation anywhere in the world. Its impact on Western film and culture is still being counted.
about 1 month ago
Before Crunchyroll, before Netflix, before DVD, Western anime fans built an underground distribution network that sent VHS tapes across the world. Without them, there might be no Western anime industry at all.
23 days ago