Japanese Animation

Thirty-five years ago, Japan's entertainment industry found an answer to its problems. Still developing in the aftermath of defeat in World War II, and the subsequent restructuring plan instituted by the United States, Japan was without surplus resources. There was no money for the production of films. American films soon began invading the Japanese entertainment industry. Yet the Japanese people longed for entertainment which would reflect their own culture. And so "animation...developed in Japan to fill the void of high-budget film-making" (Marin, 69). In the years that followed, animation would take a pop-cultural foothold in Japan that has grown and transformed, and yet exists today. Even with the onset of increasing economic fortitude, animation continued to flourish within Japan's entertainment industry. The creative possibilities of animation's unparalleled visual story-telling capacities had been discovered by Japanese filmmakers, and would continue to be exploited into the present age.

Japanese animation, more commonly referred to as anime, or Japanimation, has somewhat different origins than western animation. Where animation developed to entertain European and American children through comedic exploits, anime was created to entertain wider audience groups. Indeed, one might find difficulty in characterizing all anime together; the Japanese have viewed animation as a medium of creation rather a form of entertainment limited in audience and expression. Anime is included in a group from which the United States has traditionally banned animation; specifically, anime is considered a form of creative expression, much as are literature, modern art, live-action films, and other arts. A man by the name of Osamu Tezuka first envisioned animation's possibilities in Japan in the 1960s (Ledoux, 1). Tezuka realized the power animation could

lend to story-telling, and produced a myriad of animated films and television programs from which modern-day anime has made its genesis. At first heavily influenced by Disney's animation, Tezuka's animation soon transcended the confines within which American animation had placed itself. Tezuka can be credited today with being the first to produce animation for a sophisticated audience. Osamu Tezuka adapted comics, the most popular form of entertainment in Japan, to his animation. "Tezuka was a creative dynamo whose comics tackled nearly every possible subject: science fiction, action/adventure, romance, horror, and adult drama, creating a readership which encompassed nearly every possible age group" (Ledoux, 2). When he began producing animation, it too was varied in subject matter. Keeping with Tezuka's creative process, nearly all animation in Japan has been derived from comics, which are known there as manga. This tradition for the most part still exists today.

In the present age, anime is extremely popular in Japan and abroad. In Japan itself, anime constitutes approximately sixty percent of all television programming (Ed Goodwin, president of CA West). In Europe and Asia, Japanese animation has been widely accepted as well (DUinfo). One anime property, known as "Sailormoon...moves $250 million a year in tie-in toys world wide--five times the U.S. sales for the once mighty 'Power Rangers'"(Karp, 36).

Only one type of animation in the world can stand comparison to the nation of Japan's animation as a whole: the animation of Disney. Disney animation is generally regarded to be the world's most technically superior animation. But is Disney animation of superior quality to anime? Comparing the patrons of these two groups of animation, Walt Disney and Osamu Tezuka is like comparing Rembrandt to da Vinci. Both pairs have been aknowledged as masters in their respective fields. Rembrandt and da Vinci were painters, Disney and Tezuka were animators. However, the creative processes of the individuals within each pair are vastly different. Like Rembrandt, Disney had a studio of artists; much of the animator's work was produced by others under his limited supervision and then given his signature. Tezuka on the other hand, was a renaissance man like da Vinci; Tezuka produced all of his own work, and was a master of multiple topics and genres as opposed to Disney's one (i.e. 'family entertainment'). These comparisons hold true for modern day anime and Disney animation.

In addition, Disney has greater resources than anime. According to Carl Macek, who has been responsible for the American importation of various anime titles including "Robotech" and "Akira," Disney spends on average eight times more money to produce a feature-length animated film than does the typical Japanese animation studio (Matsumoto, 72). Considering Disney's enormous resources, compairing a Disney animated film to the average anime might seem indecorous; and yet, an intimate connection has been drawn between Disney and Japanese animation by anime fans of late.

When American animation fans familiar with anime made their way to theatres during the summer of 1994 to see Disney's current animated feature they were shocked. "The Lion King" seemed to a direct plagiarization of Osamu Tezuka's "Jungle Taitei," meaning "Jungle Emperor"(known in the U.S. as "Kimba, the White Lion") an animated venture predating the former by nearly twenty-five years. In the years since, discussions considering the possibility of such an impropriety have appeared in such American publications as Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times, as well as a plethora of anime fanclub newsletters and animation magazines. Trish Ledoux, author of The Complete Anime Guide: Japanese Animation and publisher of the magazine Animerica best described the similarities between the two films that have upset fans:

In 1994, Disney studios released the theatrical animated feature The Lion King which, although promoted as an 'original story' was perceived by many anime buffs to be more than a little beholden to Tezuka's Kimba, the White Lion. Both stories are tales of young male lions whose fathers are done in by the trencher of a nefarious older male relative ("Scar" in the Disney version, "Claw" in Tezuka's); both include anthropomorphic talkative parrots("Zazu" in Disney's, "Coco" in Tezuka's); both provide wizened baboon sages for their young protagonist(Disney's "Rafiki," Tezuka's "Mandy the Mandrill"), not to mention the cackling evil hyena henchmen; both feature morale-boosting visages of ghostly patter lions in the clouds above [Ledoux, 16].

Manga artist Machiko Satonaka circulated a petition demanding that Disney acknowledge its debt to Tezuka; with