ANIME HISTORY - THE GOLDEN AGE

The release of Space Battleship Yamato is often cited as the beginning of the Golden Age of AnimeThis shift towards space operas became more pronounced in the late 1970s due to the commercial success of Star Wars. This allowed for the early space opera "Space Battleship Yamato" to be revived in a theatrical version. This theatrical version of Yamato is seen as the basis of the anime boom of the 1980s, referred to as the Golden Age of Anime.

Two events happened at the time of this shift from superhero Giant Robots to elaborate Space Operas. A subculture in Japan (who later called themselves Otaku) began to develop around animation magazines such as Animage or later Newtype. These magazines popped up in response to the overwhelming fandom that developed around shows such as Yamato in the late 1970s.

In addition a major component of anime from a technical perspective developed with Yoshinori Kanada an animation director (who worked on Yamato) who allowed individual key animators working under him to put their own style of movement as a means to save money. In many more "auteristic" anime this formed the basis of an individualist animation style that is unique to Japan (in commercial animation). In addition, Kanada's animation was inspiration for Takashi Murakami and his Superflat art movement.

In the United States the popularity of Star Wars had a similar, but much smaller, effect on the development of anime. Gatchaman was reworked and edited into Battle of the Planets in 1978 and again as G-Force in 1986. Space Battleship Yamato was reworked and edited into Star Blazers in 1979 and finally, and perhaps most infamously, Robotech (1985) was created from three anime titles, The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Super Dimension Cavalry Southern Cross and Genesis Climber Mospeada. The first organized American "otaku" developed as fans of these series.

The Otaku culture became more pronounced with Mamoru Oshii's adaptation of Rumiko Takahashi's popular manga Urusei Yatsura 1982. Yatsura would allow Takahashi to become a household name in anime despite her humble origins as a doujinshi artist. As for Oshii he would begin to break away from fan culture and take a more auteuristic approach with his 1984 film Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer. This break with the otaku culture would allow Oshii to experiment much further later in his career.

The otaku subculture had some effect on people who were entering the industry around this time. The most famous of these people were the amateur production group Daicon Films which would become Studio Gainax. Gainax began by making films for the Daicon Scifi conventions and were so popular in the otaku community that they were given a chance to helm the biggest budgeted anime film, at that time, Wings of Honneamise (1987).


The film Nausica� helped jumpstart Studio GhibliOne of the most influential anime of all time, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984), was made during this time period. The film gave extra prestige to anime allowing for many experimental and ambitious projects to be funded shortly after its release. It also allowed for its director Hayao Miyazaki and his long time colleague Isao Takahata the ability to set up their own studio under the supervision of former Animage editor Toshio Suzuki. This studio would become known as Studio Ghibli and its first film was Castle in the Sky (1986).

Around the same time as Nausicaa a new medium was developed for anime the OVA. These OVAs were direct-to-home-video series and or movies that catered to much smaller niche audiences. The first OVA was Moon Base Dallos' (1983-1984) directed by Mamoru Oshii. Dallos was a flop, but Megazone 23 (1985) was the first real success in this market. Shows such as Patlabor had their beginnings in this market and it proved to be a way to test less marketable animation against audiences.

The OVA was also responsible for allowing the first full-blown anime pornography with OVA's such as Cream Lemon (1984). (see also hentai).

The late 1980s, following the release of Nausicaa, saw an increasing number of high budget and/or experimental films. In 1985 Toshio Suzuki helped put together funding for Oshii's experimental film Angel's Egg (1985). The OVA market allowed for short experimental pieces such as Take the X Train, Neo-Tokyo, and Robot Carnival(all three 1987).


Akira brought anime to an international sceneTheatrical releases became more ambitious each film trying to outclass or out spend the other film all taking cues from Nausicaa's popular and critical success. Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985), Tale of Genji (1986), and Grave of the Fireflies (1987) were all ambitious films based on important literary works in Japan. Films such as Char's Counterattack 1988 and Arion (1986) were lavishly budgeted spectacles. This period of lavish budgeting and experimentation would reach its zenith with two of the most expensive anime film productions ever: Wings of Honneamise (1987) and Akira (1988).

Most of these films didn't make back the costs to produce them. Both Akira and Wings of Honneamise, when first shown in Japan, flopped. As a result large numbers of anime studios closed down, and many of experimental productions began to be favored less over "tried and true" formulas. Only Studio Ghibli was to survive a winner of the many ambitious productions of the late 1980s with its film Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) being the top grossing film for that year earning over $40 million at the box office.

Despite the failure of Akira in Japan, it brought with it a much larger international fan base for anime. When shown overseas the film was a cult hit that would eventually become a symbol of the medium for the West. The domestic failure and international success of Akira, combined with the bursting of the bubble economy and Osamu Tezuka's death in 1989, brought a close to the era.

(Article based on Wikipedia article and used under the GNU Free Documentation License)