Anime Manga
Why Animes Rocks
When anime and animes made its debut in America, it was generally considered a quirky Japanese style of cartoon made for children. A little later, when manga and anime galvanized characters like the Mario brothers began to rule the Playstation game market, folks began to take more notice. Many of the first generation of American and western european gameplayers became charmed by the style of art in their games and wanted more. Who could blame them? Just look at animes.
Many of the most popular Playstation games of all time have their origins in manga and anime. Except for the most famous P and PG rated games like Mario, Pokemon and Digimon, lots of the M and R rated games, too, have their sources in Japanese cartoon art, animated or otherwise. Still other Japanese games such as the captive of Zelda, commenced as games and then were made into manga and anime. Nonetheless, the style of the originals were in most cases obviously related to manga, animes and anime.
This has apparently little to do with how anime has had an impact on the american film industry till you look at the dates when these Nintendo games were released in the U.S. And understand that many of our best Hollywood directors were preteen and teenage boys when these games came out. Their first introduction to M and R rated anime would be through these computer games and would naturally have led straight to an interest in what else animes had to give.
Just as the sixties produced a number of French inspired Hollywood productions, the end of the twentieth century and the 1st decade of the twenty-first century have seen Japanese anime-inspired films.
The ghost in the Shell is one of the most highly acclaimed anime productions in history. Years back, director James Cameron called it the single most literary and artistic adult animated film in history. His contemporary production, Avatar, lately became one of the highest grossing film of all time. The influence of Cameron’s exposure to the great anime features like spook in the Shell and animes is clear throughout the flick.
The Matrix, another ticket office blockbuster, also owes a massive debt to spook in the Shell. When the obscure directorial team, the Wachowski bros, gave their pitch to producer Joel Silver, they asked him to observe the anime and told him that was what they wished to create on the screen. The Matrix trilogy went on to become not just a box office success, but keeps a massive cult following to this day.
Another of the most well-known directors of the past two decades is Quentin Tarantino, who paid homage to manga and anime in his Kill Bill films. Tarantino is an avid anime fan and there are substantiated rumours that he plans to make anime prequels to Kill Bill in the near future.
The list doesn’t stop there, either. animes and anime have captured the imagination of Hollywood giants and audiences alike and no doubt we will be seeing much more of it in the future.