[–><!–>Like the name Walt Disney, the word “anime” brings to mind not just an aesthetic but a distinctive storytelling ethos. My own first encounter with anime was at a middle-school sleepover in the mid-1990s, where I watched a bootleg VHS copy of the Japanese anime film “Akira.” It was mesmerizing.–><!–>
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“Akira” (1988).
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“Ghost in the Shell” (1995).
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[–><!–>The explosive popularity of anime in the United States would have been unimaginable in the ’90s, when anime was limited to bootleg VHS tapes sold at head shops and record stores and a few small mail-order companies selling officially licensed anime, which had been overdubbed by English-speaking voice actors who often had little idea of what was going on in any given episode.–><!–>
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Japanese version.
American version.
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Japanese version.
American version.
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[–><!–>Shows like “Dragon Ball Z” and “Pokémon” were largely aimed at children; different as they were from American cartoons, they were still cartoons. What got American adults interested in anime was the singular artistic vision of Hayao Miyazaki, who cultivated a large audience among cinaesthetes.–><!–>
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[–><!–>Signs of anime’s influence on mainstream American pop culture came as early as 1999, when “South Park” parodied the Pokémon craze in an episode called “Chinpokomon.” (Five years later another “South Park” episode would parody “Dragon Ball Z.”) In the music world, meanwhile, an enduring connection between anime and hip-hop began to emerge as early as 2001, when RZA of the Wu Tang Clan rapped, “Sit in the sun six hours then I charge up like Goku,/Dragon Ball Z, imagine you’re raggin’ me.”–><!–>
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[–><!–>A decade or so later, the generation of rappers who grew up watching Toonami after school seemed to take every opportunity to announce their anime fandom, from Lil Uzi Vert (“Throw up gang signs, Naruto”) to Megan Thee Stallion (“Got the moves like I’m Ryu/Yellow diamonds, Pikachu/When I switch my hair to blonde/I’m finna turn up like Goku”).–><!–>
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[–><!–>International revenues now represent more than half of the estimated $37 billion Japanese animation industry, and North America is the largest market outside Asia. The Americans watching the most are Gen Z, people in their teens and 20s for whom anime is synonymous with animation in the same way that Walt Disney once was for baby boomers. A recent survey of over 4,000 American adults showed that 42 percent of all Gen Z respondents watched anime every week, far higher than the 25 percent of Gen Z respondents who followed the N.F.L.–><!–>
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“Rick and Morty: The Anime” (2024).
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“Neon Genesis Evangelion” (1995).
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
