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About Anime
You've probably already seen him; a strange, bright yellow, red-cheeked
creature adorning book bags, video games, T-shirts, and Internet sites.
If you're a fan, you know he's Pikachu, who stars with 149 fellow pocket
monsters in the hit kid's show, Pokemon. Welcome to the fascinating world
of Japanese animation, or anime. In fact, Pokemon is only the latest in
a long line of Japanese animated imports, encompassing Astro Boy and Speed
Racer in the 60's, Star Blazers and Voltron in the 80's, and Sailor Moon,
Dragonball Z, Tenchi Muyo, Gundam Wing, and Yu-Gi-Oh today.
Though Pokemon is the most successful to date, other examples of the increasing popularity of Japanese Pop culture abound. Disney successfully marketed Hiyao Miyazaki's anime classic, Kiki's Delivery Service, as a mainstream video, and plans a theatrical release of another of the director's films in the later half of 1999. J-Pop, a quirky fusion of various musical styles, has gained ground in American markets. Advertisers, always looking for the Next Big Thing, have injected anime references into products as diverse as cars and soft drinks. Japanese comics, or manga, are increasingly popular in the United States, and are influential in the graphic novel industry. The image frequently conjured by this wave of things Japanese is cute, cuddly, and slightly bizarre, something suited to children and nostalgic adults.
In reality, anime in Japan is a serious and lucrative business. Anime, along with it's creative inspiration, manga, accounts for a sizeable percentage of the Japanese publishing and entertainment business. With a large female workforce, the anime and manga industry is one of the few where women frequently occupy positions of power and influence. Traditionally, many of the most creative people in Japan have chosen careers in the anime and manga field. This diverse and imaginative workforce produces a high volume of incredibly varied work, ranging from charming tales for children to violent and erotic creations for adults. This varied subject matter, coupled with Japan's wider acceptance of nudity and violent and sexual content even in children's materials, makes selection quite a challenge for the collection development librarian.
This is a challenge well worth meeting, as these materials offer benefits to both public and academic libraries. For academic libraries, anime and manga serve to enhance a collection's cultural diversity, and support Japanese language and cultural studies. In public libraries, anime and manga should prove very popular, particularly with children and young adult patrons.
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