Anime Drawings Course
(Manga Art)

Anime (Japanese: アニメ, IPA: [aɲime] (listen)) is hand-drawn and computer animation originating from Japan. In Japan and in Japanese, anime (a term derived from the English word animation) describes all animated works, regardless of style or origin. However, outside of Japan and in English, anime is colloquial for Japanese animation and refers specifically to animation produced in Japan.^[1] 

Animation produced outside of Japan with similar style to Japanese animation is referred to as anime-influenced animation.

The earliest commercial Japanese animations date to 1917. A characteristic art style emerged in the 1960s with the works of cartoonist Osamu Tezuka and spread in following decades, developing a large domestic audience. 

Anime is distributed theatrically, through television broadcasts, directly to home media, and over the Internet. In addition to original works, anime are often adaptations of Japanese comics (manga), light novels, or video games. It is classified into numerous genres targeting various broad and niche audiences.

Anime is a diverse medium with distinctive production methods that have adapted in response to emergent technologies. It combines graphic art, characterization, cinematography, and other forms of imaginative and individualistic techniques.^[2] Compared to Western animation, anime production generally focuses less on movement, and more on the detail of settings and use of “camera effects”, such as panning, zooming, and angle shots.^[2] Diverse art styles are used, and character proportions and features can be quite varied, with a common characteristic feature being large and emotive eyes.^[3]

The anime industry consists of over 430 production companies, including major studios like Studio Ghibli, Sunrise, and Toei Animation. Since the 1980s, the medium has also seen international success with the rise of foreign dubbed and subtitled programming. As of 2016, Japanese anime accounted for 60% of the

Etymology

As a type of animation, anime is an art form that comprises many genres found in other mediums; it is sometimes mistakenly classified as a genre itself.^[5] In Japanese, the term anime is used to refer to all animated works, regardless of style or origin.^[6] English-language dictionaries typically define anime (US: /ˈænəmeɪ/, UK: /ˈænɪmeɪ/)^[7] as “a style of Japanese animation”^[8] or as “a style of animation originating in Japan”.^[9] Other definitions are based on origin, making production in Japan a requisite for a work to be considered “anime”.^[1]

The etymology of the term anime is disputed. The English word “animation” is written in Japanese katakana as アニメーション (animēshon) and as アニメ (anime, pronounced [a.ɲi.me] (listen)) in its shortened form.^[1] 

Some sources claim that the term is derived from the French term for animation dessin animé (“cartoon”, literally ‘animated design’),^[10] but others believe this to be a myth derived from the popularity of anime in France in the late 1970s and 1980s.^[1]

In English, anime—when used as a common noun—normally functions as a mass noun. (For example: “Do you watch anime?” or “How much anime have you collected?”)^[11] As with a few other Japanese words, such as saké and Pokémon, English texts sometimes spell anime as animé (as in French), with an acute accent over the final e, to cue the reader to pronounce the letter, not to leave it silent as English orthography may suggest. 

Prior to the widespread use of anime, the term Japanimation was prevalent throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the term anime began to supplant Japanimation;^[12] in general, the latter term now only appears in period works where it is used to distinguish and identify Japanese animation.^[13]world’s animated

History

Precursors

Emakimono and kagee are considered precursors of Japanese animation.^[14] Emakimono was common in the eleventh century. Traveling storytellers narrated legends and anecdotes while the emakimono was unrolled from the right to left with chronological order, as a moving panorama.^[14] Kagee was popular during the Edo period and originated from the shadows play of China.^[14] 

Magic lanterns from the Netherlands were also popular in the eighteenth century.^[14] The paper play called Kamishibai surged in the twelfth century and remained popular in the street theater until the 1930s.^[14] Puppets of the bunraku theater and ukiyo-e prints are considered ancestors of characters of most Japanese animations.^[14] 

Finally, mangas were a heavy inspiration for Japanese anime. Cartoonists Kitzawa Rakuten and Okamoto Ippei used film elements in their strips.^[14] television shows.