The Birth of Japanimation — The Leap of the 1980s

In the previous episode, we saw giant robots and space battleships color the cathode-ray tube, and watched ‘Mobile Suit Gundam’ quietly unsettle the assumption that anime was made for children. The first generation raised on anime was, by then, growing up.

By the end of the 1970s, that generation no longer thought of anime as a children’s amusement to be outgrown. They wanted denser stories, more meticulously crafted images, to be savored again and again in their own hands. A craving close to hunger was preparing the seismic shift of the 1980s.

Over this decade, anime acquired three new vessels: the home video deck, the cinema screen now warm with renewed heat, and the passage overseas that would later be called ‘Japanimation.’ It was a leap in expression, but it was also an era in which the workplaces that sustained it swelled and began to creak.

The Other Market That Video Opened

As the 1980s began, home video decks slowly made their way into living rooms. Rewinding a recorded program to watch it over and over — that habit held the potential to change the very way anime was delivered.

From this was born a kind of work made to be sold from the outset as video software, passing through neither television broadcast nor theatrical release: the OVA (Original Video Animation). The world’s first OVA is said to be ‘Dallos,’ directed by Mamoru Oshii and released in 1983. Video decks were still an expensive purchase at the time, and their spread had only just begun. Even so, this format — free from the constraints of broadcast length, time slots, and sponsor preferences — was appealing to creators.

The number of OVA titles is said to have grown greatly per year by the end of the 1980s, from a mere single title in 1983. Science fiction, action, and even adult material — territories television had found hard to handle — bloomed here. Anime was no longer a thing of living-room airwaves alone. It had become something to buy, to own, and to watch repeatedly.

From Nausicaä to Ghibli

In cinemas, too, a new current was rising. At its center stood Hayao Miyazaki.

In 1984, ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,’ which Miyazaki directed from his own manga, was released. In a world after the collapse of civilization, the girl Nausicaä faces a chain of conflict surrounding giant insects and a toxic jungle. With the environment and war in the background, a story that refused to cleanly divide good from evil had a different texture from conventional children’s anime. The density of the animation was high as well, and it is said to have earned a fair response from both audiences and critics.

Receiving that response, the following June of 1985, with funding from Tokuma Shoten, the animation production company Studio Ghibli was founded. As a company, it is said to have come into being by reorganizing Topcraft, the production base that had handled ‘Nausicaä.’ The name Ghibli is said to be taken from a word for the hot wind that blows across the Sahara. The intent, it is said, was to bring a new wind to the world of anime.

The founding of Ghibli was also an attempt to hold a place for making works in earnest, against the practice of theatrical anime at the time, which gathered people for a single project and then disbanded. How to make a system that could continuously produce high-quality hand-drawn animation viable as a business — this question would run through Ghibli for a long time thereafter.

‘AKIRA’ and the Passage to the World

There is one film often spoken of as the high point of the 1980s. Released in 1988, ‘AKIRA’ was directed by Katsuhiro Otomo from his own manga.

Set in the vast city of Neo Tokyo, rebuilt after a Third World War, the story unfolds around runaway youths and a power beyond human comprehension. What was singled out for praise was the density of its animation. The crumbling city, the trembling light, the movement of crowds. The labor poured into every single drawing is said to have been extraordinary even for its time, and its smooth motion and intricate backgrounds reached a level spoken of for years to come. The animation staff is said to have included Yoshinori Kanada, Toshiyuki Inoue, and Hiroyuki Okiura, who would later leave their names in the field.

After its domestic release, ‘AKIRA’ was screened overseas as well, and is said to have left a strong impression on a portion of Western fans and creators. Japanese anime crossing beyond the frame of imported children’s animation and beginning to be received abroad as a distinct form of expression — it is often cited as one of the works that symbolize that current.

Before long, abroad, the way of lumping Japanese-made anime together as ‘Japanimation’ also spread. There are differing positions on how to judge that label, but at the least, the word reflected the fact that Japanese anime had begun to be recognized as a distinct presence beyond the nation’s borders.

The Floor That Sustained the Leap

The leap of the 1980s brought new vessels and new expression at once. But what must not be forgotten is the fact that all of it was sustained by the handwork of an enormous number of people.

As OVAs increased and theatrical anime grew denser, the more demand swelled, the more the volume of work on the floor increased. Within the constraints of production budgets and deadlines, the working conditions of the people handling the processes of key animation, in-betweening, coloring, and backgrounds were spoken of as an issue even at the time. The gorgeous result and the steady, grueling work that supported it — this duality would become a theme the anime industry would keep facing far into the future.

Even so, the 1980s were, for anime, a decade of genuine leaping. Anime, which had held only the single window of television, opened the new windows of video and cinema, and even gained a passage to the far side of the sea. Both the breadth of its expression and the audience it reached widened greatly.

And Studio Ghibli, which had given its first cry in this era, was still on the eve of receiving worldwide acclaim. In the next episode, let us watch as that Ghibli climbs to an achievement sometimes called the farthest reach of hand-drawn animation, arriving at heights the world would recognize.