TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREMISE

INTRODUCTION
Formats and definitions of Japanese animation
Lexical evolution
Audiences, formats and techniques
Production process of commercial animation
Story, screenplay, ekonte
Animation: tradition and innovation
Post-production: sound, dubbing, editing
Costs, resources, industry and market
Genres and subgenres of commercial animation
Demographic classification
Thematic classification
Non-commercial animation
Work plan

HISTORY OF JAPANESE ANIMATION

I Origins
1917-1929
I.1 Genesis, and debate about genesis, of Japanese animation
I.1.1 The Matsumoto fragment
I.2 Shimōkawa Ōten, Kitayama Seitarō and Kōuchi Jun’ichi
I.3 The twenties’ animators
I.3.1 The coming of sound

II Wartime animation
1930-1945
II.1 The thirties
II.1.1 Winds of war on animation
II.1.2 Propaganda animation
II.1.3 Divine Momotarō against the Americans
II.2 Competition with Chinese productions
and non-propaganda animation during wartime

III Postwar period and the rise of industrial animation

1946-1963
III.1 The years of reconstruction (1946-1954)
III.1.1 Animation studios in the first postwar period
III.2 Tōei Dōga’s animation cinema and the coming of TV animation (1955-1963)
III.2.1 First Tōei’s shorts
III.2.2 Hakujaden
III.2.3 Tōei’s feature films of the period
III.2.4 TV animation’s debut
III.2.5 First contribution by Tezuka Osamu: Tetsuwan Atom
III.2.6 Other TV series of 1963

IV The independent movement and the Sōgetsu Animation Festival

IV.1 Ōfuji Noburō: his films of maturity

2
 IV.2 Yokoyama, Kuri, Manabe, Yanagihara
IV.3 Developements of auteur animation in the sixties

V The television revolution (1964-1970)

V.1 The decline of full animation cinema
V.2 Proliferation of animation studios and diversification of genres
V.3 Strategies and cases: Tōei Dōga and Mushi Production
V.3.1 Tōei Dōga’s case
V.3.2 Mushi Production’s case

VI/1 From super robot to “anime boom” (1971-1983)

VI/1.1 In the wake of sci-fi: super robot and variations on the theme
VI/1.1.1 Nagai Gō’s sci-fi imagination
VI/1.1.2 Not only giant robots: spaceships and superheroes
VI/1.1.3 Tomino Yoshiyuki’s rising star
VI/1.2 New genres: Sekai Meisaku Gekijō
VI/1.3 The varied production of Tōei, Tōkyō Movie and Tatsunoko
VI/1.4 Tezuka Production and the TV special
VI/1.5 Rise and fall of Sanrio Film and NHK’s debut
VI/1.6 Beyond super robot: realism and space opera
VI/1.7 Tōkyō Movie Shinsha, the phoenix
VI/1.8 The years of “anime boom”
VI/1.8.1 Anime boom’s ups and downs
VI/1.8.2 An anime boom come out of manga
VI/1.8.3 Anime, idols and music: a boom of and for otaku
VI/1.8.4 An explosion of anime and genres
VI/1.8.5 The boom of cinema and TV movies

VI/2 The first “anime boom” in the West (1978-1984)

by Marco Pellitteri
VI/2.1 What are we talking about when we talk about “anime boom”
VI/2.2 Before the anime boom
VI/2.3 The first anime boom in Europe and its appendix in the United States
VI/2.3.1 In Europe
VI/2.3.2 In the United States

VII The golden age of independent animation. The seventies and the eighties
VII.1 Great masters of the time
VII.1.1 Kawamoto Kihachirō
VII.1.2 Okamoto Tadanari
VII.2 Kinoshita Renzō and the birth of festivals and schools
VII.3 Significant authors and experiences of the time
VII.3.1 The Tokyo Image Forum and Aihara Nobuhiro
VII.3.2 Experimental Tezuka
VII.3.3 Late Kuri and Furukawa
VII.3.4 Other authors

VIII Old and new formats of commercial animation. The chrisis of television series, the explosion of
home-video and the revival of cinema (1984-1994)
VIII.1 1984
The epic of Miyazaki and his Nausicaä

3
 Rise of Studio Ghibli and Gainax
Passwords: science fiction, magic, OVA
VIII.2 1985
An open situation
Movies, series, OVA: a variety of formats
Some causes of the OVA boom: erotism and pornography
Decrease of TV series
VIII.3 1986
Tōei superheroes
Romanticism and action figures
At the cinema
On home-video
VIII.4 1987
Many OVA, in spite of everything
Movies between experimentation and box-office
TV series: action, comedy and teenage love
VIII.5 1988
Sequels at the cinema of TV series
Ghibli’s two souls
The Akira phenomenon
Productive readjustements
Science fiction and fantasy on home-video
VIII.6 1989
The boomerang of Japanese economy
Tezuka Osamu’s death
Swan song of serial super prolificacy
OVA historical peak
At the cinema: hits and science fiction
Growing Ghibli: Kiki’s Delivery Service
VIII.7 1990
Rise of Anno Hideaki
At the cinema and on home-video
VIII.8 1991
At the cinema, between masterpieces and not
More quantity but less quality of TV series
Post-boom OVA: steady quality, less quantity
VIII.9 1992
From standstill to revival
The Sailor Moon phenomenon
Other remarkable TV and home-video series
Porco Rosso and other movies
VIII.10 1993
The sponsor’s escape
Tōei series and co-production
OVA hits: science fiction, historical fantasy, medical fantasy
Oshii, Kawajiri, Takizawa: stars at the cinema
VIII.11 1994
Decrease of TV series episodes
Anime and planned multimedia
OVA: revival chasing TV hits
The Ghibli’s one and other cinema hits

4
IX Rebirth of serial animation and international success (1995-1999)
IX.1 1995
Japan trembles but doesn’t fall down
1995 cult series: Neon Genesis Evangelion
Teenagers, parodies and anime by night
Apotheosis of quality OVA
Prominent movies: whispers of the hearth, Shoah and cyberpunk
IX.2 1996
The Evangelion pattern as a new boom engine
Ribirth of TV anime, but in shorter series
Last longlasting TV series
A blooming of OVA
Outstanding films
IX.3 1997
N.S.A.: the New Serial (and by night) Animation: vampires and knights
TV audience as a new cornucopia
Two multimedia phenomenon: Pokémon and Utena
Other remarkable TV series of the year
OVA: erotism, fan service and videogames
At the cinema: brushed up classics and dead certain hits
Miyazaki Hayao’s philosophical testament: Princess Mononoke
Kimba vs. Simba and the wandering samurai
IX.4 1998
Mournings, celebrations and critical reflections
Increase of digital animation and Cowboy Bebop
Card games, robots after the time-limit and introspective science fiction
Other notable TV series
OVA: new ideas and technical innovation
At the cinema: the stars of Kon, Oshii, Ōtomo and Amano
IX.5 1999
Little witches, pirates and still science fiction
Series for teenagers and young adults
The classics’ return on home-video: space pirates and wandering samurai
Box-office characters and masterpieces

X Indie animation between the two centuries

X.1 The Sōgetsu generation between the nineties and two thousands
X.1.1 Okamoto Tadanari
X.1.2 Kawamoto Kikachirō
X.1.3 Kuri Yōji, Kinoshita Renzō, Furukawa Taku
X.1.4 Aihara Nobuhiro, Tanaami Keiichi
X.2 New indie animation: first generation
X.2.1 Mori Masaaki, Kurosaka Keita
X.2.2 Yamamura Kōji
X.2.3 Other important authors
X.3 Second generation and beyond
X.3.1 The new heirs of stop motion
X.3.2 Katō Kunio
X.3.3 Other outstanding artists
X.3.4 Towards a third generation of indie authors

5
 X.4 Contacts among animation, video art and contemporary art in the new century
X.4.1 Murakami Takashi and Superflat
X.4.2 Tabaimo
X.4.3 Ishida Takashi
X.4.4 Other new talented authors

XI Commercial animation in the new century (2000-2008)

XI.1 2000
Hit series for children
Longlasting series after all: Inuyasha
TV series and OVA for adults: horror, history, nonsense
At the cinema: thematic and technical novelties
XI.2 2001
Animation in crisis times: pretending nothing happened
The palpable decay of OVA’s quality
A plenty of cinema movies
Masterpieces of the year/1. Metropolis
Masterpieces of the year /2. Spirited Away
Other important films
XI.3 2002
A new generation of giant robots, gynoids and magic
Internet and home-video productions: the star of Shinkai Makoto
Cinema movies: science fiction and ghiblic visions
XI.4 2003
Outstanding TV series: wolves, alchemists, ninja and steampunk
TV quality science fiction
OVA: Animatrix, Saint Seiya, Fist of the North Star and Mazinger
A few cinema gems
XI.5 2004
A year of records: TV series
The remains of OVA: old glories still standing in the breach
Cinema productions: from animated drawing to cel-shading
Ōtomo returns: Steamboy
Mind Game, Shinkai Makoto’s talent and Miyazaki’s new work
XI.6 2005
Economic and organizational changes of the animation system
TV series: quantity vs. quality
Rediscovering super robots: Eureka Seven
Science fiction, fantasy, horror and Middle Age: further notable series
OVA: the return of Tatsunoko and romantic comedy
Cinema: endless Gundam
XI.7 2006
A system between crisis and experimentation
TV series: more and more pop
The record of anime on air
Not only entertaining TV anime: the theme of youth social isolation
WOWOW series
More ghosts in the shell, deadly notes and a new generation of mecha
A bulk of cinema great movies
Kon Satoshi’s visionary masterpiece: Paprika
The first time of a gaijin: Tekkonkinkreet

6
 XI.8 2007
Decreasing production
Half-breed samurai, literary characters and poetic mecha
Not only science fiction: the inexhaustible resources of fantasy and comedy
Evergreen space classics: Gundam and Macross
The new direction of genuine OVA: few but good
At the cinema: a genius party of animation
The return of Evangelion
Japanese myth and nationalism at the XXI century’s beginning
XI.9 2008
On TV: a moderate variety despite a serious crisis
Cyborgs from the past, youth desease and parodies
OVA: few sparks of creativity
Miyazaki again: the call of animation
New movies by Oshii and Mushi

XII The present of Japanese commercial animation

(2009-2011)
XII.1 2009
Dark ages
Great TV series by Madhouse and Production I.G, in spite of everything
Renewing Genji and talking about earthquakes
Some classics never die
OVA: CLAMP and Hoshino Yukinobu’s manga in the forefront
Cinema: Madhouse and Production I.G over the top
XII.2 2010
Signs of economic recovery and animation system’s contradictions
TV production keeps on decreasing
OVA: new trends and introspective languages
Kon Satoshi’s death and the reaction of Japanese cinema
XII.3 2011
If reality overcomes fantasy
TV series
Home-video
Outstanding movies
A look at the future

CONCLUSIONS

SCHEDULES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX

7
 I.
Origins
1917-1929

I.1 Genesis, and debate about genesis, of Japanese animation

Some authors begin their speech about Japanese animation starting from emakimono (‘rolled
images’), illustrated paper rolls deriving from Chinese ones that appeared in Japan in the X
century, measuring about fifteen meters long, whose drawings you can see unrolling the paper
from right to left for 50-60 centimeters a time and that depict even different perspectives and
points of view of the same scene, like in a sort of ancient forebear of the storyboard.1 Some others,
instead, start from kamishibai (‘paper theater’), a sort of illustrated story-teller of the XII century,
come back during the twenties and considered as the progenitor of manga, and so of anime as
well, link in the chain between them and ukiyo-e illustration.2
Going not so far back in time, we can recognize the beginning of Japanese animation’s history,
in a very wide meaning, at the end of Edo period,3 when some painters started depicting detailed
sequences of movements, like in Hokusai Katsushika’s (1760-1849) oriental dances, and utsushi-e
(‘projection of figures’) made its appearance. This was a theatrical show consisting of the
projection of painted pictures by a variation of magic lantern, made for the first time in Japan in
1803.4 In utsushi-e images were projected onto a paper screen by furo, small, light and portable
magic lanterns the projectionists wore around the neck, in which they put tane-ita, painted glass
sheets: operators just moved projected images walking up or off the screen, so giving the illusion
of perspective. The show was accompanied by music and narrator.
The history of real cinematography in Japan, by the way, begins in 1896-97, when in Kobe they
showed the Kinetoscopio Edison and Gabriel Veyre and Constant Girél, two camera operators of
Lumière brothers’, filmed road settings in some Japanese cities with the help of Inabata Katsutarō,
a draper who had realized this new invention’s potential during a stay in Lione. In 1898 took then
place the first local experiments to make a cine camera, while between 1901 and 1902 they made
the first Japanese projector (wasei eishaki). The foundation of Takamitsu Kōjō industries in 1918
gave then the start to mechanical and engeneering development of cine devices, whose first result
was the Royal projector. Major delays were, instead, accumulated in the development of
technologies needed for the manufacture of photographic material and celluloid films, so that
since 1924 the government imposed a heavy tax on the import of this type of products just to
stimulate the growth of domestic industry in the field.
As regards, however, the realization of what technically is meant for animation, the question
of origins is still somewhat controversial. It is certain that already between 1909 and 1910 the

1 See Takahata Isao , Jûni seiki no animêshon. Kokuhō emakimono ni miru eigateki animêteki naru mono (‘Animation of
XII century. Resemblances between animation cinema and the painted rolls classified as national treasures’),
Tokyo, Tokuma Shoten-Ghibli, 1999.
2 See Eric P. Nash, Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater, New York, Abrams Comicarts, 2009.

3 Edo (or Tokugawa) period in Japan lasted from 1603 to 1868 and took its name from the city of Edo, the present

Tokyo, where the bakufu (military government) of hegemonic Tokugawa family, led by the shōgun, had its
premises. All through this time Japan withdrew from any contact with foreign countries, getting organized after
a kind of feudal power system that kept the country in a very deep state of backwardness from a western point
of view.
4 See D. Miyao, op. cit., pp. 193 ff.; Donald Richie, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film, New York, Kōdansha

International, 2005, p. 252; Tze-Yue G. Hu, op. cit., p. 60 ff.; Brigitte Koyama-Richard, L’animation japonaise, du
rouleau peint aux Pokémon. Flammarion, 2010, pp. 52-3, the last also for a digression about the history of various
optical instruments for the vision of stereoscopic images, prints and enlightened of chinese shadows that
appeared in Japan from the XVIII century.
8
Fukuhōdō imported in Japan some American and French works of animation, including the
famous Fantasmagorie (1908, 700 drawings, 2’) by the French precursor Émile Cohl (pseudonym of
Émile Courtet, 1857-1938) and some by John Randolph Bray’s (1879-1978) works,5 and that the
series of projections was later presented at Teikokukan (‘imperial cinema’) in Asakusa, Tokyo,
under the name of dekobō shingachō (‘the new booklet of the kid’s scribbles’).6 The success, also
favored by general climate of openness to the outside that had characterized the Meiji period and
that it would continue to permeate even the next Taishō period, was such that the import of
animated films from abroad continued without pause. In 1911 at the cinema Teikokukan was
added the great theater of Yûrakuza and in 1915 between the two rooms were projected 21
movies in all, so that it is highly likely that already in these years, several self-taught artists,
stimulated by the vision of these works, brought experiments to produce something similar.7 The
enthusiasm generated by this kind of projections got its more accomplished shape in an article by
art critic Terasaki Hironari, titled «Dekobō shingachō» and published in 1916 in the first issue of
Katsudō no sekai (‘The world of motion’) magazine, in which the author showed extremely
interested in the «animated lines», slagging off who already at the time branded infant similar
works.

I.1.1 The Matsumoto fragment.

A useful event to further substantiate the beginning of animation in a technical sense in Japan
was the discovery, in July 2005, of a fragment of empty film lasting 3 seconds, composed of about
50 frames in 35mm, on which are directly traced some drawings, called «Matsumoto fragment»
from the name of Matsumoto Natsuki, the University of Osaka’s researcher who has found it in a
private residence in Kyoto. The sequence shows a little sailor dressed boy in the act of writing in
kanji on a blackboard «katsudō shashin» (‘moving figures’), and it is certainly part of a primitive
and longer work of non photographic animation.8
However, the assumptions made by Matsumoto whether this stuff is prior to the arrival of
foreign cited films was challenged by more, mainly because of lack of confirmations, being the
fragment more plausibly part of such a work, outcome of spontaneous experimentation about
which we said above.9 According to some sources,10 anyway, the fragment would be actually
dating back even to 1907, thus confirming an autonomous genesis of Japanese animation, prior
even to the European one. Among the various skeptics, however, there is the critic and television
historian Ōguchi Takayuki (n. 1959), according to which this reconstruction would be highly
unlikely, since according to the more credited historiography the roots of Japanese animation
found their fertile ground exclusively in the imported Western one. In addition to Ōguchi’s
considerations, moreover, it should be emphasized also the extreme difficulty in obtaining film in
Japan before the half of the tens. However, the question is still hotly debated, and if in favor of
the thesis of the indigenous origin of Japanese animation may be worth the place of the discovery
– the first projections of foreign works in fact took place in Tokyo, and the fragment was found in
Kyoto – confirming the thesis of import from abroad of the idea in itself of animation there is,
instead, the absolute absence of other indications to the contrary. In any case, even if the
fragment was actually of the previous era, it would not have had any particular influence on

5 See Giannalberto Bendazzi, Cartoons. Cento anni di cinema di animazione, Venezia, Marsilio, 1992, pp. 116 ff.
6 See Miyao D., op. cit., p. 195; S. Hui Gan, op. cit., p. 35; Fred Patten, «January 1917: First Animation Produced in
Japan Is Released», Newtype USA, year 3, n. 1, 2004. As said, the phrase dekobō shingachō was often used in
principle to indicate animation.
7 See G. Bendazzi, op. cit., ibid.; J. Clements – H. McCarthy, op. cit., p. 169.

8 See The Mainichi Daily News, August 20th 2005 (readable at Mdn.mainichimsn.co.jp/national/news/

20050820p2a00m0et007000.html).
9 See J. Clements – H. McCarthy, op. cit., ibid.

10 See Jasper Sharp, «The First Frame of Anime», in The Roots of Japanese Anime: Until the End of WWII DVD Box,

Zakka Films, 2008, p. 2.

9
subsequent developments in the Japanese animation. The state, in fact, remains the historical
reconstruction according to which the first to have made animations photographically imprinted
on film were the painter Kitayama Seitarō (1889-1945), and the cartoonists Shimōkawa Ōten (or
Hekoten) (1892-1973) and Kōuchi Jun’ichi (or Sumikazu) (1886-1970).11
Working on stories derived from the popular tradition, they were among those self-taught
artists that, affected by the first projections of western works of animation, began to put into
practice rudimentary techniques of animation, such as, for example, photographing sequences of
plaster drawings on a blackboard, as experienced in particular by Shimōkawa so similar to what
has already been done by the anglo-american James Stuart Blackton (1875-1941), or drawings in
Indian ink on paper, as done by Kitayama.

[…]

11 About origins see also Tsugata Nobuyuki, «Research on the Achievements of Japan’s First Three Animators»,
Asian Cinema, vol. 14, n. 1, 2003, pp. 13-27; Yamaguchi Yasuo, Nippon no anime zenshi. Sekai o seishita Nippon anime
no kiseki, Tokyo, Ten-Books, 2004, pp. 44 ff.; Miyao D., op. cit., pp. 197 sgg.; G. Bendazzi, op. cit., ibid.; Francesco
Prandoni, Anime al cinema. Storia del cinema di animazione giapponese 1917-1995, Milano, Yamato Video, 1999, pp. 3
ff.; Tze-Yue G. Hu, op. cit., pp. 59 ff.; J. Sharp, «Pioneers of Japanese Animation at PIFan», Midnight Eye,
September 23, 2004, Midnighteye.com/features/pioneers-of-anime.shtml.
10
 III.
Postwar period and the rise of industrial animation
1946-1963

III.1 The years of reconstruction (1946-1954)

In the aftermath of the War of the Pacific’s end the situation of Japanese animation radically
changed. After the capitulation on September 2, 1945, Japan was occupied militarily by Allied
forces, that is, in essence, by American troops on the orders of the Supreme Commander of the
Allied powers (SCAP), general Douglas MacArthur.
The nation was literally to rebuild, the homeless were millions and the main problem for the
population was to remedy food enough to survive. In this situation is clear that the economic
needs of animation were not a priority, and ceased the generous military orders, many studios
were forced to close, even if there was anyone who managed to find however the resources to
produce something as Ashida Iwao, whose 9 minutes short film Konchû tengoku (‘The paradise of
the insects’), an act of denunciation of speculation on the black market made in the autumn of
1945, was the first work of animation distributed in the immediate post-war years. As well as by
Ashida was the first animation longlasting film, Baghdad hime (‘The princess of Baghdad’), a 48
minutes feature film presented three years later, in 1948, produced by Sanko Eigasha.1
Film production, as well as animation one, inevitably they passed under the control of
subordinate organizations to SCAP, the Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) and the Center of
Information and Education (CI&E), committed to eradicate from the works any militaristic or
feudal reminiscent spirit. 2 Precisely in order to pursue this objective, the SCAP ordered, for
example, the destruction of more than 200 copies of films judged too nationalist or anti-
democratic, inserting among them also the feature animation film Momotarō Umi no shinpei;
however, the order was not fully executed, so much so that the precious negatives of Seo
Mitsuyo’s film were found intact in the archives of Shōchiku in 1984. In the same way, they
rescued several other animated films made during the war that, although undoubtedly delivering
messages of nationalist propaganda, were not considered by the occupants’ authorities such as to
configure a serious threat to the construction of the new democratic Japan.

III.1.1 Animation studios in the first postwar period

In order to probably anticipate the moves of the SCAP, engaged in restructuring and
controlling the film and animation industry, in December of 1945 about a hundred of animators,
including Masaoka Kenzō, Murata Yasuji, Seo Mitsuyo and Yamamoto Sanae, joined in a
collective effort to give life to the Shin Nihon Dōgasha, immediately renamed Nihon Manga
Eigasha in January 1946. Little by little, between enormous economic and material difficulties, the
Nihon Manga began to produce new works of animation, one of the most significant was
certainly Sakura: haru no genzō (‘The cherry: vision of Spring’), made by Masaoka Kenzō in the
same 1946. This is a short film of 8 minutes which describes the spring awakening of the earth,
between sun rays, rain drops, wearing kimono women, flights of butterflies and runs of insects
under the cherry trees in bloom, cleverly animated on the melody of Aufforderung zum Tanz, op.
65 (1819), by Carl Maria von Weber. A poetic and sensual piece, but, in spite of its beauty, in post-
war climate was deemed inappropriate and of little commercial value from distributors. And yet,
the symbol of the cherry tree in blossom in the author’s intentions was aimed just to represent the

1 See Yamaguchi Katsunori – Watanabe Yasushi, Nihon animêshon eiga shi (‘History of Japanese animation’),
Osaka, Yûbunsha, 1977, p. 47.
2 See M. Tessier, op. cit., pp. 43 ff.

11
soul of Japan that rises after the frost of the war. Greater consensus collected, on the other hand,
Mahō no pen (‘The magic pen’), 11 minutes short film still realized with the Nihon Manga by
Kumagawa Masao a few months later. In fact, the simple storyline, emblematically descriptive of
the aspirations of Japanese, found its way more easily: a little orphan collects and adjusts a doll of
western aspect; falling asleep during the English lesson, the boy dreams to receive as a gift by
doll, grateful to be repaired, a magic pen thanks to which what he draws becomes real; after he
has drawn trees, houses, skyscrapers, automobiles and highways, the boy and the doll start
together in a cabriolet car through the countryside, while a song in the background salutes the
reconstruction of the new Japan. The doll, then, says goodbye to the shy boy by giving him a pat
on the face, that wakes him from his sleep. But the dream of the little protagonist in its
immediacy was not aimed to represent a mere illusion, but rather a straightforward affirmation
of an intense desire for rebirth, which identified in the Western model the path to follow. Both the
films were of course approved by the SCAP, describing, albeit in a different way, the yearning of
the Japanese to a new era of peace and prosperity.3
The journey of Nihon Manga was short, because it was already in August 1947 that both
Masaoka and Yamamoto left the company to found the Nihon Dōgasha, and the weight of the
activity was to fall entirely on Seo Mitsuyo’s shoulders. All the resources of Nihon Manga were
then invested in a single project that, after nearly two years of work several times stopped for
lack of funds, brought to completion, in 1948, the medium length film Osama no shippo (‘The tail
of the King’). The film, lasting for 33 minutes and costing the exorbitant amount of about 6
million yen, but was rejected by Tōhō, which would have had to deploy it, because they deemed
it too little commercial, causing the failure of Nihon Manga and the abandonment of animation
by an embittered Seo.4
Meanwhile, between September 1947 and February 1950, Masaoka Kenzō presented with the
Nihon Dōgasha three ambitious short films in full animation: Suteneko Tora-chan (‘Tora-chan, the
kitten abandoned’), Tora-chan to hanayome (‘Tora-chan and the bride’) and Tora-chan no kankan
mushi (‘the French cancan of insects to Tora-chan’), in which he invested in fact his last resources,
both economic and physical, to then dedicate himself to the teaching of the art of animation. In
the history of the abandoned kitten Tora-chan, greeted by a happy family of cats orphans of
father, there is the realistic and yearning story of many familiar tales of the time that the audience
did not fail to appreciate, thanks also to a daring and stylish animation.

In these difficult years of the immediate post-war period the survival of animation as a
medium in reality it was only possible thanks to Tōhō and Shōchiku, the two big movie studios
among the protagonists of the restructuring of the sector chosen by the military authorities
during the war, on which in fact leaned both Nihon Manga and Nihon Dōgasha. In particular, in
1948 Tōhō founded the subsidiary Tōhō Kyōiku Eigasha in order to respond to the need of
directly producing educational and informative works of animation for the masses, according to
the pressing demands of the occupying forces; however, the substantial disinterest of the parent
company and the consequent lack of funds brought in short the disposal of the subsidiary, which
between 1951 and 1952 merged exactly with Nihon Dōgasha, assuming the name of Nihon Eiga
Dōga Kabushiki-kaisha, also known as Nichidō Eigasha.5
In 1952, furthermore, Yanase, a company importing cars and then also TVs that had been
founded in 1915, created the Television Corporation of Japan (TCJ) just in order to produce
animated commercials, so demonstrating the versatility and effectiveness of the animation
medium.6

3 See J. Sharp, op. ult. cit.

4 See F. Prandoni, op. cit., p. 19; J. Clements – H. McCarthy, op. cit., p. 574; B. Koyama-Richard, op. ult. cit., pp. 85 ff.
5 See Tze-Yue G. Hu, op. cit., p. 82, also reporting the contracted name Nidō Eigasha.

6 See F. Prandoni, op. cit., p. 35.

12
[…]

13
 V.
The television revolution
1964-1970

V.1 The decline of full animation cinema

On October 10, 1964 the opening of the XVIII Olympiad’s games was celebrated in Tokyo,
as a sign of Japan’s definitive readmission into the international community, while its
economy was in a phase of strong growth and so did employment and wages as well,1 giving
the ideal conditions for the development of an «unnecessary» industry, as in fact the one of
mass consumption serial animation was. The advent of television, whose popularity was
undoubtedly accelerated by the celebration of the Olympic Games, had opened the doors of a
new market, that integrated animation, advertising and merchandising, and all of the
animation studios had rushed into the production of television series, giving life to a tight
competition, so much so that on TV it was already possible to follow six animated series a
week, to which they would have added three new production during the same year.2
The story of Tōei is emblematic of this historical phase, in which film production in
general suffered a decisive, but unavoidable, contraction due to the massive spread of
television, which underwent a drastic decline of spectators in the theaters.3 After the exit of
Wan wan Chûshingura (‘Woof woof Chushingura’),4 the second film produced by the studio in
1963, in 1964 for the first time since its foundation Tōei Dōga showed no new feature film for
the cinema. Most of its workforce was indeed engaged in producing its second TV series,
Shōnen ninja kaze no Fujimaru (‘The young ninja Fujimaru of the wind’), with which the studio,
softening a subject by the great mangaka Shirato Sanpei (n. 1932), specialized mainly in
historical dramas characterized by raw stories of ninja and samurai (jidaigeki monogatari, often
abbreviated jidaigeki or jidaimono) set in feudal Japan, gave way to a genre that would have
never known big crisis, the one of combat anime directly inspired by the warrior and
Japanese martial arts tradition, and which would have been enriched with cultural elements
from outside through the time.
In order to draw people in the cinema halls, in the next few years the home of Nerima
conceived the Manga daishinkō (‘Big parades of manga’), i.e. the projection at the cinema of
episodes of television series refitted and adapted for the big screen, that while obtaining a
good success with the public, especially in coincidence with the school holidays, on the other
hand ended up by downgrading in some way the animation cinema, reducing it too often in
this phase a mere simulacrum of the small screen. In 1967 the program then had its name
changed in Manga matsuri (‘Feast of manga’) and two years later also Tōhō inaugurated the
Tōhō Champion Matsuri, that was contemptuously defined okosama lunch dōga eiga, “fixed
menu animation for kids”.5 The plans to produce two feature films in full animation per year
were then shortly set aside to make space for the production of at least one television series

1 See K.G. Henshall, op. cit., pp. 242 ff. To get an idea of the incredible acceleration of the economic growth in
Japan in the sixties (kodo keizai seichō), you can think that the amount of the average salary for an employee
to life between 1960 and 1967 increased 100% in the face of an average inflation rate of 5%.
2 See Masuda H., op. cit., p. 122.; F. Prandoni, op. cit., p. 39.

3 See M. Tessier, op. cit., p. 102.

4 Chûshingura is a Kabuki theater work written in 1748 by Takeda Izumo, based on the historical event of the

“47 rōnin”, a group of samurai who sacrificed their lives to avenge their daimyō (lord and master in the
ancient Japan).
5 See F. Prandoni, op. cit., p. 58.

14
in a season, choosing therefore to make only one full animation feature film and two limited
animation (not more than 8 designs per second) medium length movies each year.

Forefather of these “second class” medium length films was Cyborg 009, directed by
Serikawa Yûgo in 1966 and first in a series of films based on manga by the prolific author
Ishinomori Shōtarō (1938-1998), which collected such a hit that the following year they made
a second of it and then a television series in 1968. Meanwhile in 1965 small screen animation
was enriched by color. The very first series in polychrome was Dolphin ōji (‘The prince
Dolphin’) by TV Dōga, aired in April on Fuji TV, but stopped after only three episodes due to
poor audience. In fact, at the time the price of CTV was still prohibitive for most of Japanese
families, and thus only a few could appreciate the sensational novelties introduced by T V
Dōga.6 It was then, again, due to the insistence of Tezuka Osamu that in a short time the
color became in spite of everything a characteristic vital to the success of a series. 7 On
October 6, 1965 Fuji TV aired the first of 52 episodes of Jungle taitei (‘The emperor of the
jungle’; Kimba the white lion), color series of great success produced by Mushi and based on
another well known manga by Tezuka.8 From the same work the following year was also
drawn Chōhen jungle taitei, a much more refined movie adaptation.

[…]

6 See Murakami S., op. cit., p. 15.

7 Despite the still low diffusion of TV color – that only since 1966 would have gone to form, together with the
air conditioner and the car, the shin sanshu no jingi (‘the three new sacred treasures’), constituting one of the
most aspired status symbol – Tezuka was stubborn in producing a whole series in full color, bringing
production costs to the stars and causing a huge liabilities of 61 million yen in the strongboxes of an
already shaky Mushi.
8 The last television animated series in black and white to be broadcast was Chingo Muchabei (‘The

extravagant Muchabei’), produced in 46 episodes by Tōkyō Movie in 1968, but then set aside for the
unannounced obsolescence. The series was broadcast by T BS network in 1971 with the unusual frequency of
five episodes per week.
15
 VI/1.
From super robot to “anime boom”
1971-1983

The sixties saw the economic Japanese miracle arising in all its size and the 1970 was a
symbolic year of transformation of the country. The inauguration of the World Expo in
Osaka sanctioned the era of mass consumerism and the ideologies of the past, after the
disintegration of the left following the defeat of the Zengakuren student movement – which
had fought in vain against the renewal of the security treaty with the United States – and the
consequent birth of sectarian terrorist groups as the Nihon sekigun (Japanese Red Army),1
materially consumed their last act on 25 November, with the live TV seppuku (ritual suicide of
the samurai) of the right-wing nationalist intellectual Mishima Yukio (1925-1970).2
In the seventies the economic Japanese superpower gave further proof of its strength,
battling with great effectiveness both the most serious oil crisis of 1973, and a series of low
blows that originate from the US government led by President Richard Nixon, maker of a
sudden cooling of economic and diplomatic relations between the USA and Japan, which
however did not prevent the entry of the latter in the prototype of the so-called G7 in 1975,
with the acquiescence of Europe.3 In particular, precisely in order to reduce the dependence
of the nation from middle east oil, the government policy opted for a conversion of the heavy
industry in a low power consumption lightweight manufacturing devoted to hi-tech, thus
turning Japan a country at the forefront of research and development of new mechanical,
electrical and electronic technologies.4 These changes, however, were not long in affecting the
issues of television anime, which, as soon you’ll see, in this decade returned to deal
predominantly with science fiction.

VI/1.1 In the wake of sci-fi: super robot and variations on the theme

At the beginning of the seventies the world of animation got into a phase of great ferment
as well. The vicissitudes of Tōei appear in this sense once again emblematic. With the

1 On March 31, 1970 Nihon sekigun performed their first terrorist act hijacking the flight JAL-351 from Tokyo
to Seoul; here the commando freed 129 passengers to then take refuge in North Korea, where they
abandoned the aircraft leaving the crew free.
2 Mishima committed this type of suicide to deny his membership in a nation that he considered now

stripped of its cultural identity due to an ever more marked westernisation (see R. Calvet, op. cit., p. 394).
Mishima’s suicide can be considered as a paroxysmal symbol of the historic cultural contrast between the
closed nationalism of nihonjinron (‘discourse about Japanese’) or Nihon bunkaron (‘discourse about Japanese
culture’) on the one hand, and the xenophilous enthusiasm of yōgaku (‘western studies’) on the other hand.
In this regard, according to some critics (see P. Gravett, op. cit., pp. 18 ff.) it can be said that, in fact, the
place of origin of manga – and of anime as a result – it’s located right along the fault of this historic
opposition generated in Meiji period, being it born especially from the contamination of the tradition of
ukiyo-e and kamishibai with comic and western animation, according to the process of wakon yōsai (‘Japanese
spirit, western culture’) typical of the modernization began at the end of the nineteenth century.
3 See E.O. Reischauer, op. cit., pp. 247 ff. and p. 295.

4 See K.G. Henshall, op. cit., pp. 240 ff.; R. Caroli – F. Gatti, op. cit., pp. 234-5; R. Calvet, op. cit., pp. 408 ff.

Parallel to the industrial conversion program, between the end of the sixties and the beginning of the
seventies Japan boosted the nuclear civil program for the production of electricity, starting the building of
17 reactors, which went to add to the already operational two. Today, Japan has eighteen nuclear power
plants and a total of 59 reactors (not all operating).
16
culmination of the union tensions developed during the sixties and because of the
uncertainties about the animation division’s future, also due to the growing commitment of
the group in the production of tokusatsu telefilms,5 between 1970 and 1971 a part of animators
left Tōei Dōga. Among them Komatsubara Kazuo (1943-2000), Ōtsuka Yasuo and last
Miyazaki Hayao and Takahata Isao, which rejoined Ōtsuka at A Production studio (from
1976 known as Shin’Ei Dōga), a commissioner of the major Tōkyō Movie, being first called to
succeed Osumi Masaaki as episode directors in Lupin sansei (‘Lupin III’), a brief television
series which would have left its mark on the history of anime, and then to the creation of the
two short films of Panda kopanda (‘Panda small panda’), written by Miyazaki, directed by
Takahata and animated by Ōtsuka.

[…]

5 Tokusatsu literally means ‘special effects’, at first associated with kaijû eiga (‘film of monsters’) produced
since 1954, and whose emblems are undoubtedly the various Tōhō’s Gojira (Godzilla) and Daiei’s Gamera.
Tsuburaya launched tokusatsu on the small screen in 1966 with the television series Ultraman, which
collected a clamorous success. Tōei on the other hand began to produce telefilms with special effects in
1971, with the famous series Kamen Rider by Ishinomori Shōtarō, whose central element was given by the
transformation (henshin) of the protagonist Hongo Takeshi into masked rider vigilante Kamen Rider; the
huge success of the show and derivative merchandising then gave rise to the so-called henshin boom and an
endless succession of clones that put for some time into serious doubt Tōei’s animation future.
17
 VII
The golden age of independent animation. The seventies and the eighties

After the end of the positive experience of Sōgetsu kaikan and connected Animation Festival,
with the last edition of 1971, at the beginning of the seventies independent animation of the
Rising Sun found itself having to inevitably rearrange its own circuit in spite of all, and crucial
initiatives in this direction were numerous and all extremely fruitful.

VII.1 Great masters of the time

In 1972 Kawamoto Kihachirō and Okamoto Tadanari, the two greatest interpreters of Japanese
puppet animation, gave life to the Puppet Animashow, an annual festival devoted to works of
animation carried out mainly with puppets, which lasted for eight editions and that was held in
turn in different cities of Japan, inspiring not only a considerable following among insiders, but
also managing to capture the attention of the public, that during the festival could also attend live
puppet shows organized by the two artists to flesh out a program otherwise too lean, considered
the time taken to produce new works from one year to another, and especially the shortage of
animators dedicated to the art of puppets.

VII.1.1 Kawamoto Kihachirō

Kawamoto, in particular, was at the time fresh winner of the Ōfuji-shō for the short film Oni
(‘Demon’, 1972), the simple story of two hunters attacked by a demon through which the author
defined the typical features of his own style, made of well proportioned puppets, realistic
environments and serious and tragic stories, derived from the ancient Japanese literary tradition.
These characteristics, though rejected with the en passant surrealism of subsequent Tabi (‘Journey’,
1973) and Shijin no shōgai (‘Life of a poet’, 1974), were revived in equally important works
produced during this period and presented to the Puppet Animashow, such as the short films
Dōjōji (‘Temple’, 1976) and Kataku (‘The house in flames’, 1979). After the experience of
Animashow, Kawamoto then devoted himself to two demanding works, the feature film Rennyo to
sono haha (‘Rennyo and his mother’, 1981), about the life of jōdo Buddhist monk Rennyo (1415-
1499), and the television series Ningyōgeki sangokushi (‘The Romance of the Three Kingdoms with
puppets’, 1982-‘84), composed of 68 episodes of 45 minutes each and produced by NHK together
with the Chinese TV station CCTV. The series is based on the historical Chinese novel Sânguo yǎnyi,
written by Luo Guanzhong in the XIV century, and tells the turbulent historical events happened
in China between the end of the Han dynasty and the period of the Three Kingdoms (169-230
A.D.). In 1988 Kawamoto then completed the short film Fusha no sha (‘Pull without pulling’),
another adaptation in puppet animation of a Chinese classical subject as well as reworked in the
novel Meijin-den (‘History of an archery master’, 1942) by Nakajima Atsushi, carried out at the
Shanghai Animation Film Studio, one of the most important studios of Chinese animation.1

[…]

1 About Kawamoto see Koyama-Richard, op. cit., pp. 195 ff.

18
 IX.4 1998

Mournings, celebrations and critical reflections

In spite of the raging economic and social crisis in which Japan continued to stagnate, as
regards animation 1998 turned out to be a really exceptional season in terms of quantity and
quality, and probably the best television one in the history of Japanese animation, for what was
also called the “anime bubble”. In fact, the advent of Shinseiki Evangelion three years before had
surely triggered a process of radical renewal of serial animation by itself, but on the other hand
this also had found fertile ground in people’s growing need to escape an everyday life marked by
the effects of the recession, against which many investors multiplied their economic efforts in
order to put a hit like the Gainax one.
The year opened with two serious bereavements: on January 21, the sudden death, due to a
cerebral aneurysm, of Kondō Yoshifumi, the 47 years old Studio Ghibli’s pupil, followed a week
later by the equally unexpected end of the great author and mangaka Ishinomori Shōtarō, who
died at sixty years for a heart attack. It was especially Kondō’s death, however, to shock the
animation environment, not only because this artist was rightly considered the most promising
among the potential successors of Miyazaki Hayao as a studio’s representative figure, but also
because his sudden death was reconnected to the great stress due to the obsessive rhythms of
work that had characterized the making of Mononoke hime.
This year, however, was important also because Japanese animation stopped to be concerned
at home exclusively as a work of art, trade and consumption, becoming for the first time a real
subject of study and research from a scientific and cultural point of view too (as far as critical and
academics studies by Japanese scholars had not been lacking in the past). On July 25, in fact, was
founded in Tokyo the Nippon animêshon gakkai (Institute for Japanese studies in animation),
internationally better known as Japan Society for Animation Studies (JSAS), which, with its
activities and its publications, including the magazine Animêshon kenkyû (‘Studies about
animation’; Japanese Journal of Animation Studies), would have become in the course of time the
reference point for writers, researchers, animators, filmmakers, sociologists of the media and
even psychologists, interested in sharing their studies and their reflections on anime, which have
now become an academy subject.2

Increase of digital animation and Cowboy Bebop

The season was exceptional first for the amount of TV productions: 76 new series were, in fact,
produced, almost double than the previous year and never so many in the past, even if for the
most part consisted of very short series broadcasted at night.3 The increased production capacity
was the result, not only of the relocation abroad of several productive stages, but also of the more
and more massive use of computers in the production process, and this especially thanks to
investments made in that direction, since the end of the eighties, by Tōei Dōga, which this year

2 The inaugural symposium of the institute was named after Pokémon jiken omegutte (‘On the Pokémon affair’),
dedicated, precisely, to the mass phenomenon of those little pocket rascals exploded the previous year. In
general, in Japan domestic animation began being studied as a historical subject rather late, at the beginning of
the seventies of the twentieth century, and in particular thanks to the two parts documentary by Yabushita Taiji
Nihon manga eiga hattatsu shi, released in 1971 and in 1973, while the first paper was Nihon eiga animêshon shi
(‘The history of Japanese animation’), by Yamaguchi Katsunori and Watanabe Yasushi, published in 1977.
3 The continuous growth of new animated TV series produced every year, since ten years in Japan, however, must

not mislead: if you look at the total number of episodes produced, in fact, the increase of production appears to
be far more restrained, at least until 2003, when even the number of episodes produced began to increase
significantly.

19
changed its name in more international Tōei Animation. This great studio bet more than any
other on the opportunities given by computer to cut costs and speed processes, developing and
implementing proprietary softwares to carry out coloring, editing and reversing on digital media,
assembled in 1991 in CATAS (Computer Aided Tōei Animation System).
On the other hand, if Tōei dedicated more to use software as a function of production, Sunrise,
as already seen in the series Tenkû no Escaflowne in 1996, had moved its experimentation along a
more creative path, working primarily on the development of computer generated imagery for
television works of animation. 4 Fruit of this experimentation was, in part, one of the best
television series realized not only in this season, but in absolute astride the new century: Cowboy
Bebop, by a young Watanabe Shin’ichirō, who did his debut as series director, winning the festival
of Kobe as the best TV series of the year and the prestigious Seiun-shō in 2000. Conceived by
Sunrise creative team (under the usual pseudonym Yatate Hajime) looking at a lot of world
cinematography (from “spaghetti western” to wuxia, passing through the american detective
movie, on-the-road movie and the unmissable Blade Runner), the story closely resembles in
structure, characters and moods even the first, old TMS series of Lupin III.5 The group of players –
four heterogeneous bounty hunters – here is however dropped in a near sci-fi future, in which
the solar system has been colonized by mankind and transformed into something halfway
between the Wild West, and a huge multi-ethnic metropolis, somehow New York City, or Hong
Kong, or even Cairo. On board the spaceship Bebop, the former mafia, very skillful and damn
cool Spike Spiegel; the reliable and loyal former policeman Jet Black; the mysterious and
ambiguous Faye Valentine, and very young and brilliant hacker Ed Radical roam into
interplanetary space chasing now this, now that criminal to cash the reward, but each of the
protagonists hiding some secret they try to forget living day by day, until their past asks to pay
the bill.
There are several characteristics that led to the great success of this anime. First of all, the
original concept, somehow a series made of 26 self-contained short films, just like jam sessions
that develop a theme in an unpredictable manner, ranging with aplomb by comedian to tragic,
and it is not by chance that the music – composed by eclectic Kanno Yōko – plays a key role in
creating the atmosphere, varying it too from a genre to another, according to expressive need.
The lead wire is then made of more the memorable characters and the evocative context, than a
coherent story, smeared somewhat with subtext and narrative ellipses that, however, are able to
charm viewers, giving them the feeling of having everything at hand, yet revealing very little of
the background, on the basis of a precise choice of director Watanabe and screenwriter
Nobumoto Keiko (n. 1964). Ultimately, the true leitmotif is precisely what is not said and shown
of the lives of main characters, in particular Spike Spiegel’s one, the true protagonist whose past
will mark the story at the end.
Other reasons for success were without doubt animation’s graphics and technical high quality,
got applying to television format the processes of digitally generated animation effectively
blending CGI and the traditional analog process, and the excellent design by Kawamoto Toshihiro
(character) and Yamane Kimitoshi (mecha), for a total budget of about 20 million yen per episode,
a real fortune for a TV anime. TV Tokyo channel aired the series starting from April 3, even if only
partially, judging 12 episodes too violent and gory for evening time viewers. The series was then
broadcasted in full only the following year on satellite pay channel WOWOW. Shortly after
producing the series, in October, the producer Minami Masahiko (n. 1961) left Sunrise together
with character designer Kawamoto Toshihiro and animator Ōsaka Hiroshi to found studio Bones,
in which would be later merged into good part of the so-called Studio 2, a division of the parent
company that, in addition to Cowboy Bebop, had in the past also carried out other important anime,
such as Tenkû no Escaflowne and OVA Kidō senshi Gundam: dai 08 MS shōtai.

4 The second symposium organised by JSAS in 1998 was not by chance dedicated to digital animation.
5 The work by Monkey Punch is quoted starting, for example, from the shoes and ankles design of Spike Spiegel
character.
20
[…]

21
Bibliography

AA.VV., Dal manga all’anime: in viaggio con One Piece, Milano, WOW, 2012.
AA.VV., Mecaman Art Works: Nakamura Mitsuki no sekai, Tokyo, MediaWorks, 2001.
AA.VV., Paprika Storyboard Book, Tokyo, Sony Pictures Home, 2006.
ALLISON, ANNE, Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination, Berkeley – Los
Angeles, University of California Press, 2006.
ALONGE, GIAIME, Il disegno armato. Cinema di animazione e propaganda bellica in nord America e
Gran Bretagna (1914-1945), Bologna, CLUEB, 2000.
ALONGE, GIAIME – AMADUCCI, ALESSANDRO, Passo uno. L’immagine animata dal cinema al digitale,
Torino, Lindau, 20032.
AMANO, MASANAO – WIEDEMANN, JULIUS, Manga, Köln, Taschen, 2004.
ANIMA MUNDI – WIEDEMANN, JULIUS, Animation Now!, Köln, Taschen, 2004.
ANTONINI, ANDREA – LUCIANETTI, SILVIA, Manga: immagini del Giappone contemporaneo, Roma,
Castelvecchi, 2001.
ANTONINI, MAURO, Cinema e Fumetti. Guida ai film tratti da cartoon, Roma, Dino Audino Editore,
2008.
AZUMA, HIROKI, «Animé or Something Like it: Neon Genesis Evangelion», InterCommunication,
n. 18, 1996 (Ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/ic018/intercity/higashi_E.html).
— Superflat Japanese Postmodernity, 2001
(Web.archive.org/web/20090122070446/http://www.hirokiazuma.com/en/texts/superflat_en
1.html).
— Dōbutsuka suru posutomodan. Otaku kara mita Nihon shakai, Tokyo, Kōdansha, 2001.
AZZANO, ENRICO – FONTANA, ANDREA – TARÒ, DAVIDE (edited by), Satoshi Kon. Il cinema
attraverso lo specchio, Piombino, Edizioni Il Foglio, 2009.
BARICORDI, ANDREA – DE GIOVANNI, MASSIMILIANO – PIETRONI, ANDREA – ROSSI, BARBARA –
TUNESI, SABRINA (edited by), Anime. Guida al cinema d’animazione giapponese, Bologna,
Granata Press, 1991.
BARRERA, CLAUDIA, Riyoko Ikeda. Quando lo shōjo diventa storia, Roma, Iacobelli, 2011.
BARTOLI, FABIO, «Neon Genesis Evangelion e la Kabbalah: dal Tempo di Dolore al Tempo
Benedetto», Manga Academica, n. 4, 2011, Editrice La Torre, pp. 23-49.
BENCIVENNI, ALESSANDRO, Hayao Miyazaki. Il dio dell’anime, Genova, Le Mani, 20032.
BENDAZZI, GIANNALBERTO, Cartoons. Cento anni di cinema d’animazione, Venezia, Marsilio
Editori, 19922.
BONO, GIANNI (edited by), «Mangamania. 20 anni di Giappone in Italia», IF – Immagini &
Fumetto, n. 8, Milano, Epierre, 1999.
BOUISSOU, JEAN-MARIE, Manga. Histoire et univers de la bande dessinée japonaise, Arles, Philippe
Picquier, 2010.
BRANCA, ROBERTO, I cavalieri dello Zodiaco. Espandi il tuo cosmo!, Roma, Iacobelli, 2008.
BROPHY, PHILIP, 100 Anime, London, British Film Institute Publishing, 2005.
BROWN, STEVEN T. (edited by), Cinema Anime: Critical Engagements with Japanese Animation,
New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 20062.
CACI, DAVIDE G.G., Death Note. Uno studente modello e il dio della morte, Roma, Iacobelli, 2010.
CALVET, ROBERT, Les japonais, Paris, Armand Colin, 2007.
CAMP, BRIAN – DAVIS, JULIE, Anime Classics Zettai! 100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces,
Berkeley, Stone Bridge Press, 2007.
CAMPOS, CRISTIAN (edited by), La new wave dell’illustrazione giapponese, Modena, Panini Comics,
2010.

22
CAPELLI, TIZIANO – OKITA, NAOMI (edited by), «Il tocco di Mitsuru Adachi», Kappa Magazine, n.
25, Bosco (PG), Star Comics, 1994.
CAROLI, ROSA – GATTI, FRANCESCO, Storia del Giappone, Bari, Laterza, 20045.
CASARI, MATTEO (edited by), Culture del Giappone contemporaneo. Manga, anime, videogiochi, arti
visive, cinema, letteratura, teatro, architettura, Latina, Tunué, 2011.
CASTELLAZZI, DAVIDE, Animeland. Viaggio tra i cartoni made in Japan, Firenze, Tarab, 1999.
— A-Z manga. Guida al fumetto giapponese, Roma, Coniglio Editore, 2004.
— Lady Oscar. Amori, segreti ed epiche battaglie, Roma, Iacobelli, 2008.
— Mobile Suit Gundam. Trent’anni nello spazio, Roma, Iacobelli, 2010.
CAVALIERI, MONICA, «Animeshon no mugen no sekai: Kuri Yoji’s Infinite World of
Animation», Animation Journal, vol. X, 2002.
CAVALLARO, DANI, Anime Intersections: Tradition and Innovation in Theme and Technique,
Jefferson, McFarland, 2007.
— The Art of Studio Gainax: Experimentation, Style and Innovation at the Leading Edge of Anime,
Jefferson, McFarland, 2009.
CHATRIAN, CARLO – PAGANELLI, GRAZIA (edited by), Manga Impact. Il mondo dell’animazione
giapponese, London – New York, Phaidon, 2010.
CICCIOLI, PIERO, Berserk. Un guerriero sanguinario nelle Terre di Mezzo, Roma, Iacobelli, 2011.
CLEMENTS, JONATHAN – MCCARTHY, HELEN, The Anime Encyclopedia: A guide to Japanese
Animation since 1917, Berkeley, Stone Bridge Press, 2006.
CORRADINI, PIERO, Il Giappone e la sua storia, Roma, Bulzoni Editore, 2003.
CRAIG, TIM (edited by), Japan Pop!: Inside the World of Japanese Popular Culture, Armonk (NY),
M.E. Sharpe, 2000.
DE PALMA, DANIELA, Storia del Giappone contemporaneo 1945-2000, Roma, Bulzoni, 2003.
— Il Giappone contemporaneo. Politica e società, Roma, Carocci, 2008.
DESTRO, ANDREA, Hokuto no Ken. Ken il guerriero, Roma, Iacobelli, 2010.
DI FRATTA, GIANLUCA, Il fumetto in Giappone. Dagli anni Settanta al 2000, Caserta, L’Aperìa, 2005.
— (edited by), Robot. Fenomenologia dei giganti di ferro giapponesi, Caserta, L’Aperìa, 2007.
— «Manga Academica. Una rassegna degli studi italiani sul fumetto e sul cinema di animazione
giapponese», Manga Academica, vol. 1, 2008, pp. 9-36.
DOI, TAKEO, Omote to ura, Tokyo, Shohan, 1985.
— The Anatomy of Self: the Individual versus Society, Tokyo, Kōdansha International, 1986.
D’OTTAVI, CESARE, Naruto. Un giovane ninja contro gli spiriti del male, Roma, Iacobelli, 2010.
DUJARRIC, ROBERT– HAGIU, ANDREI, Capitalizing On Innovation: The Case of Japan, Working
Paper 09-114, Harvard Business School, 2009 (Hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-114.pdf).
ERBA, FABIO, Yattaman, Calendar Men e le altre Time Bokan, Genova, Edizioni & Gadgets, 2004.
ETTINGER, BENJAMIN, «Otogi Pro and the rise of independent animation in Japan», Pelleas.net,
September 2, 2004
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/otogi_pro_and_the_rise_of_independent_an).
— «The first wave of independent animators in Japan», Pelleas.net, September 6, 2004
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/the_first_wave_ of_independent_animators_).
— «Tadanari Okamoto: The Heart of Animation», Pelleas.net, January 9, 2005
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/tadanari_okamoto_the_heart_ of_animation).
— «The Art of Takashi Ishida», Pelleas.net, April 7, 2005
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/the_art_of_takashi_ishida).
— «Kamiya’s Correspondence», Pelleas.net, August 1, 2009
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/kamiya_s_correspondence).
— «Mirai Mizue», Pelleas.net, 1o settembre 2009 (Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/mirai_mizue).
— «Keita Kurosaka’s Midori-ko this year?», Pelleas.net, April 24, 2010
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/midoriko_bringiton).

23
— «Kihachiro Kawamoto: An appreciation», Pelleas.net, September 11, 2010,
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/remembering_kihachiro_kawamoto).
— «Decovocal», Pelleas.net, December 15, 2010 (Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/decovocal).
— «Ryu Kato», Pelleas.net, March 7, 2011 (Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/ryu_kato).
— «The anime production line», Pelleas.net, October 23, 2011
(Pelleas.net/aniTOP/index.php/the_anime_ production_line).
FISCH, MICHAEL, «Nation, War, and Japan’s Future in Science Fiction Anime Film Patlabor II»,
Science Fiction Studies n. 80, vol. XXVII, part I, march 2000, SF-TH, DePauw University
(Depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/80/fish80art.htm).
FLEMING, JEFF – LUBOWSKY TALBOTT, SUSAN – MURAKAMI, TAKASHI, My Reality: Contemporary
Art And The Culture Of Japanese Animation, New York, Des Moines Art Center &
Independent Curators International, 2001.
FONTANA, ANDREA – TARÒ, DAVIDE, Anime. Storia dell’animazione giapponese 1984-2007,
Piombino, Edizioni Il Foglio, 2007.
FRANCATO, FABRIZIO – GATTONE, PAOLO – BARICCHI, ELISA – FRANCATO, GIANLUCA – BOZZA,
DAISY (edited by), Fenomeno Anime. Guida all’animazione nipponica, Pavia, Rock’n’Comics,
voll. 1-7, 1995-2000.
FRAZIER, SCOTT, «Titles and Positions in Japanese Animation Industry», Ex:Magazine, year II, n.
1, 1997 (Ex.org/2.1/12-beyondtvsafety.html).
— «Even more of those Japanese Animation Industry Job Titles», Ex:Magazine, year II, n. 2,
1997 (Ex.org/2.2/11-bts1.html).
— «Music and sound», Ex:Magazine, year II, n. 4, 1997 (Ex.org/2.4/15-bts_1.html).
— «Japanese animation camera work», Ex:Magazine, year III, n. 1, 1998 (Ex.org/3.1/10-
bts1.html).
FUJITSU, RYOTA, «Nippon no anime sangyō no kûdō ka tsuduku», Shukan Toyo Keizai,
December 19, 2006.
GALBRAITH, PATRICK W., The Otaku Encyclopedia, Tokyo, Kōdansha International, 2009.
GASEK, TOM, Frame-by-Frame Stop Motion: The Guide to Non-Traditional Animation Techniques,
Abingdon, Focal Press, 2011.
GEHMAN, CHRIS – REINKE, STEVE (edited by), The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema,
Toronto, YYZ Books, 2005.
GÉNIN, BERNARD, Le cinéma d’animation. Dessin animé – marionnettes – images de synthése, Paris,
Édition Cahiers du cinéma, 2003.
GHILARDI, MARCELLO, Cuore e acciaio. Estetica dell’animazione giapponese, Padova, Esedra, 2003.
— Filosofia nei manga. Estetica e immaginario del Giappone contemporaneo, Milano-Udine, Mimesis,
2010.
GOMARASCA, ALESSANDRO (edited by), La bambola e il robottone. Culture pop nel Giappone
contemporaneo, Torino, Einaudi, 2001.
GOMARASCA, ALESSANDRO – VALTORTA, LUCA, Sol Mutante. Mode, giovani e umori nel Giappone
contemporaneo, Milano, Costa & Nolan, 19962.
GRAVETT, PAUL, Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics, New York, HarperCollins Publishers,
2004.
GRIGSBY, MARY, «Sailormoon: Manga (Comics) and Anime (Cartoon) Superheroine Meets
Barbie: Global Entertainment Commodity Comes to the United States», The Journal of
Popular Culture, vol. 32, n. 1, summer 1998, pp. 59-80.
GRINER, MASSIMILIANO – FÙRNARI, ROSA ISABELLA, Otaku. I giovani perduti del Sol Levante, Roma,
Castelvecchi, 1999.
HENSHALL, KENNETH G., A History of Japan, New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
HERBIG, PAUL A. – BORSTORFF, PAT, «Japan’s Shinjinrui: the new breed», International Journal of
Social Economics, vol. 22, n. 12, 1995, pp. 49-65.

24
HIRO, RIKA IEZUMI, «Between Absence and Presence: Exploring Video Earth’s What is
Photography?», Invisible Culture, n. 15, University of Rochester, 2010, pp. 79-101
(Rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_15/articles/hiro/hiro.html).
HU, TZE-YUE GIGI, «Independence in Japan», Animation World Magazine, n. 4.9, December 1999
(Awn.com/mag/issue4.09/4.09pages/huindependence.php3).
— Frames of Anime: Culture and Image-Building, Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press, 2010.
HUI GAN, SHEUO, «The Newly Developed Form of Ganime and its Relation to Selective
Animation for Adults in Japan», Animation Studies, vol. 3, 2008, pp. 6-17.
— «To Be or Not to Be. The Controversy in Japan over the “Anime” Label», Animation Studies,
vol. 4, 2009, pp. 35-43.
ICE, Giappone. Analisi della congiuntura economica e dell’interscambio commerciale. Anno 2010
(Ice.gocfr.it/paesi/asia/giappone/upload/165/congiuntura-giappone.pdf).
IZAWA, ERI, Hiroaki Inōe on Computers and Japanese Animation (Stuff.mit.edu/~rei/manga-
inoue.html).
JETRO, 2004 JETRO White Paper on International Trade and Foreign Direct Investment, 2004
(Jetro.go.jp/en/reports/white_paper/2004.pdf).
— «Japan Animation Industry Trends», Japan Economic Monthly, June 2005
(Jetro.go.jp/en/reports/market/pdf/2005_35_r.pdf).
— Italia niokeru komikku–anime shijō kiso chōsa, 2007
(Jetro.go.jp/jfile/report/05001432/05001432_001_BUP_0.pdf).
— Market Info Anime 2008: Anime Industry in Japan, 2008
(Jetro.org/trends/market_info_anime.pdf).
— U.S. Anime Market Info, 2009 (Jetro.org/trends/market_info_anime_09.pdf).
JFTC, Fact-finding survey on Animation Industry, January 23, 2009
(Jftc.go.jp/en/policy_enforcement/survey/pdf/2009/090123.pdf).
KELTS, ROLAND, Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S., New York,
Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.
KIM, JOON-YANG, «Critique of the New Historical Landscape of South Korean Animation»,
Animation: an interdisciplinary journal, SAGE Publications, vol. 1(1), 2006, pp. 61-81.
KIMURA, MAKOTO, «SMEs and the Globalization of Japanese Anime», Japan Spotlight, May/June
2006, pp. 12-13.
KINSELLA, SHARON, «Japanese Subculture in the 1990s: Otaku and the Amateur Manga
Movement», Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 24, n. 2, 1998.
KITANO, FUTOSHI, Nippon anime shigaku kenkyû josetsu, Tokyo, Hachiman Shoten, 1998.
KOULIKOV, MIKHAIL, ICv2 Conference on Anime and Manga. ICv2 WhitePaper, December 6, 2007
(Animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2007/nyaf-icv2/icv2/whitepaper).
KOYAMA-RICHARD, BRIGITTE, Mille ans de manga, Paris, Flammarion, 2007.
— Japanese Animation. From Painted Scrolls to Pokémon, Paris, Flammarion, 2010.
KUBO, MASAKAZU, «Japanese Animation as an Industry», Journal of Japanese Trade & Industry,
July/August 2002.
LAMARRE, THOMAS, The Anime Machine: A Media Theory of Animation, Minneapolis, University
of Minnesota Press, 2009.
LAZZINI, GIOVANNI, Gaiking. Il robot guerriero!, Roma, Iacobelli, 2011.
LE GUIN, URSULA K., Gedo Senki. A First Response to “Gedo Senki”, the Earthsea film made by Goro
Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli, 2006 (Ursulakleguin.com/GedoSenkiResponse.html).
LENT, JOHN A., Animation in Asia and the Pacific, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2001.
LENT, JOHN A. – YING, XU, «China’s Animation Beginnings: The Roles of the Wan Brothers and
Others», Asian Cinema, vol. 14, n. 1, 2003, pp. 56-69.
LEONARD, SEAN, «Celebrating Two Decades of Unlawful Progress: Fan Distribution,
Proselytization Commons, and the Explosive Growth of Japanese Animation», UCLA Law
Review, n. 189, spring 2005, (Papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfrm?abstract_id=696402).

25
— «Progress Against the Law: Anime and Fandom, with Key to the Globalization of Culture»,
International Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 8, n. 9, 2005
(Ics.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/8/3/281).
LEVI, ANTONIA, Samurai from Outer Space: Understanding Japanese Animation, Peru, Open Court,
1996.
LI, CHI HANG – PATMORE, CHRIS – SCOTT-BARON, HAYDEN, The Complete Guide to Anime
Techniques, London, Quarto, 2007.
LIPPI, FEDERICA, Mitsuru Adachi. L’espressione del quotidiano, Roma, Iacobelli, 2011.
MACWILLIAMS, MARK W. (edited by), Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga
and Anime, Armonk NY, M.E. Sharpe, 2008.
MARCONI, LUCA, One Piece. La ciurma pià pazza dei 7 mari, Roma, Iacobelli, 2011.
MARCOVITZ, HAL, Anime, Farmington Hills, Lucent Books, 2008.
MARTIN, ALEX, «Future of ‘anime’ industry in doubt», The Japan Times on-line, 4 marzo 2009,
(Japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20090304f1.html#.T_wKWJFq2Kk).
MARTORELLA, CRISTIANO, Kemono. I mostri di Nagai Gou, 2005,
(Web.archive.org/web/20071027063939/www.nipponico.com/dizionario/k/kemono.php).
MASUDA, HIROMICHI, Anime Business ga wakaru, Tokyo, NTT Shuppan, 2007.
MCCARTHY, HELEN, The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, Lewes, Ilex, 2009.
MCGRAY, DOUGLAS, «Japan’s Gross National Cool», Foreign Policy, n. 3, 2002.
MIYAO, DAISUKE, «Before anime: animation and the Pure Film Movement in pre-war Japan»,
Japan Forum, vol. 14, n. 2, London, Routledge, 2002.
— «Thieves of Baghdad: Transnational Networks of Cinema and Anime in the 1920s»,
Mechademia, vol. 2, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2007.
MIZUKI, SHIGERU, Nihon yōkai taizen, Tokyo, Kōdansha, 1994.
— Zusetsu Nihon yōkai taiga, Tokyo, Kōdansha, 2007.
MOGNATO, ARIANNA, Super Robot Anime. Eroi e robot da Mazinga Z a Evangelion, Milano,
Yamato Video, 1999.
MONTOSI, ALESSANDRO, Ufo Robot Goldrake. Storia di un eroe nell’Italia degli anni Ottanta, Roma,
Coniglio Editore, 2007.
— Mazinga. Da Mazinga Z al Mazinkaiser: l’epopea di un guerriero robot!, Roma, Iacobelli, 2008.
— Trider G7. Robot in tempo di crisi, Roma, Iacobelli, 2009.
— Jeeg Robot. Cuore & Acciaio!, Roma, Iacobelli, 2009.
MULINACCI, CRISTINA, Storia del fumetto giapponese, vol. II, Mestre, Musa Edizioni, 1998.
MUNROE HOTES, CATHERINE, «Tomoyasu Murata and Company», Midnight Eye, 2008
(Midnighteye.com/features/tomoyasu-murata-and-company.shtml).
— «Winter Days», Midnight Eye, 2008 (Mmidnighteye.com/reviews/winter-days.shtml).
— «Mirai Mizue Works 2003-2010», Midnight Eye, September 15, 2010
(Nishikataeiga.blogspot.com/2010/09/mirai-mizue-works-2003-2010.html).
— «The Independent Spirit of CALF and the Rise of Alternative Anime», Midnight Eye, March
14, 2011 (Midnighteye.com/features/the-independent-spirit-of-calf-and-the-rise-of-
alternative-anime.shtml).
MURAKAMI, SABURO, Anime in TV. Storia dei cartoni animati giapponesi prodotti per la televisione,
Milano, Yamato Video, 1998.
MURAKAMI, TAKASHI, Superflat, Tokyo, Madra Publishing, 2000.
NAGANO, YURIKO, «Lines are being redrawn for Japan’s anime industry», Los Angeles Times,
August 19, 2010 (Articles.latimes.com/2010/aug/19/business/la-fi-japan-anime-20100819).
NAKAGAWA, HISAYASU, Introduction à la culture japonaise, Paris, Presses Universitaires de
France, 2005.
NAKANE, CHIE, Japanese Society, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd., 1970, 1973.
NAMIKI, TAKASHI, Mori Yasuji gashû, Saitama, ANIDO, 1993.
— Mukuo Takamura, animêshon bijutsu gashû, Saitama, ANIDO, 2004.

26
— Mogura Note: Mori Yasuji gashû 2, Saitama, ANIDO, 2006.
NAPIER, SUSAN J., Anime: From Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle, New York, Palgrave Macmillan,
2005.
NASH, ERIC P., Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater, New York, Abrams
Comicarts, 2009.
NEWSOM, VICTORIA, «Young Females as Super Heroes: Superheroines in the Animated Sailor
Moon», Femspec, vol. 5, n. 2, 2004.
NGUYÊN, ILAN, «Une rétrospective sur “l’âge d’or” du dessin animé au Japon», Ebisu, n. 24,
2000, pp. 163-171.
ODELL, COLIN – LE BLANC, MICHELLE, Studio Ghibli. The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Isao
Takahata, Harpenden, Kamera Books, 2009.
OKADA, TOSHIO, Otaku wa sude ni shindeiru, Tokyo, Shinchōsha, 2008.
OKAMURA, KEIKO, The Exuberant Image: Ishida Takashi and the Genealogy of Abstract Animation,
dicembre 2009 (Geocities.jp/office_ishidatakashi/review/review_English/En_okamura.html).
ŌNO, KOSEI, «Tadahito Mochinaga: The Japanese Animator Who Lived In Two Worlds»,
Animation World Magazine, n. 4.9, December 1999,
(Awn.com/mag/issue4.09/4.09pages/onomochinaga.php3).
ORSI, MARIA TERESA, Storia del fumetto giapponese, vol. I, Mestre, Musa Edizioni, 1998.
PATTEN, FRED, Watching Anime, Reading Manga: 25 Years of Essays and Reviews, Berkeley, Stone
Bridge Press, 2004.
— «January 1917: First Animation Produced in Japan Is Released», Newtype USA, year 3, n. 1,
2004.
PELLITTERI, MARCO (edited by), Anatomia di Pokémon. Cultura di massa ed estetica dell’effimero fra
pedagogia e globalizzazione, Roma, SEAM, 2002.
— Conoscere l’animazione. Forme, linguaggi e pedagogie del cinema animato per ragazzi, Roma,
Valore Scuola, 2004.
— Mazinga Nostalgia. Storia, valori e linguaggi della Goldrake-generation, Roma, Castelvecchi, 1999
(II ed. King|Saggi, 2002; III ed. Coniglio, 2008).
— Il Drago e la Saetta. Modelli, strategie e identità dell’immaginario giapponese, Latina, Tunué, 2008
(English ed. The Dragon and the Dazzle: Models, Strategies, and Identities of Japanese
Imagination—A European Perspective, Tunué – Japan Foundation, 2010).
PERPER, TIMOTHY – CORNOG, MARTHA (edited by), Mangatopia: Essays on Manga and Anime in
the Modern World, Santa Barbara, Libraries Unlimited, 2011.
PIOVAN, MONICA, Osamu Tezuka. L’arte del fumetto giapponese, Mestre, Musa Edizioni, 1996.
PONTICIELLO, ROBERTA – SCRIVO, SUSANNA (edited by), Con gli occhi a mandorla. Sguardi sul
Giappone dei cartoon e dei fumetti, Latina, Tunué, 20052.
POSOCCO, CRISTIAN, MangArt. Forme estetiche e linguaggio del fumetto giapponese, Milano, Costa
& Nolan, 2005.
PRANDONI, FRANCESCO, Anime al cinema. Storia del cinema di animazione giapponese 1917-1995,
Milano, Yamato Video, 1999.
RAFFAELLI, LUCA, Le anime disegnate. Il pensiero nei cartoon da Disney ai giapponesi e oltre, Roma,
Castelvecchi, 1994 (II ed. Minimum Fax, 2005).
REISCHAUER, EDWIN O., Japan: The Story of a Nation, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1990.
RICCI, CARLA, Hikikomori: adolescenti in volontaria reclusione, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2008.
RICHIE, DONALD, A Hundred Years of Japanese Film, Tokyo, Kōdansha International, 2005.
RICHMOND, SIMON, The Rough Guide to Anime. Japan’s finest from Ghibli to Gankutsuō, New York,
Rough Guides, 2008.
RIFAS, LEONARD, «Globalizing Comic Books from Below: How Manga Came to America»,
International Journal of Comic Art, vol. 6, n. 2, fall 2004, pp. 138-71.
ROBINSON, CHRIS, Japanese Animation: Time out of Mind, London, John Libbey Publishing, 2011.
ROMANELLO, ELENA, Capitan Harlock. Avventure ai confini dell’Universo, Roma, Iacobelli, 2009.

27
— Sailor Moon. La bella ragazza guerriera, Roma, Iacobelli, 2009.
— Candy Candy. «Eravamo tutte innamorate di Terence…», Roma, Iacobelli, 2009.
RONDOLINO, GIANNI, Storia del cinema d’animazione. Dalla lanterna magica a Walt Disney da Tex
Avery a Steven Spielberg, Torino, UTET, 2003.
RUH, BRIAN, Stray Dog of Anime. The Films of Mamoru Oshii, New York, Palgrave Macmillan,
2004.
RUMOR, MARIO A., Rumiko Takahashi. La regina dei manga, Mestre, Musa Edizioni, 1997.
— Come bambole. Il fumetto giapponese per ragazze, Latina, Tunué, 2005.
— The Art of Emotion. Il cinema d’animazione di Isao Takahata, Rimini, Guaraldi-Cartoon Club,
2007.
— «Yasuo Otsuka, come me non c’è nessuno», Man-ga!, n. 5, Yamato Video, 2007
(Yamatovideo.com/focuson_int.asp?idEntita=452).
— Anna dai capelli rossi. Il fascino indiscreto della poesia, Roma, Iacobelli, 2011.
— Tōei Animation. I primi passi del cinema animato giapponese, Rimini, Cartoon Club, 2012.
RUSSO, GIOVANNI, «Fusako Yusaki. Maestra di metamorfosi», eMotion, n. 11, 2005, pp. 32-5.
SABUCCO, VERUSKA, Shōnen Ai. Il nuovo immaginario erotico femminile tra Oriente e Occidente,
Roma, Castelvecchi, 2000.
SAITŌ, TAMAKI, Sentō bishōjo no seishinbunseki, Tokyo, Ōta Shuppan, 2000.
SAKAI, YOSHIHITO, «Sulle “24 ore di televisione” e le “2 ore di animazione” della NTV», Tezuka
Special TV Memorial Box, Milano, Yamato Video, 2009.
SCHODT, FREDERIK L., Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics and the Coming Robotopia,
Tokyo, Kōdansha International, 1988.
— The Astro Boy Essays: Osamu Tezuka, Mighty Atom and the Manga/Anime Revolution, Berkeley,
Stone Bridge Press, 2007.
SCRIVO, SUSANNA, Heidi. La bambina delle Alpi, Roma, Iacobelli, 2009.
— Rumiko Takahashi. La regina dei manga, Roma, Iacobelli, 2010.
SHARP, JASPER, Pioneers of Japanese Animation at PIFan, 2004
(Midnighteye.com/features/pioneers-of-anime.shtml).
— «The First Frame of Anime», The Roots of Japanese Anime: Until the End of WWII, Zakka Films,
2008.
SHIMAMURA, MARIA, Fancy no kenkyû: kawaii ga hito mono kane wo shihai suru, Tokyo, Bungei
shûnjusha, 1991.
SIGNORA, GUGLIELMO, Anime d’acciaio. Guida per collezionisti di robot giapponesi, Bologna, Kappa
Edizioni, 2004.
SIMMONS, MARK et al., Gundam Official Guide, San Francisco, Viz Communications, 2002.
SKOV, LISE – MOERAN, BRIAN (edited by), Women, Media and Consumption in Japan, Richmond,
Curzon Press, 1995.
SPAGNOLI, ALESSIA, Hayao Miyazaki. Le insospettabili contraddizioni di un cantastorie, Roma,
Sovera Edizioni, 2009.
STEINBERG, MARC, Anime’s Media Mix: Franchising Toys and Characters in Japan, Minneapolis,
University of Minnesota Press, 2012.
TAKAHATA, ISAO, Jûni seiki no animêshon, kokuhō emakimono ni miru eigateki animêteki naru mono,
Tokyo, Tokuma Shoten-Ghibli, 1999.
TAKANO, YUZURU – INADA, KIYOHIDE, «Quick dissolve, Spirited away. As merchandisers grow
rich, the animation industry is losing jobs to cheaper labor abroad», International Herald
Tribune/Asahi Shinbun, June 2, 2004.
TANAKA, TATSUO, Do Illegal Copies of Movies Reduce the Revenue of Legal Products? The case of TV
animation in Japan, RIETI (Research Institute of Economy, Trade & Industry), 2011.
TANIGUCHI, HIDEKO, «The Reception and the Adaptation of Diana Coles’ The Clever Princess
in Japan», Studies in Languages and Cultures (Gengo bunka ronkyû), n. 25, pp. 131-41,

28
 Kyûshû University, March 2010 (Qir.kyushu-
u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2324/18365/1/p131.pdf).
TATSUMI, TAKAYUKI, «Gundam and the Future of Japanoid Art», in Mechademia, vol. III,
Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
TESSIER, MAX, Le cinéma japonais, Paris, Éditions Nathan, 1997, then Armand Colin, 2005.
TSUGATA, NOBUYUKI, «Research on the Achievements of Japan’s First Three Animators», Asian
Cinema, vol. 14, n. 1, 2003, pp. 13-27.
TSUKEN, NOBUYUKI, Nippon animêshon no chikara, Tokyo, NTT Shuppan, 2004.
VERNAL, DAVID, «War and Peace in Japanese Science Fiction Animation: An Examination of
Mobile Suit Gundam and The Mobile Police Patlabor», Animation Journal, vol. 4, n. 1, fall
1995, pp. 56-84.
WILKINSON, ENDYMION, Misunderstanding: Europe vs. Japan, Tokyo, Chûō Kōron-sha, 1981.
YAMAGUCHI, KATSUNORI – WATANABE, YASUSHI, Nihon animêshon eiga shi, Osaka, Yûbunsha,
1977.
YAMAGUCHI, YASUO, Nippon no anime zenshi: sekai o seishi ta Nippon anime no kiseki, Tokyo, Ten-
Books, 2004.
YAMAGUCHI, YUMI, Warriors of Art: A Guide to Contemporary Japanese Artists, Tokyo, Kōdansha
International, 2007.
YAMAMURA, KŌJI, Animêshon no sekai o yokoso, Tokyo, Iwanami Jyunia Shinsho, 2006.
YAMANAKA, YUKIKO, «Fukiya Kōji samazamana jōjoga no katachi: Paris jidai animêshon eiga
Yumemi dōji nitsuite», CoreEthics, vol. V, Ritsumeikan University, 2009, pp. 371-80.
(Ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/gr/gsce/ce/2009/yy01b.pdf).
YOKOTA, MASAO, «The Japanese Puppet Animation Master: Kihachiro Kawamoto», Asian
Cinema, vol. 14, n. 1, 2003, pp. 28-44.
YOSHIMOTO, TAIMATSU, Otaku no kigen, Tokyo, NTT Shuppan, 2009.

29
Websites

—Aja.gr.jp
Official website of Association of Japanese Animation.
— Anidb.net
Japanese animation database with internal search engine.
— Anido.com
Official website of ANIDO.
— Animated-divots.net
Chronological and alphabetical database of animation works, bibliographic and filmographic info.
— Animationjournal.com
Animation Journal magazine’s website.
— Animeanime.jp
Info about Japanese animation industry.
— Animechecklist.net
Japanese animation database with statistics and bibliographic info, updated to 2001.
— Animeclick.it
News and reviews on anime and manga with internal search engine.
— Anime-innovation.jp
Official website of Anime Innovation Tokyo.
— Anime-kobe.jp
Official website of Animêshon Kobe.
— Animemorial.net
Database of Japanese animation works produced from 1958 to 1979.
— Animenewsnetwork.com
Japanese animation database with internal search engine.
— Animeresearch.com
Informational website on scientific research in the field of anime, manga and Japanese popular culture by Brian Ruh.
— Animeworld.com
Over 400 anime reviews.
— Annecy.org
Official website of Annecy animation festival.
— Arrant-dregs.com
Chronological database of Japanese animation works updated to 2008.
— Asifa.jp
Official website of ASIFA Japan.
— Awn.com
Animation World Network’s website.
— Bcdb.com
World animation database.
— Bones.co.jp
Official website of Bones.
— Bowdas.com
Official website of Bowda Katsushi.
— Corneredangel.com/amwess
Online Bibliography of Anime and Manga Research (Anime/Manga Web Essays Archive before) website.
— Eiren.org
Official website of Ippan Shadan Hōjin Nippon Eiga Seisakusha Renmei.
— Ex.org
Ex:Magazine’s archive website.
— Fantasiafest.com
Official website of FanTasia.
— Gainax.co.jp
Official website of Gainax.
— Ganime.jp

30
 Official website of Ga-nime Project.
— Geocities.jp/office_ishidatakashi
Personal website of Ishida Takashi.
— Ghibli.jp
Official website of Studio Ghibli.
— Gonzo.co.jp
Official website of Gonzo.
— Hiroanim.org
Official website of Hiroshima International Animation Festival.
— Homepage3.nifty.com/maya_y/Site/Welcome.html
Personal website of Yonesho Maya.
— Imageforum.co.jp
Official website of Image Forum.
— Indexmundi.com/it/giappone
Japan’s economic and statistic indicators archive.
— Jaa.gr.jp
Official website of Japan Animation Association.
— Japan-academy-prize.jp
Official website of Nippon Academy-shō.
— Japan-movie.net
Official website of Mainichi Eiga Concours.
— Jcstaff.co.jp
Official website of J.C.Staff.
— Journal.animationstudies.org
Society of Animation Studies’ magazine website.
— Jsas.net
Official website of the Japan Society for Animation Studies.
— Kyotoanimation.co.jp
Official website of Kyoto Animation.
— Madhouse.co.jp
Official website of Madhouse.
— Manglobe.net
Official website of Manglobe.
— Mechademia.org
Official website of Mechademia magazine.
— Midnighteye.com
Critical and informational website on Japanese cinema.
— Muramasaindustries.com
Jonathan Clements’ website.
— Nipponanimation.com
Official website of Nippon Animation.
— Nishikataeiga.blogspot.com
Catherine Munroe Hotes’ website.
— Ocn.ne.jp/~pacuilla/reiko/index.html
Personal website of Yokosuka Reiko.
— Paradisearmy.com/doujin/index.html
Dōjin yōgo no kisochishiki (‘basics of dōjin lexicon’).
— Pelleas.net/aniTOP
Benjamin Ettinger’s website.
— Pierrot.jp
Official website of Pierrot.
— Plaza.bunka.go.jp
Official website of Japan Media Arts Festival.
— Productionig.com
Official website of Production I.G.

31
— Ryukato.net/index.html
Personal website of Katō Ryû.
— Sites.google.com/site/nishikatajafp
Japanese Animation Filmography Project’s website.
— Sogetsu.or.jp
Official website of Sōgetsu Foundation.
— Sunrise-inc.co.jp/international/index.html
Official website of Sunrise.
— Tatsunoko.co.jp
Official website of Tatsunoko Productions.
— Tezukaosamu.net/en/index.html
Official website of Tezuka Productions.
— Tms-e.co.jp
Official website of TMS Entertainment.
— Toei-anim.co.jp
Official website of Tōei Animation.
— Tokyoanime.jp
Official website of Tokyo International Anime Fair.
— Videor.co.jp
Official website of Video Research Ltd.
— Yk.rim.or.jp/~akira_t/rbdble
Mecha anime archive.

32
 Catalogs of works
In this section are listed some volumes and web pages addresses specifically dedicated to the catalogs of
Japanese animation works.

— Anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=animelist&do.filter=1
— Animated-divots.net/anitv.html
— Animemorial.net/en/1950-1959
— Animemorial.net/en/1960-1969
— Animemorial.net/en/1970-1979
— Animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php
— C6.hu/~ge/The_Chronological_List_of_Television_Anime_Series_ in_Japan.htm
— Kyotoanimation.co.jp/works
— Madhouse.co.jp/works
— Nipponanimation.com/catalogue/main.html
— Productionig.com/contents/works
— Sites.google.com/site/nishikatajafp
— Sunrise-anime.jp/sunrise-inc/works
Sunrise Anime Super Data File, Tokyo, Tatsumi Publishing, 1998
— Tatsunoko.co.jp/english/works.html
Tatsunoko Pro: Anime Super Data File, Tokyo, Tatsumi Publishing, 1998
— Tms-e.com/english/film
Tokyo Movie Anime Super Data File, Tokyo, Tatsumi Publishing, 1999
— Toei-anim.co.jp/english/catalog/index.html

33
Biografema
Guido Tavassi (Pozzuoli, 1969) lives and works in Naples, where he’s a lawyer. Lover of
animation cinema since he was a kid, rediscovers Japanese one in the nineties. After devoting
himself to fansubbing of not imported anime and creating some web sites in theme, in time he
has transformed his interest in a systematic activity for study and research on Japanese animation,
of which History of Japanese animation is the outcoming essay.

34