Anime E-Book

Michelle Le Blanc

• Herausgeber: Kamera Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 228

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

This guide to anime offers an overview of the art form, looking at its development in Japan and its export to other cultures. It includes a history of Japanese animation from early examples to the relaunch of animation as a viable commercial entity and its enormous rise in popularity after WWII. Anime explains the difference between manga and anime, offering a brief history of manga including its development from traditional art form (woodblock prints) to massive commercial success with millions of readers in Japan and worldwide. Odell and Le Blanc also consider anime style and genres, its market and importance in Japanese culture, and its perception in the West including controversy, such as criticisms of sex and violence in anime that affect other national markets, including the UK (notably Urotsukidoji) and the USA, where it is considered a 'kids only' market.

Leseprobe

Colin Odell & Michelle Le Blanc

ANIME

For Hiroki

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As ever we would like to express our thanks to a number of people for their help, support and friendship throughout the writing of this book, this one more than ever: Elizabeth and Paul, Hanako and Gavin and our wonderful godchildren Marika and Hiroki, Alastair, Keith and Hill, Martin and Rosy, John and Elli, Fan and Jessica, Graham and Kirsty, Yoshiko and David. Our love and thanks to Tony, Christine and Marc, and to Truus.

Our sincere thanks to Mr Joshi and all the amazing doctors, nurses, staff and paramedics at UHCW, especially Ward 43, without whom this book would only have one author. And special thanks to Dr Gavin Farrell for getting us through the times in between and beyond.

CONTENTS

Title PageDedicationAcknowledgementsAnimeIntroduction1. Key Anime Creators2. A Selection of AnimeFurther ReadingReferencesOther Books by Colin Odell & Michelle Le BlancPlatesCopyright

ANIME

Japanese animation, or anime, is an art form that has been gaining popularity across the globe and has altered the way that we view and appreciate animated film. Traditionally, the perception of animation in the West is that it’s aimed at children and family markets, through the films of Disney or Pixar and the television cartoons of Hanna-Barbera and Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes. Although many animations have been created for adults by directors such as Max Fleischer, Ralph Bakshi and Norman McLaren, as well as Eastern European directors such as Jan Svankmajer, Jiri Trnka and Walerian Borowczyk, feature films were not common in the mainstream and animation generally remained in the realm of the experimental or art-house sectors. There is, of course, a large children’s market for anime, but what is so exciting about the format is its diversity. Anime’s subject matter can range from imaginative fantasies to comedy, drama, horror, sport, science-fiction, romance, avant-garde and erotica and is aimed at audiences that encompass all demographics, from schoolchildren to salarymen.

The term ‘anime’ is most often used in the West to describe a particular style associated with Japanese cel animation, but in Japan it refers to all animation. Closely associated with anime is manga and, although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in Western media, they refer to different things. Anime are animated films of Japanese origin. The term comes from the Japanese fondness for condensing words, in this case ‘animation’. Manga are Japanese comic books. Both manga and anime are hugely popular in Japan – the industry is worth billions of dollars – and have been for many decades.

‘Manga used to be regarded as something for children until they were around 15,’ manga critic Haruyuki Nakano told Kyodo News on the fiftieth anniversary of two of Japan’s pioneering weekly manga titles. ‘But baby boomers in post-war Japan kept reading their favourite manga even after they entered college and became adults. That helped make manga widespread in Japanese culture.’1

There is now increasing awareness and appreciation of both anime and manga in Western countries. This book aims to provide an introduction to anime, exploring its origins as an art form as well as introducing key animators and a selection of works for viewing. Names are presented Japanese style, with family name followed by given name. Romanisation of characters is via the modified Hepburn system, with macrons to emphasise double-length vowels, except where the word is in common usage in the English language, e.g. Tokyo instead of Tōkyō.

INTRODUCTION

ORIGINS OF ANIME

Japan has a long tradition of art and literature. During the Heian period (794–1185), e-maki (picture scrolls) became established as an art form. Mainly created during the twelfth century, these beautiful illustrations depicted scenes of court life or historical events. The origins of the Japanese art aesthetic can be seen in these scrolls. During the Edo period (1600–1868) woodblock prints became incredibly fashionable. These were pictures created by artists and transferred onto a woodblock whereupon craftsmen would carve away at the wood to produce a relief of the image, in reverse. This could then be inked and printed to reproduce copies of the original drawing. Multiple blocks could be produced to create multiple colours, sometimes with several inkings to obtain a greater depth of hue, and the finished product could be reproduced quickly and in large quantities. It was a collaborative process that can, in some respects, be likened to the production of anime – whereby the writer, director and key artists determine the creative element of the narrative and design, after which artists and in-betweeners generate the final product. Woodblock prints were easy to reproduce and cheap, which meant that they were very accessible and could be distributed widely. Sometimes a series of popular prints would run to hundreds of thousands of copies. It’s similar to the distribution of manga today – multiple copies printed on low-grade paper and sold cheaply to the public (the price of the woodblock prints could compare roughly with a double helping of soba noodles; manga sells for the equivalent of just a couple of dollars), who are constantly waiting for the next episode in the series. The primary market for these prints generally comprised the lowest ranking of the social hierarchy of the time – merchants and artisans – although the prints were also appreciated by the samurai classes. Known as ukiyo-e, or ‘pictures of the floating world’, these woodblock prints depicted beautiful landscapes, everyday life from the Edo period, pictures of animals and flowers. Particularly popular were the prints from the pleasure quarters, of geisha and tea-houses, as well as kabuki (classical Japanese drama) actors in famous roles.

The aesthetic style of ukiyo-e is a world apart from Western art of the time. The images are bold and colourful. It is said that the Japanese favour symbolism over realism. One of the most distinctive elements of traditional art is that it is very flat – there is a distinct lack of perspective or shadow and a very different approach to composition with the main focus of the image often off-centre. This design aesthetic can be seen in many anime right up to the present day.

The leading woodblock artists were Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1864), Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858) and Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861). (The Utagawa name comes from the famous woodblock print school.) Incredibly prolific, Kuniyoshi produced over 10,000 pictures over the course of his career. He produced a variety of images, but made his name with his series, One Hundred and Eight Heroes of the Suikoden (Tūszoku Suikoden gōketsu hyakuhachinin no hitori), based on the classic Chinese tale, known in the West as The Water Margin. This series of prints featured dynamic designs of the heroes of the story and was enormously popular. The term ‘manga’ was first used by Hokusai (best known for his print The Great Wave off Kanagawa, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji) to describe his 13 volumes of sketches. The term can be translated as ‘whimsical drawings’. Since then, the name stuck and has been used to describe Japanese comics. Hokusai’s manga did not take the form of a comic book as we know it today, but were simply collections of sketches and caricatures, many of which were humorous. Modern manga developed in the years following the Meiji restoration (1868) and notably after the Second World War (when Japan was occupied by the US), reflecting the influence of American culture – particularly comic books and movies – on Japanese society.

Akahon, literally ‘red book’, named for their vivid red covers, originated in the Edo period and were originally children’s books. Produced in a way that was similar to the making of ukiyo-e (the artist would produce the image, then craftsmen would copy that image onto printing plates), akahon were printed on cheap paper and covered a broad range of subject matter. They were hugely popular during and after World War Two because they were an affordable form of media. They also gave emerging artists an opportunity to create and distribute their stories. It was originally through the production of akahon that a young medical student, Tezuka Osamu, got his first break as an artist with Manga Shōnen magazine, eventually emerging as the pioneer of this new comic-book form, earning the nickname ‘manga no kamisama’, the ‘God of Manga’. His comics combined dynamic, movie-inspired panels into a thrilling mix of action and adventure. His influence is still apparent today, in his pioneering approach to the way that manga, and later anime, can tell stories.

In the late 1950s the manga market developed into the model we know today. Contemporary manga is distributed usually on a weekly or monthly basis. These are huge, commercially successful publications that can be hundreds of pages long, printed on cheap paper and sold at a low price. Readers can vote on their favourite stories and the most popular become standalone high-quality, multi-episode publications (tankōbon). Their success can also lead to adaptation for the anime format. Popular manga are not only the preserve of the professional artist. Dōjinshi are self-published works by amateurs or those whose work may not initially appeal to mainstream publishers. They usually have high production values and can be extremely popular – indeed there are many shops in Japan dedicated to selling only dōjinshi. Many professional mangaka (manga artists) started out as dōjinshi artists – notably Takahashi Rumiko, Katō Kazuhiko (aka Monkey Punch), and studio Clamp.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANIME

Early forms of animation were developed during the nineteenth century. Although Japan was effectively closed off to the outside world until 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry appeared with a four-ship squadron in Tokyo Bay and demanded that Japan trade with America, there had been limited trade with China and Holland, and it is thought that the Dutch introduced the magic lantern to the Japanese. Utsushi-e was a slightly different technology, developed from the magic lantern, which was an early type of projector. Images would be painted onto glass slides that could create basic moving pictures using a mechanical slide. Utsushi-e adapted the technique and could back-project images onto Japanese paper, which is partially transparent. Using multiple furo (lanterns), each of which required an operator, quite sophisticated animations could be produced in real time. The Japanese love of bunraku (puppet theatre) and also kabuki offered a wealth of stories from which live animated performances, accompanied by narrators and/or musicians, were created.

The magic lantern was one of the technological innovations that eventually led to the development of the movie camera and projector and the wonderful world of the cinema. The Lumière Brothers’ invention first appeared in Japan in 1897 in Ōsaka and, like much of the cinema from the time, mainly comprised short films capturing moving images of everyday life. These included distinctly Japanese scenes of geisha as well as excerpts from kabuki plays. Japan has also had a long history of theatre, and it is the tradition of a noh or kabuki chorus that led the screenings of silent movies to be accompanied, not only by music from a traditional orchestra but also a benshi, or narrator, who would introduce the film and perform many of the roles, providing an expressive commentary on proceedings. And it truly was a performance. Many benshi became very famous, sometimes being more of a draw than the actors in the films. Early Western films used to have some form of narration but the practice died out about a decade into the twentieth century. However, benshi were a fundamental part of the cinema experience in Japan for many years, even beyond the coming of sound in the cinema. Early anime from the 1920s and 1930s often had benshi narration. The impact of benshi meant that Japanese cinema narrative developed in a slightly different way to other countries’ and even early anime were constructed such that they required the input of a benshi to give the film meaning.

Western animations began to appear in Japan around 1909 and, before long, Japanese hobbyists were producing short animations, although not on any great scale. A scrap of film, just three seconds long, depicting a boy drawing the characters for ‘moving pictures’ on a chalkboard, is thought to be one of the earliest surviving animations but is impossible to date accurately. Most early anime has not survived and there is some confusion as to the earliest anime but the first professional animation is widely considered, if only because it was the first to be screened theatrically, to be The Story of Concierge Mukuzō Imokawa (Imokawa Mukuzō Genkanban no Maki [1917]) by Shimokawa Ōten, thought to have been created using images drawn on a chalkboard. Kōchi Junichi made Sword of Hanawa Hekonai (Hanawa Hekonai, Meito no Maki [1917]). This was swiftly followed by Kitayama Seitarō’s Monkey and the Crab (1917) and Momotarō (1918), the latter derived from a traditional Japanese folktale about a boy found by an elderly couple inside a giant peach.

These pioneers, particularly Kitayama and Kōchi, forged a path for other animators. Kitayama established the first animation studio, Kitayama Eiga Seisakujo, in 1921, where such animators as Murata Yasuji, Ōfuji Noboro and Yamamoto Sanae would develop their skills. Yamamoto made such films as Usagi to Kame (1924), a version of The Tortoise and the Hare, and The Mountain Where Old Women Are Abandoned (Obasuteyama [1924]). These films are amongst the earliest that still exist.

Although the customary method for producing anime employs cel animation – that is, drawing individual images onto acetate cels, creating between 8 and 24 images per second of film (depending on the quality of the production) to achieve the illusion of motion – cels (originally cellulose nitrate, an early form of acetate) were not used in Japan until 1929 and took many years to become the standard medium for Japanese animation. Sadly, many early animations, and indeed films, have been lost. Some were destroyed in the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, others in the fire bombings of Tokyo during the Second World War.

Murata Yasuji was one of the early pioneers of anime. His style and techniques are surprisingly modern. In Tarō’s Toy Train (Tarō-san no Kisha [1929]) a young boy dreams about a group of badly behaved animals that are riding his new train set. The Bat (Kōmori, [1930]) almost has an air of Chuck Jones or Max Fleischer to it, as creatures are cut in half and rejoined in this tale of a bat who, being neither a bird nor a beast, sides with both factions as they battle each other. Ōfuji Noburo made a number of chiyogami eiga, silhouette animations using paper cut-outs, inspired by the work of Lotte Reiniger and heavily influenced by shadow puppet tradition. Many of his early films were quite abstract and generally accompanied a musical score. The Whale (Kujira [1927]) was one of the first sound films. Ōfuji’s next film, Black Cat (Kuro Nyago [1931]), had synchronised sound and featured the charming eponymous feline, dancing at the behest of four children and later joined by a dancing tabby. The first genuine talking picture was Masaoka Kenzō’s Within the World of Power and Women (Chikara to Onna no Yo no Naka), made in 1932 and released the following year.

The 1930s and 1940s were a turbulent time for Japan, with the invasion of Manchuria followed by World War Two, and many of the anime produced during these decades depicted heroes striving to accomplish tasks with honour and virtue as the government took an increasing interest in controlling the media. Murata Yasuji made a number of films around this time, including Masamune and theMonkeys (Saru Masamune [1930]), as well as Aerial Momotarō (Sora no Momotarō [1931]) and Momotarō’s Underwater Adventure (Umi no Momotarō [1932]). Kato Teizo’s Plane Cabby’s Lucky Day (Oatari Sora no Entaku [1932]) features a helpful pilot who is rewarded for his endeavours and concludes with the line, ‘Charity is a good investment.’ As Japan entered the war, the government increasingly used anime as a form of propaganda. Sankichi the Monkey: The Air Combat (Osaru no Sankichi: Bokusen [1942]) featured playful monkeys engaging in an aeroplane dogfight when invaders arrive. ‘Protect our skies!’ they cry with zeal. Momotarō’s Sea Eagles (Momotarō no Umiwashi [1943]), directed by Seo Mitsuyo, a protégé of Masaoka, was made with the assistance of the Japanese Navy and featured the ubiquitous peach boy. It told a tale of Momotarō and his animal chums fighting together. The heroes attack the large, stupid demons (representing British and American forces) on an island in a sequence clearly representing the attack on Pearl Harbour. Its sequel was Japan’s very first animated feature-length film – Momotarō’s Divine Sea Warriors (Momotarō: Umi no Shinpei [1945]). It featured Momotarō and his regular group of buddies fighting to liberate an Asia that has been stolen from them by the Allies.

The period immediately after the war and the subsequent American occupation was a difficult time for poverty-stricken Japan. Following their defeat, the Japanese began to reflect on who they really were and a new style of melodrama, pioneered by such great directors as Ozu Yasujirō and Naruse Mikio, developed in the cinema. Few animations were produced during this time, although some of the early animators were still practising their craft. Ōfuji’s animation, The Whale (Kujira [1952]), a remake of his 1927 short, was exhibited at Cannes, winning second prize, and Ghost Ship (Yūreisen [1956]) won the first prize at the Venice Film Festival that year.

It was the Tōei Dōga studio, owned by one of Japan’s most famous production studios, Tōei Co, that was pioneering the development of anime as we know it. The company acquired Nippon Dōga (Japan Animated Films Company), the animation studio established by Yamamoto Sanae and Masaoka Kenzō in the late 1940s. Mori Yasuji and Yabushita Taiji directed Tōei’s first notable short cartoon, LittleKitty’s Graffiti (Koneko no Rakugaki), in May 1957. The studio then set about creating feature films. Recognising the success of Disney animations, Tōei produced Japan’s first colour animated feature film, Hakujaden (The Panda and the Magic Serpent), in October 1958, an attempt to compete with American animations, albeit for a local market. Yamamoto, who had learned his craft at Kitayama Eiga Seisakujo in the 1920s, was fundamental to the development of these early post-war animations. As well as Hakujaden he worked on such productions as Journey to the West (Saiyu-ki [1960]), aka Alakazam The Great and Arabian Night: Sinbad’s Adventure (1962), for Tōei.

By 1962 over ten million TV sets had been sold to Japanese consumers and Tōei also developed animated series for television, recognising that medium’s insatiable need for content. The studio adapted popular manga such as Tetsujin 28-gō (1963–66), featuring a ten-year-old boy who controls a giant robot to fight crime, and Cyborg 009 (1968). For the girls there was naughty schoolgirl, Akane-chan (1968), as well as Sally the Witch (Mahōtsukai Sarī [1966–68]), based on Yokoyama Mitsuteru’s manga and widely considered to be the first shōjo (girls’) anime. From the magical girl sub-genre, it tells the tale of Sally, a princess from the world of witches, who visits earth and, naturally, mild magical mayhem ensues. Tōei remains amongst the most prolific of the animation studios, generating a bewildering number of hours of anime at a relentless pace. Many of Japan’s most respected animators gained experience on the factory floor at Tōei, including Rintarō and Matsumoto Leiji as well as Takahata Isao and Miyazaki Hayao.

Meanwhile, the god of manga, Tezuka Osamu, had established his own company, Mushi Productions, and developed a TV adaptation of his 1952 manga Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu [1963]), his most famous character, and this became a phenomenal success. He followed this with Jungle Emperor (Jungle Taitei [1965– 66]), aka Kimba the White Lion, again based on his 1950s manga, which was the first colour TV anime. Tezuka recognised the potential for anime to appeal to a broad audience demographic early on and created a number of anime aimed at adults, including Arabian Nights (Senya Ichiya Monogatari [1969]), aka One Thousand and One Nights, which included the erotic elements from the source material, as well as Cleopatra (1970), which was given the somewhat dubious title Cleopatra, Queen of Sex in the USA, and Kanashimi no Belladonna (1973). Unfortunately, Mushi Productions suffered financial difficulties in the early 1970s but a number of key members formed new production companies such as Sunrise Studios and Madhouse, which would go on to produce some of the most popular and acclaimed anime of all time.

Many TV anime in the 1960s were based on Western literary classics. In 1969 the prestigious World Masterpiece Theater (originally created by Mushi Productions, which was later succeeded by Nippon Animation) began to broadcast quality anime. The first was Tezuka’s supernatural revenge drama Dororo (Dororo to Hyakimaru [1969]) and this was followed by Moomin and many Hans Christian Anderson tales. Other anime based on Western stories included Heidi, The Girl of the Alps (Arupusu no Shōjo Haiji [1974]), A Dog of Flanders (Furandāsu no Inu [1975]), Swiss Family Robinson (KazokuRobinson Hyōryūki [1981]) and Anne of Green Gables (Akage no An [1979]). Lupin III, based on a manga by Monkey Punch, which was inspired by Maurice Leblanc’s gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, was a TV show that ran for several seasons (starting in the early 1970s). The character later inspired a number of feature films.

Anime really began to establish itself in the 1970s. Works based on the prominent, eclectic and occasionally controversial mangaka Nagai Gō began to hit television screens. These included such diverse series as Devilman (1972–73) and Cutie Honey (1973–74), but one of the most influential was Mazinger Z (1972–74). Himself influenced by Astro Boy, Nagai’s tale of a super robot constructed from Super-Alloy Z (developed from the element Japanium, which is, of course, found only inside Mount Fuji) whose purpose was to fight evil machine beasts created by Dr Hell, contributed to the flood of mecha (suited-robot, machine-based) anime that flourished throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These included Tomino Yoshiyuki’s Mobile Suit Gundam (1979–80), which has continued, in a variety of updated incarnations, to this day, and Super Dimension FortressMacross (1982–83), an adventure drama set against the background of intergalactic war, with spectacular battles and giant robots. Space BattleshipYamato (1974–75) was hugely influential. It was a space opera, a grand-scale epic tale. Director and designer Matsumoto Leiji established a distinctive style for the series, a well-constructed plot and strong characterisation. Enormously popular, in many respects it was a catalyst for the rise of otaku (obsessive fan) culture. A huge fan following built up around these science-fiction series and magazines such as Animage, established in 1978 by Tokuma Shoten Publishing, recognised this. As well as publishing serialised manga, it also allowed fans to discuss and vote on their favourite anime and characters. Newtype magazine, published by Kadokawa Shoten, followed in 1985. These quality magazines also placed an emphasis on the anime creation process, highlighting the artistic elements of the medium and running articles about anime/manga creators.

A mangaka working in the 1980s was Takahashi Rumiko. Originally a dōjinshi artist, her delightfully eccentric Urusei Yatsura (1981) was adapted for television by Oshii Mamoru and became a huge success. Other anime based on her manga, such as Maison Ikkoku (1986–8), the mildly bonkers but utterly captivating Ranma ½ (1989–92), and Inuyasha (2000–04) consolidated her position as the bestselling female mangaka in the world and her influence on anime is still apparent, even today.

The 1980s saw a number of significant developments for the format. By this time anime had expanded not just within television and cinema but also to the new and thriving video and laserdisc markets. The later formats, called OVA (Original Video Animations), were effectively direct-to-video productions (this is common in Japanese live-action cinema as well). OVA allowed more specialised material to be produced and distributed cheaply as well as providing springboards for new projects or to release further versions of existing anime that had passed their peak popularity but retained enough fans to ensure commercial viability. Oshii’s Dallos (1983) was considered to be the first OVA but it wasn’t successful. Ishiguro Noboru’s post-apocalyptic Megazone 23 (1985) was more popular. Biker Shogo believes that he lives in 1980s Tokyo but this is an illusion and he is actually living on a giant spaceship in the twenty-fourth century. The series would eventually run to four parts.

OVAs were relatively cheap to produce and allowed animators to experiment with different styles. The quality of the animation was generally better than TV series and could occasionally rival that of feature films. Popular OVA included Bubblegum Crisis (1987–91), Vampire Princess Miyu (1988–89), Anno Hideaki’s directorial debut Gunbuster (1988–89) and Tenchi Muyo! (1992–2005). If the anime proved successful enough, this could lead to more prestigious productions. Yūki Masami’s manga Patlabor was released as a seven-episode OVA directed by Oshii in 1988 but its success led to a TV series and two feature films. OVAs also allowed the distribution of more outré material such as hentai (explicit – the term translates as ‘weird attitude’), with anime such as The Lolita Anime (1984), Cream Lemon (1984) and Urotsukidōji (1987–1995) amongst the better-known examples.

The 1980s were also a time when many animators, who had learned their craft working on TV anime, were able to establish their own creative groups or studios. One of the primary motivations was to break free of the conventional studio system and produce work for which the creators would retain copyright. Oshii Mamoru joined the group Headgear and started working on productions such as Patlabor. The most famous of these independent studios is Studio Ghibli, established by Miyazaki Hayao and Takahata Isao who, after the success of Miyazaki’s environmental adventure Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984), which is still looked upon with much affection in Japan, ploughed the returns from that film into setting up their own venture. Their aim was to produce the sort of animations they wanted to see as well as nurture talent for the future.

The 1980s were also a time when fans of manga and anime were able to start on the road to becoming professionals. Clamp are a circle of all-female manga artists who started producing dōjinshi in the early 1980s, moving on to creating original works, becoming professionals in 1989. Many of their manga have made the transition to anime, including Tokyo Babylon (1993), X (1996), Cardcaptor Sakura (1998–2000), Chobits (2002) and xxxHolic (2008). Studio Gainax, originally called Daicon Film, was started by a group of university students, including Anno Hideaki and Yamaga Hiroyuki, in the early 1980s. After creating a series of short animations that were effectively fan works, screened at the annual Daicon conventions (Japan’s National Science Fiction conventions), they managed to establish themselves as a small studio, and changed their name. Royal Space Force: Wings of Honnêamise (1987) was their first feature animation. Written and directed by Yamaga, it tells a story of a space flight pioneer, set in an alternative world on the brink of war, and featured an unconventionally un-heroic protagonist. It garnered critical acclaim but failed to light the box office.

Productions were also becoming grander in scale and the 1980s were a time when budgets started expanding and cinema releases were becoming increasingly ambitious. There were a number of productions based on classical Japanese literature, such as Taleof Genji (1986) and Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985). Studios were also more willing to experiment with different styles and formats. Ōtomo Katsuhiro’s Akira