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The History of Manga and Anime

Although Manga and Anime is not light novels, there are more to write about for the history of manga than for the history of light novels. Manga and Anime are considered the predecessors for light novels. Although they are still popular, they are the reason why light novels are here.

It began as Zen cartoons in the medieval period and the comical animal scrolls. We shall skip the origins of manga after that due to its inappropriate beginnings. We shall go straight ahead to the 16th century where there are ink brushed manga. These manga had captions, but lack a story.

Let us move straight to 1920s and early 30s to when manga began to become a big thing. As manga became more popular, the government started to try to discourage artists and publishers from publishing more manga. This is due to the high censorship of Japan during that time. They would make magazine companies close down or have a lot of censoring in it. This thus created the popular term for Jail Editors. In order to put their word out about their opinions against the government, some editors went as far as taking the blame for publishing a manga that criticize the government and went to jail. A comic book named New Treasure Island helped manga become more popular. It sold 400,000 (which is considered a lot for selling manga during that time) copies during that time. This help the manga industry become to what it is now.

New Treasure Island

Now lets talk about the history of Anime

The first anime that was ever created was Astro Boy. It was about a robot who wished to be a normal boy. Although there are many other anime that we could discuss during this time, I think that we should skip these anime to talk about the "golden age" of Anime.

Astro Boy

The 1980s were considered the "golden age" by many avid anime watchers. It starts with Mobile Suit Gundam and Space Battleship Yamato. These sci-fi anime became popular after Star Wars war released. This created an increase of avid anime watchers. Hayao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) also created Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. This anime film is considered one of the most influential anime films of all times during that time. Dragon Ball Z was also created around this time as well. Due to the increasing amounts of anime fans, they were giving the title of Otaku (became a negative term later on due to the Otaku Murderer). During this time, OVAs were created by failing studios. OVAs is a way or an attempt to help failing studios rise back up again. The golden age ended when there were many anime films were not during that well in the box office.

Mobile Suit Gundam

Although there have been many negative thoughts when the word anime comes up, the anime industry is still doing well today and is getting more popular around the world.