Well, I never tried to post more than one thing on TC so far, therefore I only now realized that it can't be done. Attached the picture that would make more sense with the post.
If somebody wants to look around themself a litte, I can give you this. https://animation.filmarchives.jp/en/index.html

1940s

Japan was hit again by a major catastrophe, but this time man made. During WW2 a lot of works were destroyed. In total there are more creations from before 1945 lost than preserved. While so far nothing made it to my PTW list it still pained me as I would love to have all the music, video games, books, anime and so on to be archived and available. Anyway, when the war raged not much was produced, only a few propaganda works. Afterwards not much has been created either. Worth being mentioned is that the first full length film has been produced and the first studio with works being attributed to it was established. All the prior stuff had as information regarding the studio unknown written down, as they rarely founded studios so far. Regarding the source it was either original, book, or other with folktales and fables being very popular to adopt. Unfortunately the mentioned studio was only a short-lived propaganda studio, but familiar studios start to appear soon. At least the paper cut outs from the last three decades have been replaced with cel animation now. Besides this China entered the stage with its first work, which surprised me, because I didn’t expect to see them this early. What makes me doubt a little was the fact that other sources say that China has done animation even before that, namely a few commercials, then some short films and later propaganda during the war with Japan. The title of pioneers have the Wang Brothers and they started doing so in the 1920s. Overall this made me question if MAL is any good regarding Donghua. Given the fact I do that for anime I hope nobody is upset that I didn’t dig deeper there. Honestly, I don’t really like Donghua too…

1950s

Not much is being done, but Toei and Eiken are around now, two studios that are still active today. Somebody may now think that Toei was already founded in the 1940s, but I decided to put them in here, when they released their first anime. Another mention is the first time anime was seen on TV, a short special. Else the first anime has been shown in movie theatres outside of Japan. China is doing what China does, producing stuff like crazy. A lot of puppet animations and stop motions are among them, else propaganda. I also had a hard time finding the Chinese productions, until I started to search them in Chinese instead English. This was something I couldn’t let it be how it was and I went back to search for anime I didn’t found in Japanese. As it turns out it didn’t matter much. All those creations from the 1910s – 1950s have not copyright and are even made available by Japanese institutions itself, who otherwise are very hard about that due to Japanese laws.. Exceptions are only the works from studios that still exist today. Still, this realization regarding searching made it much easier for me later.

1960s

The first anime series is reality, it’s called Instant History. Several hundred episodes, but only a few minutes each. As it is about history I would be interested to watch it, but it’s almost entirely lost. Astro Boy aired around 2 years later and the first popular anime was born. Instant History got a sequel too. Important occurrences would be Tezuka Osamu starting to produce anime, bringing Mushi Productions with him and anime being in colour now. To save money a few years after the introduction of colour black and white coexisted alongside of it, before it was scrapped as it couldn’t compete. This is not all though, as the craze for sci-fi and space began, which lasted decades. The first mahou shoujou came along as well., same goes for the first shoujou. Sazae-san also started airing, which is remarkable as it does so to this day. What makes it even more interesting is that there was were never any physical media released for it. Perhaps nobody ever saw everything from it. For some reason this remembered me of the refusal of the author of Yotuba-to to make an anime adaptation. At last there is Korea joining in and creating their first work. Again there are sources saying Korea already made commercials and propaganda before, but MAL does not have them. Makes me wonder why they don’t, either go all in with documenting stuff or let It be. Hopefully this doesn’t mean they are also lacking when it comes to anime and olny Dongua and Aeni, which is the Korean name for anime.

I apologize for the dealy. After the second post I went to bed and wanted to make the last one the day after. Unfortunetely when I got up that day I felt ill and was out for almost a week. The fact that I had to get up on my birthday and the noise during New Years Eve as well as the day before and after didn't help at all for recovering.

1970s

Empty seasons aren’t a thing anymore, in every season something was produced. Hayao Miyazaki is now producing anime as well. He already worked on anime in the 1960s, but I included him here as he never was the director in the 60s. What I consider interesting is that Miyazaki blames Tezuka for low wages, because he produced anime too cheap. Other sources say that the studios back then have to blame themselves, as Tezuka kept the right for licensing and merchandizing, which is why he could produce cheaper, while the others such as Toei and Eiken did not, but produced cheap too, and because of that had to pay awful wages to keep business afloat, which established the horrible pay that still exists today. Anyway, a lot of familiar faces and names appear, at least for me. On one hand are anime I have heard a lot of stuff about online but never watched, such as Ashita no Joe, Lupin the third, Cutie Honey, Uchuu Senkan Yamato, Uchuu Kaizoku Captain Harlock, Ginga Tetsudo 999 and Gundam. On the other hand there are anime I have watched on TV as a child, such as Attack No. 1, Muumin, Pinocchio, Doraemon, Alps no Shoujo Heidi, Chiisana Viking Vickie, Calimero, Mitsubachi and Maya no Bouken. New studios arrived too, Sunrise, Madhouse, DAX Production, TMS Entertainment and Nippon Animation for example. Else the genre sport and slice of life started to show up, which made me happy. Overall I added quite a few anime to my list, but had so put some on hold instead of PTW as there were no subs.

1980s

Looking through this decade I can definitely see why it is called the golden age. Thanks to VHS anime can now be sold to people directly and enjoyed at home whenever they want, not having to sit in front of the TV at a certain time or having to go to a cinema. With that a new market with a lot of revenue was opened, which could be used to produce even more. The rest of the world also developed a taste for anime, this lead to another form of income thanks to licensing and yet more money that could be invested. What surprised me is who licensed and dubbed the most, Italy. There are even a bunch of anime only available in raw or Italian dub. A lot of old acquaintances have their home in the 80s too, once again separated into “I have heard of it but never watched it” like Urusei Yatsura, Macross, Tenshi no Tamago, Dr. Slump, Hokuto no Ken, Dirty Pair, Bubblegum Crisis, Saint Seya, City Hunters, Patlabor, Gunbuster, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu and Yawara and “I have seen this as a child on TV” such as Nils no Fushigi na Tabi, Captain Tsubasa, Dragon Ball, Ganbare Kickers, Ranma, Kwak Else there are Pierrot, Shaft, Ghibli, Deen, Gainax, J.C. Staff, Production I.G and others who entered the fray as well and compilation movies and recaps being very popular. While the first occurrences of step sisters, isekai, cat girls, ecchi, delinquents, school girls, ojou-samas, incest, time travel and traps come around stuff like robots, aliens, sci-fi, shoujo, shounen, drama, action, mahou shoujo, romance, comedy, superpowers, fantasy and adventure gets only more attention. A few animebiographies, music videos and crossovers popped up and quite a few anime with a WW2 background. A trend of safety anime for fires, traffic and earthquakes started as well, which got big quickly. They also started to use some sort of effect for the hair that makes it look shiny, before it was more dark and plain. Personally I would have preferred it if they did something about those long legs many characters have. What I also noticed is that there are a lot of series with many episodes, it’s rarely the nowadays usual 12 or 13. Who wanted shorter anime could pick up an OVA though, which were huge back then. There were also a surprising amount of shows with a shorter duration too, so on TV it was either long with usual length or long with short length. Last mention is that hentai is now also being produced, it’s being distributed on VHS.

1990s

Anime got even bigger and in every season there are double digits of different titles to choose from. What I noticed is that they have no hesitation to show explicit content, a lot of bare skin is seen and gore as well. Satou Junichi started to act as a director, Kyoto Animation is now a thing too and CGI is being sporadically tested, which doesn’t look good at all in my opinion. Besides other stuff is getting a foothold such as office ladies, harem, yaoi, yuri, sex shift and crossdressing. Several video games got an adaptation, Dragon Quest, Wizardry, Ys, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Tekken and Fire Emblem for example. It would be interesting to know how faithful they are to the source, unfortunately I didn’t play those entries that got adapted. Names that ring a bell are once again here, with some having heard about online, Lodoss, Fushigi, no Umi no Nadja, Tenchi Muyou Ryououki, Sailor Moon, Aa! Megami-Sama!, Black Jack, JoJo, Slam Dunk, Taiho Shichau zo, Slayers, Golden Boy, Rurouni Kenshin, AIKa, Perfect Blue, Cardcaptor Sakura, Initial D, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece and several movies from Ghibli to mention some. Others I knew from watching TV as a child, such as Conan, Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh. A few I have already seen, those you see a lot online, Lain, Evangelion, Koukaku Kidoutai, Gunsmith Cats, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop and Great Teacher Onizuka to be precise.
What caught me of guard is that there are still quite a few lost anime, even with VHS around and later CD too. I thought this wouldn’t be the case anymore, but since the introduction of VHS to the end of the century it still happened. A reason for that is that anime that wasn’t popular when airing didn’t get a physical release. With time some of those shows got lost, while others lay around at the studios. Rarely they were aired again or shown at special screenings. An interesting thought that a kid 30 years ago recording his favourite show is now an adult who can help to preserve what he once loved. Makes me think what kind of stuff people are hoarding, sometimes without even knowing. Still, I noticed that in the past 5 years a lot of anime from this century got a translation. I have now and then seen somebody complain about the raise of isekai and the decline of slice of llife, which is a sentiment I share and the reason why I did this endeavour. Maybe some felt the same and dived into this century to explore what they didn’t know yet. Or they were bored during Covid and picked up this hobby when they needed to stay at home. All in all I am grateful for it and a few lost anime have even been discovered. What made me feel is that I am most likely experiencing what the old school otakus felt when mecha and sci-fi fell out of favour and was replaced with slice of life and moe, which is now getting shoved aside for isekai.
Anyway, this decade saw hentai getting very popular, the number of it is staggering, but the animation is sometimes quite awful. Besides this in the later years TV series got more and more, while OVAs and movies declined.

Very interesting thread. I compiled the text and images of this thread into a PDF in order to have a local copy. It isn't supposed to be anything really, just a thing so I have it on my computer as well.

https://pomf2.lain.la/f/xg7wpwqi.pdf

>>38637
Sports started at least in the 60s, Kyojin no Hoshi, Tiger Mask, Attack No. 1 all started there. I'm also not sure if you could say ecchi had its first occurrences in the 80s, at least Cutie Honey was definitely it in the early 70s, and there were the three erotic Tezuka movies, late 60s/early 70s (though I guess you could say these maybe go too far). Step-sisters, ojou-sama, these were present in Candy Candy in the 70s as well. And for moe, despite not being named so, has always been there. Why do you think the OP for Daikon III starred a little girl? It was already included in the genesis of otaku culture. Same for nudity, Cutie Honey and Minky Momo got completely naked when transforming, Gundam ZZ and Creamy Mami even had nude loli, Urusei Yatsura and Ranma showed tits. Of course OVAs and movies allow for more explicit content, but even on TV series it wasn't particularly restricted.

Post edited on 2nd Jan 2025, 2:54pm

>>38638
Thanks, I am glad somebody considered my thread and posts interesting.

>>38639
> Sports started at least in the 60s, Kyojin no Hoshi, Tiger Mask, Attack No. 1 all started there
I guess. They all started in the late 60s and ended in late 1971.

> I'm also not sure if you could say ecchi had its first occurrences in the 80s, at least Cutie Honey was definitely it in the early 70s
Yes, but that was a single appearance of it. When making statements such as "X got popular in 19xx" I took a look at the amount of occurrences and also the continuity of it. Cutie Honey was a lone lighthouse in the dark with zero company, the ships started to come later.

> Step-sisters, ojou-sama, these were present in Candy Candy in the 70s as well
Lone lighthouse again, single occurrence, missing continuity. Caught on later.

> And for moe, despite not being named so, has always been there. Why do you think the OP for Daikon III starred a little girl?
Good point. Maybe the art style didn't really appeal to me, because when somebody says moe my mind wanders to Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka and Kiniro Mosaic for example. Perhaps that is more of a me thing, as I for example also don't consider Ichigo Mashimaro moe, as the looks don't give me that impression. I love it though, don't get me wrong.

> for nudity, Cutie Honey and Minky Momo got completely naked when transforming, Gundam ZZ and Creamy Mami even had nude loli, Urusei Yatsura and Ranma showed tits. Of course OVAs and movies allow for more explicit content, but even on TV series it wasn't particularly restricted
That's a great addition, anon. Would edit my post and give you credit for it, if I had set a password. Maybe >>38638 can throw it into the PDF and at the end we have something of a little TC essay about that topic. Given the fact from where those shows are you mentioned I would put it into the 80s, but leave my remark regarding gore and add it got even more explicit. There are even some hentai mixed with gore. Anyway, thanks for contributing.

>>38640
>statements such as "X got popular in 19xx"
It was more about saying "the first occurrences of". Maybe calling them something like "new trends" might be more appropriate.

A new version will be posted today. The input from >>38639 and >>38641 has been considered, once again thank you for contributing. For example sports was moved from the 70s to the 60s and the choice of words regarding occurrences has been changed. Of course there is more, else I wouldn't be posting a new one. Changes and additions include:

- Taiwan and anime
- North Korea and anime
- Elaborating why Tezuka and Miyazaki were important
- Moved Oten Shimokawa, Junichi Kouichi, Seitarou Kitayama from the 30s to the 10s, as I think it's better to have them when they started doing stuff instead of when they stopped
- New info added to the 30s, 80s and 90s
- Corrected spelling mistakes, punctuation and phrased here and there something a little bit different
- Changed the introduction a little

Once again I am not claiming for this to include everything there is to know regarding cel animation. It's just some trivia I picked up while poking through the 1910s - 1990s in order to fill my plan to watch list. You are invited to share your knowledge in case you know something I don't or if you spot a mistake. A password will be set this time, so I can change the post.

Around 11 months ago I decided to look through all the anime seasons from the past century. I did this because I am not really happy with the seasons from the 2020s. Right now I can’t pinpoint when my dissatisfaction started, but one day I will find out, as I am determined to eventually do with the 2000s and 2010s what I did now with the 1910s – 1990s.

What I did is using Myanimelist, on there I went back to the very first anime season and looked through all of them until Fall 1999. The reason for doing this was to hopefully fill my plan to watch list. While browsing through them I looked at every single entry to decide if I am interested or not.

Usually I download anime, but for this endeavour I decided not to, as I didn’t want to delete most of it again due to not being interested in it and for searching far and wide for torrents with seeders, as this can be hard with older stuff. Which means I searched for them online to watch them somewhere. The searching was done with Startpage, as this is what I have been using since 7 or 8 years. When I found something I skipped through the first episode of it, for example watching the first 3 minutes, skip ahead 3 minutes, watch 2 minutes, skip ahead 2 minutes and so on. While I was doing this I suddenly thought that maybe somebody on TC may regard my findings as interesting, then while doing this I learned a little bit of trivia about anime. Therefore I go through decade for decade and write down the information I discovered. I do not claim for this to be complete, so feel free to add something I may have missed. The same goes for correcting me when I made a mistake, because I only decided a few months ago to share what I found, which means I haven’t been making notes since the very start. On top of that I took several breaks from this, as 2024 was a horrible year for me and I now and then had zero energy and motivation left for doing anything.

1910s

The first season listed is Winter 1917. A whole 2 entries are there and both of them are considered lost. I am right at the beginning and already ask myself how people knew something existed, but couldn’t preserve it. Unfortunately this decade continues like this, not much is around and almost everything is lost. More to that in the 1920s. Besides this nothing was produced in 1919. Or nobody knows anymore that there was something. As those who started everything are Oten Shimokawa, Junichi Kouichi and Seitarou Kitayama mentioned, especially Kitayama was very important as he taught other people that continued to produce anime after those three stopped doing so.

1920s

Now this decade was one of the more interesting to me. There were only 2 things created from 1920 – 1923, one of them was an advertisement for cosmetics and the other not available online. This made me wonder how this can be, it exists, why hasn’t it been uploaded? As it turns out this has to do with the storage medium, namely film reels. Those are very rare and some people like collectors or institutions such as museums have them, with only sharing them at special screenings, where recording is prohibited. Some reels are in such a bad state that they are not being used anymore, as their owners are afraid to destroy them for good. The next occurrence that caught my attention is the Great Kanto Earthquake. It’s largely blamed for having destroyed most of the stuff produced in 1917 and 1918, which is the reason why they are so poorly archived. Else there was not much around again, which I couldn’t believe and it made me poke around further. It turns out on MAL you can search for years only and not just seasons. I did so and unearthed more. Once again a lot of those works are lost, why I will write down in the 1940s. This also lead me to find the oldest known anime, Katsudo Shashin. While it can’t be pinned down to a certain date it is agreed upon that it was before 1917, which means it holds the title of the first anime created.

1930s

Lost, lost, lost. It doesn’t get any better. The reason why is just around the corner, so let’s explore other titbits until there. Animals are huge so far, while I do like animals I like them because they are exactly that, animals. Seeing them fish, fly a plane or cook doesn’t appeal to me. At least sound could now be recorded, before everything was mute or during a screening music was played live. This also brings us to the facts that voice acting now exists and so far everything produced carries the label movie, but with a short duration. Adding sound also meant more expenses though, so many works still do not have any sound. This is also the reason why cel animation has only been tested so far, but discarded. Another fact is that until now paper cut outs have been often used, which means stop motion is big. This once again saved money during production.

1940s

Japan was hit again by a major catastrophe, but this time man made. During WW2 a lot of works were destroyed. In total there are more creations from before 1945 lost than preserved. While so far nothing made it to my PTW list it still pained me to see that as I would love to have all the music, video games, books, anime and so on to be archived and available. Anyway, when the war raged not much was produced, only a few propaganda works. Afterwards not much has been created either. Worth being mentioned is that the first full length film has been produced and the first studio with works being attributed to it was established. All the prior stuff had as information regarding the studio unknown written down, as they rarely founded studios so far, because the people who made anime were mostly hired by other companies who requested something specific from them. Regarding the source it was either original, book, or other with folktales and fables being very popular to adopt. Genres until now include adventure, fantasy, action, drama and comedy, while themes are often historical, mythological and militaristic. Unfortunately the before mentioned studio was only a short-lived propaganda studio, but familiar studios start to appear soon. At least cel animation now made it and replaced the paper cut outs from the last three decades. Besides this China entered the stage with its first work, which surprised me, because I didn’t expect to see them this early. What makes me doubt a little was the fact that other sources say that China has done animation even before that, namely since the 1920s. A few commercials, then some short films and later propaganda during the war with Japan are mentioned before the first entry on MAL. The title of pioneers of Chinese animation have the Wan Brothers. Overall this made me question if MAL is any good regarding donghua, which is the name for Chinese anime. Given the fact I do this for Japanese anime I hope nobody is upset that I didn’t dig deeper there. Honestly, I don’t really like donghua anyway.

1950s

Not much is being done, but Toei and Eiken are around now, two studios that are still active today. Somebody may now think that Toei was already founded in the 1940s, but I decided to put them in here, when they released their first anime. Another mention is the first time anime was seen on TV, a short special. Else the first anime has been shown in movie theatres outside of Japan. China is doing what China does, producing stuff like crazy. A lot of puppet and shadow animations are among them, else propaganda. I also had a hard time finding the Chinese productions, until I started to search them in Chinese instead of English. This planted an idea in my head I couldn’t ignore, so I went back to search for anime I didn’t find in Japanese. As it turns out it didn’t matter much. All those creations from the 1910s – 1950s have no copyright and are even made available by Japanese institutions themselves, who otherwise are very hard about that due to Japanese laws. Exceptions are only the works from studios that still exist today. Still, this realization regarding searching made it much easier for me later.

1960s

The first TV anime series is reality, several hundred episodes long, but only a few minutes each. As it is about history I would be interested to watch it, but it’s almost entirely lost. Astro Boy aired around 2 years later, which was the first popular anime. This is due to the most important occurrence in the 60s, Tezuka Osamu, who started to produce anime and brought Mushi Productions with him. His impact was huge, as thanks to him anime slowly started to develop his own unique style, manga started to get adoptions, new genres were introduced such as sci-fi and sport, themes such as space, mecha, superpowers and martial arts got popular and demographics like kids, shounen and shoujo got specifically targeted. He kick-started the industry and got the nickname Father of Anime. Important is also that anime is in colour now. For a few years black and white still coexisted alongside colour in order to save money, before it was scrapped as it couldn’t compete. What is interesting is that there are works before the 60s that have colour, this is because it was already produced with it, but as it was released it couldn’t be displayed yet or it was coloured afterwards. Sazae-san also started airing, which is remarkable as it does so to this day and therefore it has the title of the longest running anime. What makes it even more interesting is that there was never any physical media released for it, so most likely nobody ever saw everything from it, as the chance that somebody managed to watch every episode of it on TV is almost zero. At last there is Korea joining the industry and creating its first work. As the founding father of Korean anime is Shin Dong-hun named, who made an entire film on his own. Same as with China there are sources saying Korea started doing animation earlier than that, namely since the 1950s in form of commercials and propaganda, but MAL does not have them. This makes me wonder why they don’t, either go all in with documenting stuff or let It be. Hopefully this doesn’t mean they are also lacking when it comes to anime and only dongua and aeni, which is the Korean name for anime. Same as with donghua I didn’t dive deeper into aeni, as Korean anime is also not my cup of tea.

1970s

Empty seasons aren’t a thing anymore, in every season something was produced. Hayao Miyazaki is now producing anime as well. He already worked on anime in the 1960s, but I included him here as he never was the director in the 60s. What I consider interesting is that Miyazaki blames Tezuka for the widespread low wages in the anime industry, because he produced anime too cheap. Some sources say that the studios back then have to blame themselves, as Tezuka kept the rights for licensing and merchandizing, which is why he could produce cheaper, while the others such as Toei and Eiken did not, but produced cheap too, and because of that they had to pay awful wages in order to keep their business afloat, what established the horrible pay in the industry that still exists today. Nonetheless Miyazaki is important as his movies he later produced with Ghibli in the 80s and 90s gained a lot of international attention that benefited anime. Anyway, a lot of familiar faces and names appear, at least for me. On one hand are anime I have heard a lot of stuff about online but never watched, such as Ashita no Joe, Lupin the third, Cutie Honey, Uchuu Senkan Yamato, Uchuu Kaizoku Captain Harlock, Ginga Tetsudo 999 and Gundam. On the other hand there are anime I have watched on TV as a child, such as Attack No. 1, Muumin, Pinocchio, Doraemon, Alps no Shoujo Heidi, Mitsubachi and Maya no Bouken, Calimero and Chiisana Viking Vickie. New studios arrived too, Sunrise, Madhouse, TMS Entertainment and Nippon Animation for example. Overall I finally started to put some anime on my PTW list, but I had to move some into on hold instead of PTW as there are no subs, or only partially, or a case of lost media is given.

1980s

Looking through this decade I can definitely see why it is called the golden age. Thanks to VHS anime can now be sold to people directly and enjoyed at home whenever they want, not having to sit in front of the TV at a certain time or having to go to a cinema. With that a new market with a lot of revenue was opened, which could be used to produce even more. The rest of the world also developed a taste for anime, this lead to another form of income thanks to licensing and yet more money that could be invested. On top of that many popular franchises were established and sequels produced. What surprised me is who licensed and dubbed the most, it’s Italy. There are even a bunch of anime only available in raw or Italian dub. The cherry on top of everything is that every season has now double digits of anime to choose from in form of TV series, movies, specials and in the second half of the decade OVAs. A lot of acquaintances have their home in the 80s too, once again separated into “I have heard of it but never watched it” like Urusei Yatsura, Macross, Tenshi no Tamago, Dr. Slump, Hokuto no Ken, Dirty Pair, Bubblegum Crisis, Saint Seya, City Hunters, Patlabor, Gunbuster, Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu and Yawara and “I have seen this as a child on TV” such as Nils no Fushigi na Tabi, Captain Tsubasa, Dragon Ball, Ganbare Kickers, Ranma and Kwak. Else there are Pierrot, Shaft, Ghibli, Deen, Gainax, J.C. Staff, Production I.G and others who entered the fray as well, while compilation movies and recaps being very popular. Stuff like step sisters, isekai, cat girls, ecchi, delinquents, school girls, ojou-samas, incest, time travel, mahou shoujo and traps became a trend, of which a few last to this day. A few animebiographies, music videos and crossovers popped up and a considerable amount of anime with a WW2 background. A lot of safety anime for fires, traffic and earthquakes started to show up, where I honestly have to say that I don’t understand why they need so many of them. They also started to use some sort of effect for the hair that makes it look shiny, before it was more dark and plain. Personally I would have preferred it if they did something about those long legs many characters have, occasionally even long necks or just black eyes with a white dot inside them, that should represent an iris I guess. What I noticed is that there are a lot of series with many episodes, it’s rarely the nowadays usual 12 or 13. Who wanted shorter anime could pick up an OVA though, which were huge back then. There was also a surprising amount of TV shows with a shorter duration too, so it was either long with usual length or long with short length or OVAs with something between 1 to 12 episodes. Of course movies and specials still existed, which means almost the entire package was now available. Hentai is now being produced as well, it’s being distributed on VHS. Obviously this is very explicit content, but even on TV they didn’t shy away from showing bare skin, excessive violence and even gore. Sometimes those things even get combined, now and then garnished with hentai. Last mention is that this decade also established a market for the demographic Seinen.

1990s

Anime got even bigger, new studios arrived such as Kyoto Animation, OLM and Gonzo for example and CGI is being sporadically tested, which doesn’t look good at all in my opinion. Many well-known things like office ladies, schools, harem, yaoi, yuri and sex shift are gaining a foothold. Several video games got an adaptation, Dragon Quest, Wizardry, Ys, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter, Tekken and Fire Emblem are among them. It would be interesting to know how faithful they are to the source, unfortunately I didn’t play those entries that got adapted. Names that ring a bell are once again here, I have heard about some online, Lodoss, Fushigi, no Umi no Nadja, Tenchi Muyou Ryououki, Sailor Moon, Aa! Megami-Sama!, Black Jack, JoJo, Slam Dunk, Taiho Shichau zo, Slayers, Golden Boy, Rurouni Kenshin, AIKa, Perfect Blue, Cardcaptor Sakura, Initial D, Hunter x Hunter, One Piece and several movies from Ghibli to mention some of them. Others I knew from watching TV as a child, such as Conan, Pokemon, Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh. A few I have already seen, namely those you see a lot online, Lain, Evangelion, Koukaku Kidoutai, Gunsmith Cats, Trigun, Cowboy Bebop and Great Teacher Onizuka to be precise. What caught me of guard is that there are still quite a few lost anime, even with VHS around and later in this decade DVD too. I thought this wouldn’t be the case anymore, but since the introduction of VHS until the end of the century it still happened. A reason for this is that anime that wasn’t popular when airing didn’t get a physical release. With time some of those shows got lost, while others lay around at the studios. Rarely they were aired again or shown at special screenings. An interesting thought that a kid 30 years ago recording his favourite show is now an adult who can help to preserve what he once loved. This made me think what kind of stuff people are hoarding, sometimes without even knowing. Still, I noticed that in the past 5 years a lot of anime from this century got a translation. I have now and then seen somebody complain about the raise of isekai and the decline of slice of llife, which is a sentiment I share and the reason why I did this endeavour. Maybe some felt the same and dived into this century to explore what they didn’t know yet. Or they were bored during Covid and picked up this hobby when they needed to stay at home. All in all I am grateful for it and a few lost anime have even been discovered. What made me feel is that I am most likely experiencing what the old school otakus felt when mecha and sci-fi fell out of favour and was replaced with slice of life and moe, which is since years getting shoved aside more and more in favour of isekai. Anyway, this decade saw hentai getting very popular, the number of it is staggering, but the animation is sometimes quite awful. Besides this in the late 90s TV series got more popular, while OVAs and movies declined. While they were still numerous, it started to shift from the one to the other. Another surprise was that the first ONA was already here in the last year of the 90s. I guess it wasn’t impossible back then to publish and host a short video on your own website already. At the very end I wondered where Taiwan is. As it turns out the Taiwanese were mostly busy being subcontracted by the West for drawing cartoons. Rarely they were involved in helping creating Japanese works as subcontractors too. Now and then they did something on their own, but it never really caught on. Starting in the 50s until now every decade saw a few productions of them, but they settled into the role as a helping hand. As my curiosity was not yet satisfied I took a look at North Korea and saw that they were also producing anime. Of course it is propaganda, but in the 80s and 90s they were subcontracted by the west as well before collaboration was shut down in the current century.