Anime History

"Anime." Depending on who you are, the word can conjure up images of exciting adventures, stylized art, or your teenage daughter talking excitedly about her current obsession. In Japan, the word refers to any kind of animation at all, but the rest of the world has adopted it to mean animation specifically from Japan. Why the distinction? Isn’t animation just a bunch of moving drawings no matter which country you draw them in? We don’t have a specific, well-known word for animation from any other part of the world. How did anime come to be regarded as special and grow into the stylized medium we know and love today? The answer stretches back to just over a century ago...