By “anime” we mean animation produced in Japanbut over the years it has become a style in itself that has inspired generations of creators so much that it has managed to cross borders.
Thus we have many series and films created in South Korea, China, France or the United States that perfectly imitate the Japanese animation style, and even the way of treating action sequences, humor, characters and settings. And this, added to the fact that it is increasingly common to find foreigners working on Japanese productions… as it has led to Japan no longer having the exclusive right to create anime.
The future is in China
in fact for Masao Maruyamathe founder of MAPPA and Madhouse, Japan is lagging behind other countries and thinks that China could become the big leader in the anime industry.
According to Maruyama, Japan has become sluggish and he has gotten too used to creating commercial animerelying on genres with cute girls or isekai anime with surprising twists (like “I got reincarnated in a vending machine” or similar, let’s see what you can win in the reincarnation lottery).
This fixation with commercializing all anime makes Japan fall behind other countries in terms of creativity, and in Maruyama’s opinion, the next generation of animators has also been neglected they should take over.
And on the other hand, in China the education and training of new animators is being taken care of, which could make them take the lead over time.
“In Japan, people are no longer educated in animation. The only reason China hasn’t caught up with Japan yet is because they have a lot of restrictions on free speech,” Maruyama said. “If they get more freedom, they will overtake Japan in no time.”
And the truth is that Maruyama is not wrong. In recent years, China has been producing more and more anime series and movies and has dared with all kinds of techniques and genres, although the shadow of censorship continues to greatly restrict the stories they can tell and as.
Meanwhile in Japan more and more series are produced, and obviously it is very difficult to compete with the number of titles that come out of the country, but only a few surface as memorable anime each season. We have the commercial bombshell of the moment, but we have also seen that indeed many times smaller studios achieve greater success by taking risks with stories that break the mold. And in any case, let’s see what happens if Japan really doesn’t take care of its future entertainers.
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