History of the Japanese animation/comic

Recently, Japanese animation or comic has become popular over the world no matter in Asia or other western countries. Japan began producing animation in 1917—still the age of silent films—through trial-and-error drawing and cutout animation techniques, based on animated shorts from France and the United States.
However, at that time, due to the fact that it was expensive to produce animation like Western animation and there were overshadowed by the popularity of Disney cartoons. 

A famous Japanese anime- Astro Boy

During the Second World War, the majority of media was made to nationalize Japan’s culture and religion. Therefore, many anime films were created for that purpose. The picture above was one of the best examples of anime created in that time, a black and white hit anime that came out in 1963. But due to the rise of Japanese nationalism and the start of WWII, most of the animated productions created from the 1930s on were not popular entertainments, but instead were either commercially-oriented or government propaganda of one type or another.

Post-war and the rise of TV

The first modern Japanese animation production company, one devoted to entertainment, came into being: Toei. Their first theatrical features were explicitly in the vein of Walt Disney’s films (as popular in Japan as they were everywhere else).

One of the examples was the ninja-and-sorcery mini-epic Shōnen Sarutobi Sasuke (1959), the first anime to be released theatrically in the United States (by MGM, in 1961).

The fact that pushed animation to the fore in Japan was the shift to TV in the Sixties. The first of Toei’s major animated shows for TV during this time were adaptations of popular manga: Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Sally the Witch and the “kid with his giant robot” story Tetsujin 28-go was adapted for TV by Toei and TCJ/Eiken.

Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s Sally the Witch

kid with his giant robot

First Exports

Until this point, Japanese animated productions had been made by and for Japan. In 1963, Japan has released an animation and exported to the U.S which named Tetsuwan Atomu—more commonly known as Astro Boy. 
In 1968, animation studio Tatsunoko followed the same pattern like "Astro Boy", they adopted a domestic manga title and ended up creating an overseas hit. In that time, the hit was an anime called "aka Mach GoGoGo" and also exported to the U.S, this started the success of Japanese anime over the world.

aka Mach GoGoGo

Diversification Of Japanese anime

Since the 70s, Japanese anime has been more popular and known worldwide, while, the rising popularity of TV put a major dent in the Japanese film industry (action and animation). Due to this reason, many of the animators who had worked exclusively in film attracted back to TV to fill its expanding talent pool. The result was a period of aggressive experimentation and a time where many of the common tropes found in anime to this day were coined. Therefore, many Japanese animations are based on a team due to this reason.

The most important genres of Japanese anime are dealing with giant robots or vehicles. The first anime to start this was "Mazinger Z" which the story of a boy and his remote-controlled giant robot. Another great success robot animation is "Gundam", there are many manga and novels, each has a different story and background. I am also a huge fan of "Gundam", I believe most Asian boys watched "Gundam" when they were a child or even now. It was the most popular anime for boys in Asian countries especially in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, China, and Taiwan.

Mazinger Z

Mobile Suit Gundam