It's truly amazing how many people into Anime today seem to think that it all started about a year before they got involved in the hobby. Many will, however, tell almost identical stories about dim childhood memories of (depending on how old they are) Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Marine Boy, Gigantor, Robotech, or Star Blazers. Others wandered into a comic shop and discovered to their utter amazement that there was an Akira MOVIE to go along with their comics.
             The real history of the medium is frequently chaotic and bizarre (as is the medium itself), and to cover it in depth would take hundreds of pages but that's not the function of this primer. My goal is merely to give you, Mr. Jennings, an idea of what happened and when. Significant events have been left out of this, and portions of the text presented here are based on rumor and conjecture. The event sequence is bunched up around the middle, and there are times when so many things are happening at once that it became difficult to limit the narrative to a half dozen threads or so. I feel that this does, however, give a reasonable account of the tumultuous history of this medium.
             When Osamu Tezuka was stunning Japan with his Tetsuwan Atomu in 1963, Japan was generally considered a place that copied American goods and produced cheap toys. The economic miracle still hadn't taken hold. On the whole, the country had not forgiven itself for events of the 1930's and 1940's. The destruction caused by the Second World War was not far removed from everyday life, and the atomic destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were very fresh memories indeed. It was therefore a bold move as Tezuka, an established manga artist, told a story of the little robot boy with an atomic heart. The robot, disowned by his creator for the unpardonable sin of being a failure (he never grew), is rescued by people who care. Producer Fred Ladd took a look at it and decided that it might actually sell over in ...