By Paul Freitag

The first exposure most people ever had with Japanese animation (anime) was probably a TV series. From Speed Racer to Battle of the Planets to Voltron to the current impenetrable fortress of Pokemon, most everyone has seen some episodic, dubbed anime, albeit often in a truncated form edited for violent or culturally sensitive content.

Modern anime began in 1963, when Osamu Tezuka created Astro Boy, a cute little boy with an atomic heart who went around helping others. Tezuka's animation style was influenced in part by Max Fleischer's Betty Boop cartoons, adapting the big-eyed look for his own creation, though eschewing the classic figure's bustiness.

While Astro Boy caught on in the States creating a cult following that lives on today, it started a trend in conversion that continues today: editing. Astro Boy featured characters that actually died–unheard of for a cartoon at that time. In fact, the final episode featured the death of the main character and, because of that, was never aired in this country.

Tezuka went on to other things, helming the similar TV series Kimba, The White Lion (which experienced a resurgence when Disney's The Lion King hit theaters, prompting all sorts of rip-off debates) and the first X-rated feature-length cartoon, Cleopatra, Queen of Sex. Meanwhile, the success of Astro Boy led to similar shows, most notably the cult favorite Speed Racer in 1967.

Anime managed to stay relatively quiet for a while, poking its nose into the mainstream occasionally with Japanese TV series hitting American shores in forms in which violence was usually lost in the translation.

However, back in Japan the anime market was booming. The first direct-to-video anime series, Moon Station Dallos, hit video stores in 1984. Original Animation Video (OAV) became big business, especially with the discovery that anything-goes on video. Sex sold, with dirty-old men able to go to the video store and take home tapes featuring little girls in tight schoolgirl outfits.

More traditional animation based on Japanese comics (Manga), continued to sell as well. Ranma told the story of a young man who fell into a cursed pool and became a girl every time he touched warm water. Targeted toward 14-year old females, Sailor Moon concerned a group of teenage girls who happened to be super-heroes. But it took some time before any of these shows were seen over here.

The breakthrough for American acceptance of Japanese animation came with Akira, made in 1988 and released stateside in 1990. Akira's release certainly heightened audience awareness of the genre. But while Akira got anime exposure, and it was well-animated, featured great music and had some very creative scenes, the movie turned out to be too representative of the violent side of anime to woo the masses into acceptance.

Akira did get people's attention though. Anime-specialty video companies took notice of the market and began distributing larger quantities of features and series. Disney picked up the American rights for Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service, giving them token theatrical releases before releasing the dubbed versions onto video.

More adult-oriented product began emerging on video store shelves as well, with unknowledgeable clerks innocently placing such NC-17 level product as Urotsokudoji: Legend of the Demon Womb next to Speed Racer: The Movie. Occasionally an innocent rental transaction would turn into a media circus, and the whole field of anime would be suspect.

Of course, one of the problems with anime is also one of its main attributes. Anime isn't a genre to itself–it's just a format, like film in general. There's all-ages fantasy anime like Sailor Moon and there's hardcore pornography like Central Park Media's Anime18 line. In video stores, they're all lumped together, so most people's idea of anime is reflected by the first title they see. It's a bit like accidentally renting Deep Throat and thinking, "Well, all movies are about sex."

Currently, anime seems to be making its way into mainstream culture with more power than ever before. The popularity of Pokemon seems to have peaked, but the adorable antics of Pikachu are still relatively omnipresent. A toned-down Sailor Moon is aired on television frequently, and the Cartoon Network, The Sci-Fi Channel and even the Independent Film Channel have anime programs in their regular schedules.

Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke received a substantial theatrical release, even ending up on Roger Ebert's "Top 10 Movies of 1999" list. Manga has released the Brian DePalma-like Perfect Blue and the Samurai epic X mostly uncut to American screens (Perfect Blue is available for rental now and X will be available July 25).

Anime’s following is growing stronger as well. With more and more titles being released, anime seems to be more than just a passing blip on the cultural radar of America. Exposing kids to shows like Pokemon, no matter how inane you might find it, is a step in the right direction to keeping anime titles on the shelves of your video store.