How anime is taking over the western audience

Chandra Traxler
5 min readMar 5, 2021

The anime industry continues to grow in the west, here is a brief history of the industry's growth.

Many millennials grew up watching shows like Pokémon and Dragon Ball Z on TV but were unaware of the rich culture backing those shows. Although they are westernized they still count as a form of “anime.” Anime has a long history that has led to a 15 billion-dollar industry. In this article, I will guide you through its many forms.

What is anime?

The word “anime” is a shortened version of the Japanese word Animēshon. Anime is a form of Japanese animation used to identify animated productions made for television and film in Japan. Over the years, anime has begun to make its way into other cultures.

This artwork showcases how the character Sasuke from Naruto can be drawn in the styles of other popular shows.

Modern anime began in the early 1900s and found lasting success in 1961 with the establishment of Mushi Productions by Osamu Tezuka, a leading figure in modern manga, the dense, novelistic Japanese comic book style that contributed greatly to the aesthetic of anime. Anime such as Miyazaki Hayao’s Princess Mononoke (1997) and Spirited Away…

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Chandra Traxler

Always in pursuit of a good story, I explore how literature and entertainment shape our world.