Content area
Full text
THE ANIME BOOM IN THE UNITED STATES: Lessons for Global Creative Industries. Harvard East Asian Monographs, no. 406. By Michal Daliot-Bul and Nissim Otmazgin. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Asia Center; Harvard University Press [distributor], 2017. xv, 212 pp. [8]pp. of plates. (B&W photos, illustrations.) US$39.95, cloth. ISBN 9780-674-97699-3.
The Anime Boom in the United States is co-authored by Israeli scholars Michal Daliot-Bul and Nissim Otmazgin, both of whom are specialists in the transcultural flows of Japanese popular entertainment media. In this monograph they tackle one of the key issues regarding the current state of the anime industry, namely, the apparent disconnect between the views and demands of animators, production companies, and consumers. For anyone who has ever wondered how anime became such an incredible cultural force in America or whyJapanese companies have seemed so reluctant to capitalize on this popularity, the authors provide a clear and concise summary of the recent history of exchanges between Japan and the United States. Their work focuses on televised animation but has broader implications, and The Anime Boom in the United States will be of interest not only to the field ofJapan studies but also to scholars of American animation, television, and internet cultures.
The first chapter, "Reframing the Anime Boom in the United States," summarizes the history ofJapanese animation in North America. Daliot-Bul and Otmazgin begin by challenging the common assumption that animation created by Japanese studios only became widespread in the United States in the 1990s. Astro Boy, which was licensed by NBC in the 1960s, was only one of many works of Japanese animation that were widely broadcast on American network television...