Translator’s note: An Accessible Chronology of Japanese TV Animation was published in four installments in October–November 2018. References to “now,” current broadcasts, and recent events retain that standpoint.
If this series is going to begin,
it has to begin at the very beginning.
There is no particular agenda behind it, really: just a survey of Japanese TV animation from its birth to the present. I hope that, along the way, you will find a few things you like.
Major events:
1953: The precursors of TV animation begin to appear, modeled on television commercials.
1958: Japan’s first color animated feature, The White Snake, is released.
7 March 1959 (Shōwa 34): The live-action Astro Boy begins broadcasting.
1962: Tatsunoko is founded.
In the meantime, Mushi Production is established in 1961 and begins adopting “limited animation” from the United States.
Supplement: Unlike full animation, limited animation works with restricted time, personnel, detail, and numbers of frames, controlling backgrounds and character movement within the frame to reduce the time and money required.
1963: With the broadcast of Astro Boy, the first great animation boom begins. Newcomers to the industry and new productions multiply, and animation becomes a fixture of children’s conversations.
Supplement: The black-and-white 1963 Astro Boy is not the 1980 version Chinese viewers usually remember from childhood.
1963: Studio Zero is founded.
1963: Japan’s first original TV animated series, Ken, the Wild Boy, begins broadcasting.
1964: Tokyo Movie is founded.
1965: Japan’s first color TV animated series, Jungle Emperor Leo, begins broadcasting.
Keywords for this period: Osamu Tezuka; Mushi Production; snack manufacturers; black-and-white television; the first experiments; Astro Boy.
14 July 1958: The first TV animation, Mole’s Adventure, airs. At fifty-three seconds long, it marks television animation’s entrance onto the stage of history.
The footage used here comes from a television news report made when material from the film was discovered in 2013.
15 January 1960: New Animation: Three Tales begins broadcasting. Made up of three animated shorts totaling thirty minutes, it is the first television program in Japanese history filmed using chroma key.
(In other words, the first supplier of blue-screen meme footage.)
1961: Instant History begins its run of shorts, Japan’s first TV animation series. True to its name, each episode lasts one minute: the oldest “instant-noodle anime,” over before your noodles are ready.
Budget and production-schedule constraints mean that no other animated series airs in 1962.
1 January 1963: Astro Boy begins broadcasting, 193 episodes in all (including seventeen reruns). Japan’s first true regularly broadcast half-hour TV animation series, and its first homegrown robot anime.
7 April 1963: Galaxy Boy Troop airs, 92 episodes. A puppet animation based on an original work by Osamu Tezuka, its premise even influences the later immortal classic Space Battleship Yamato. Interestingly, its premiere date, 7 April, is also the date on which the battleship Yamato sank.
4 September 1963: Sennin Buraku (“Village of Immortals”) airs, 23 episodes. Japan’s earliest late-night animation. Its source manga holds the Japanese record for the longest serial by a single artist, at 2,861 installments.
4 October 1963: The Japanese–American puppet animation The Adventures of Pinocchio airs. From 20 December, it is broadcast together with another puppet series, Shisukon Ōji.
20 October 1963: Tetsujin 28 airs, 84 episodes. Three months after those eighty-four finish, a second, thirteen-episode run begins, bringing the total to 97. The earliest giant-robot animation in Japanese history, it has a profound influence on later mecha anime. (Go Nagai: He means me.)
7 November 1963: 8 Man airs, 56 episodes.
An ordinary adaptation of an SF manga, nothing special in itself, it has the misfortune to become a casualty of the series of industry fiascos that follows.
25 November 1963: Ken, the Wild Boy airs, 86 episodes. Toei’s first TV animation production, and Japan’s first original TV animated series.
20 December 1963: Shisukon Ōji (“Prince Cisco”) airs, 15 episodes. A puppet animation, and the first animation to use tie-in marketing. (The source manga was a collaboration between Fujiko Fujio and a snack company, about a little hero who transforms by eating snacks.)
21 January 1964: Zero Fighter Hayato airs, 38 episodes. Short of money, this animation uses special-effects filming techniques. It consumes most of Mushi Production’s and Toho’s energies at the time, nearly ruining another work, Big X. Out of filial respect for Daddy, it changes the “enemy country’s” name, and sets off the great wave of war manga in the sixties.
7 June 1964: A Little Ninja, Fujimaru airs. Originally called Ishimaru of the Wind, it changes its name to Fujimaru to suck up to sponsor Fujisawa Pharmaceutical (now Astellas Pharma): “Fuji” uses the same character as in Fujisawa.
3 August 1964: Big X airs. This poor victim of Zero Fighter Hayato makes a stark contrast in animation quality with the concurrently airing Astro Boy. Even most of its film ends up lost as a result; at present, only a total of 59 episodes can be confirmed.
3 January 1965: New Treasure Island airs, one episode. The manga on which it is based was Osamu Tezuka’s debut long-form work. Intended as a long-running animated serial, it apparently ends up a one-off because of questions over authorship rights and the allocation of copyright.1
7 January 1965: Super Jetter, the Boy from the Future airs. An original animation TBS produces after learning a painful lesson from the overseas-rights problems with 8 Man—a tragedy brought on by not understanding English when signing the contract.
1 February 1965: Space Patrol Hopper airs, 44 episodes. Partway through, it is renamed Patrol Hopper: Uchūkko Jun (“Space Kid Jun”).
4 April 1965: Dolphin Prince airs, three episodes. Japan’s first color animation broadcast on television, but its experimental nature means it does not continue as a series. Together with Go! Marine Kid, it later lays the groundwork for 1969’s Marine Boy.
8 April 1965: PiPi the Alien airs, 52 episodes. Japan’s first production to combine live-action and animated performers.
4 May 1965: Space Boy Soran airs, 96 episodes. Not much to say about the work itself; it has a small part in the W3 affair coming up later.
8 May 1965: Space Ace airs, 52 episodes.
31 May 1965: Kaitō Pride (“Phantom Thief Pride”) airs (date uncertain), 23 episodes. Originally black-and-white; the images here are from the recolored export version, which was also renamed Dr. Zen.
3 June 1965: Prince Planet airs. Like Tetsujin 28, another victim of the Glico opening song: repeated cries of “Glico!” are shoehorned into the lyrics. Imagine watching Boonie Bears when someone suddenly turns up and screams “Pleasant Goat!” for half a minute.
6 June 1965: W3 (Wonder Three, also known as The Amazing Three) airs, 52 episodes. The W here is read “Wonder”; this is Mushi Production’s third work. Nothing remarkable about the work itself. During the manga’s serialization, Mushi Production could not stand the overlap between its own Number 7 and rival productions such as Rainbow Sentai Robin and Space Boy Soran. A key employee left just then, leading Osamu Tezuka to suspect collusion between the sponsors and the publisher. He moved W3 from Weekly Shōnen Magazine to Weekly Shōnen Sunday, costing the former a huge number of readers. Its publisher, Kodansha, then brought heavy pressure to bear on Tezuka and Mushi Production, indirectly leading to the studio’s bankruptcy. This is the famous W3 affair.iii
29 August 1965: Obake no Q-tarō (“Q-tarō the Ghost”) airs, 96 episodes. It sweeps away the ratings slump caused by an oversupply of SF animation, producing a ratings miracle for everyday-life animation. Its later theme song, “Oba-Q Ondo,” sells six million copies, a sales record no one has managed to beat to this day. It pioneers both anime ondo dance songs and the voice-actor singer, in the person of Machiko Soga. The earlier opening, “Obake no Q-tarō,” is also a member of the million-seller club.
6 October 1965: Jungle Emperor Leo airs, 52 episodes. The first domestically produced Japanese color TV animation to broadcast a complete run. Its influence is such that people are still finding fault with The Lion King over it today.
1 November 1965: Hustle Punch airs, 26 episodes.
14 December 1965: Tatakae! Osper (“Fight! Osper”) airs, 53 episodes.
On the whole, animation in this period is still taking its first steps in black-and-white. Most works germinate slowly in the shadow of monopoly and snack and pharmaceutical sponsors. Animators are still feeling their way, exploring and observing, moving forward under the burden of the name “television manga.” SF is all the rage, laying solid foundations for the science-fiction animation boom to come.