Thanks to the patient translation efforts of AltJapan Co., Ltd. co-founder Matt Alt, readers can now read, in English,most of the 90-page study on robot anime made available by the Japanese government. Titled “Nihon Animation Guide: Robot Anime-hen,” the original document was written by anime critic Ryusuke Hikawa, Sunrise head of cultural promotion Koichi Inoue, and writer Daisuke Sawaki, and compiled by Mori Building Co., which has previously also compiled reports on Japanese live-action special effects shows, movies, and other pop culture topics. In addition to these reports, the company also promotes media arts information, hosts symposiums, conducts surveys, and works on archive projects.
The first chapter focuses on the cultural history of robot anime and documents the rise of genre in the early 1960s and its ebb in the mid-1980s. The second chapter discusses the relationship between anime studios and toy makers, while the fourth chapter features descriptions of all of the cited robot anime shows and movies in chronological order, starting with the 1963 anime TV series Tetsujin 28-go.
The translated document, as well as the original Japanese version, is available to download from Media Arts Current Contents as a PDF.
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