Japanese animation has had a place in Western animation ever since production companies needed to outsource the actual drawing and frame arrangement. While older cartoon fans can recall imports likeGigantor,Speed Racer,Voltron, andRobotech, it wasn’t until the late 1980s and 1990s thatanimegained an identity of its own.
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Nowadays, it’s fairly easy to see which Western shows took inspiration from anime.Teen Titans(both original and asTeen Titans Go),Totally Spies,Steven Universe, and more aren’t shy about using anime tropes and styles. But it’s not a one-way street, as anime has beeninfluenced by the Westin turn.
7Excel Saga Episode 17: “Animation USA”
The clue’s in the title here. Il Palazzo sends his ACROSS agents Excel and Hyatt over to the US for a recon mission. It doesn’t go so well thanks to Excel’s limited knowledge of English. Not that the locals seem to know much beyond curses. The episode has some funny gags about animation in general, like Hyatt foiling a young cel animator’s dreams by bringing up digital production.
But the climax sees Japanese and American animation join forces to defeat the Mafia. They turn intoSimpsons-esque caricatures before the might of Excel’sWonder Woman-like transformation. She takes out her foes with comic book-style POW effects, though her ‘Western’ look resembles those Christopher Hart ‘How to Draw Manga’ books thanDC Comics.
6FLCL Episode 5: “Brittle Bullet”
FLCLused to be a small cult classic of just 6 episodes. Now it’s expanded to two more ‘Progressive’ and ‘Alternative’ seasons, two more upcoming ‘Grunge’ and ‘Shoegaze’ seasons, and two films. Still, that niche first season from 2000 retains its weird, indie charm. Mainly because it still sticks out compared to other anime both at the time and today. One example of this is in Episode 5, ‘Brittle Bullet’.
Haruko pulls Naota into a duel by getting affectionate with him, just to inflame Kamon’s jealousy. It’s during one of these duels that Commander Amarao, in an otherwise tense phone call, randomly turns into aSouth Parkcharacter while asking his hairdresser to make him look cool. According to the Japanese commentary, the staff did it just because they liked the show as thisoffbeat, random comedy cartoon. Rather likeFLCLitself.
5Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt
The staff behindPanty & Stocking with Garterbeltalso took inspiration fromSouth Park, and otheradult animation showslikeDrawn Together. That, and a drunken night in while coming up with weird concepts they wanted to animate. Still, they wanted to do something crude, crass, and with a touch of sass like those shows. Which they certainly achieved.
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The show follows two fallen angels with amorous interests defending Daten City from ghosts by turning their underwear into weapons. The art style does resemble vibrant cartoons likeDexter’s LaboratoryandThe Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, or like the animated musical band Gorillaz. But episode 9, ‘If the Angels Wore Swimsuits’, did randomly switch to aSouth Parkstyle when Panty botches in volleyball.
4The Big O
While Sunrise has cited many different influences on this mecha anime, some stand out more than others. Sure, the actual Big O mech may link more toGiant Roboor tokusatsu shows likeSuper Robot Red Baron. However, Sunrise also worked onBatman: The Animated Series, andThe Big Oshares a lot of parallels with The Dark Knight. Lead protagonist Roger Smith is a suave playboy a la Bruce Wayne, with his own personal Batmobile-like car called ‘The Griffon’.
He also has an aversion to guns, but more due to his gentlemen’s code than a past trauma. LikeBatman, he has a faithful butler called Norman, and a Commissioner Gordon-like figure in cop Dan Dastun. It’s different enough to not be a 1:1 clone (his ‘Robin’ is a robot girl called Dorothy), but there are plenty of dots to joinbetween Batman andThe Big O.
3My Hero Academia
WhileMy Hero Academia’s influences weren’t strictly animated, it was certainly inspired by Western art styles. Kōhei Horikoshi’s manga and subsequent anime takes inspiration from Eastern sources likeUltraman,Kamen Rider, andDragon Ball. Yet its vibrant palette and superhero designs also resemble those fromMarvel, DC Comics, and their film adaptations.
The series has certainly placed many references to them throughout its run, be it Toga wearing Bane’s mask fromThe Dark Knight Rises,or characters doing poses identical toSpider-Manand co. Some characters directly resemble their source material, like Rikiya Yotsubashi’s Joker-like looks. One of the strongest examples is Twice recounting how he became a villain.Like the JokerinThe Killing Joke, it comes down to “just one bad day”.
2Astro Boy
Though technically, all anime is inspired by Western animation as Western studios were some of the first and most widespread examples of the medium. For example, the ‘Godfather of Anime’ Osamu Tezuka created some of the mostinfluential manga and anime.Astro Boyset the trend that all subsequent mech and shonen series would follow, not to mention video games likeMega Man. However, some of his stylistic choices came from Western sources.
Why do anime characters have big eyes? Because Mickey Mouse, Betty Boop, and otherDisneyand Fleischer cartoons used them. Their DNA can be seen in Tezuka’s other artistic features too, like the button eyes or rounded figures and noses. Even his page layouts took inspiration from cartoonist Milt Gross. It goes to show that, while nothing comes from a vacuum, things can evolve in very different directions afterwards.
1Hakujaden
This 1958 movie might be obscure outside Japan, yet without its success the anime industry today would be very different. Also known asThe White Snake EnchantressorPanda and the Magic Serpent, it was Toei Animation’s first theatrical release, and the first color anime movie too. It required over 13,000 staff to create, of which only two were voice actors. All so Toei could match Disney and their success with similar projects like 1937’sSnow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The effort worked out for them too, as Toei Animation would become one of the biggest animation studios in Japan. They gave anime pioneer Rintaro his first job as an in-between animator, and its success would attract future legends like Hayao Miyazaki to the company. In other words, withoutHakujaden, there would be noStudio Ghibli, Studio Madhouse, orDragon Ball,One PieceandSailor Moonshows as people know them.
