History of Anime - 1970s

1970s

During the 1970s, the Japanese film market shrunk due to competition from television. This increased competition from television reduced Toei animation's staff and many animators went to studios such as A Pro and Telecom animation. Mushi Productions went bankrupt (only to be revived 4 years later), its former employees founding studios such as Madhouse Production and Sunrise. As a result, many young animators were thrust into the position of director before they would have been promoted to it. This injection of young talent allowed for a wide variety of experimentation. One of the earliest successful television productions in the early 1970s was Tomorrow's Joe (1970), a boxing anime which has become iconic in Japan.

Another example of this experimentation is with Isao Takahata's 1974 television series Heidi, Girl of the Alps. This show was originally a hard sell because it was a simple realistic drama aimed at children. Most TV networks thought the TV show wouldn't be successful because children needed something more fantastic to draw them in. Heidi wound up being an international success being picked up in many European countries and becoming popular there. In Japan it was so successful that it allowed for Hayao Miyazaki and Takahata to start up a series of literary based anime (World Masterpiece Theater). Miyazaki and Takahata left Nippon Animation in the late 1970s. Two of Miyazaki's critically acclaimed productions during the 1970s were Future Boy Conan (1978) and Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979).

Another genre known as Mecha came into being at this time. Some early works include Mazinger Z (1972–74), Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (1972–74), Space Battleship Yamato (1974–75) and Mobile Suit Gundam (1979–80). These titles showed a progression in the science fiction genre in anime, as shows shifted from more superhero-oriented, fantastical plots found, as seen in the Super Robot genre, to somewhat more realistic space operas with increasingly complex plots and fuzzier definitions of right and wrong, as seen in the Real Robot genre.