1990s
In 1995, Hideaki Anno wrote and directed the controversial anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion. This show became popular in Japan among anime fans and became known to the general public through mainstream media attention. It is believed that Anno originally wanted the show to be the ultimate otaku anime designed to revive the declining anime industry, but midway through production he also made it into a heavy critique of the culture eventually culminating in the controversial, but quite successful film The End of Evangelion (1997) which grossed over $10 million. Anno would eventually go on to produce live action films. Many scenes in Evangelion were so controversial that it forced TV Tokyo to clamp down with censorship of violence and sexuality in anime. As a result when Cowboy Bebop (1998) was first broadcast it was shown heavily edited and only half the episodes were aired. The censorship crackdown has relaxed a bit, but Evangelion had a major effect on the anime television industry as a whole.
In addition, Evangelion started up a series of so-called "post-Evangelion" shows. Most of these were giant robot shows with some kind of religious or difficult plot. These include RahXephon, Brain Powerd, and Gasaraki. Another series of these are late night experimental TV shows. Starting with Serial Experiments Lain (1998) late night Japanese television became a forum for experimental anime with other shows following it such as Boogiepop Phantom (2000), Texhnolyze (2003) and Paranoia Agent (2004). Experimental anime films were also released in the 1990s, most notably Ghost in the Shell (1995), which alongside Megazone 23 (1985), had a strong influence on The Matrix.
The late 1990s also saw a brief revival of the Super Robot genre that was once popular in the 1960s and 1970s but had become rare due to the popularity of Real Robot shows such as the Gundam and Macross series in the 1980s and psychological Mecha shows such as Neon Genesis Evangelion in the 1990s. The revival of the Super Robot genre began with the Brave (Yuusha) Series, starting with Brave Exkaiser in 1990, also there were many remakes and sequels of 70s super robot shows such as Getter Robo Go and Tetsujin-28 go FX in response to "post-Evangelion" trends, but there were very few popular Super Robot shows produced after this, until Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in 2007.
Alongside its Super Robot counterpart, the Real Robot genre was also declining during the 1990s. Though several Gundam shows were produced during this decade, very few of them were successful. The only Gundam shows in the 1990s which managed an average television rating over 4% in Japan were Mobile Fighter G Gundam (1994) and New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (1995). It wasn't until Mobile Suit Gundam SEED in 2002 that the Real Robot genre regained its popularity.
The 1990s also saw the popular video game series, Pokémon, spawn an anime television show which is still running, several anime movies, a trading card game, toys, and much more. Other 1990s anime series which gained international success were Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and Digimon; the success of these shows marked the beginning of the martial arts superhero, the magical girl genre, and the action adventure genre respectively. In particular, Dragon Ball Z was dubbed into more than a dozen languages worldwide.
In 1997, Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke became the most expensive animated film up until that time, costing $20 million to produce. Miyazaki personally checked each of the 144,000 cels in the film, and is estimated to have redrawn parts of 80,000 of them.
The late 1990s also saw anime crossing the borders into live action, starting with Gokusen, Great Teacher Onizuka (1999). It continued well into the 2000s, with Hana Yori Dango (2005), Jigoku Shōjo (2006) and Nodame Cantabile among them.
Read more about this topic: History Of Anime