How animation and soft power transformed perceptions of Japan from military threat to peddler of fantasies and dreams.
Warning: This story contains motion graphics that may cause dizziness for some viewers. Discretion is advised.
Do you recognise this character?
What about this guy?
Or … these characters?
If you do, they probably need no introduction.
But if not, what if we were to tell you they're not just cartoon characters, but some of the most influential soft power figures in modern history?
That they played a critical role in rebranding Japan's image over the 20th century, from that of a military empire, into a pop culture super power?
If you're not quite following, consider the following story.
This is Jessica Jiang — a 24-year-old from China's southern Guangdong province.
During World War II, Guangdong province was occupied by the Japanese army and the military aggression deeply traumatised many who lived through that era.
It negatively shaped perceptions of Japan for decades after the atomic bombs effectively ended the war.
"Older generations in China generally hold a pretty negative view of Japan, due to historical reasons," Jessica says.
"Some parents still have concerns that Japan is 'culturally corroding' China's youth."
But fast forward a couple generations, and members of Generation Z, like Jessica, have adopted a totally different perspective of their Asian neighbour: one coloured by otherworldliness, optimism, and art.
"It's a utopia away from reality for me," Jessica says, referring to the world of anime, short for Japanese animated films.
"All problems are solved. Protagonists never die … it just provides me with a lot of courage.
"When times are tough and I feel like giving up, I strive to push forward like the Japanese characters I love."
Following an unusual journey into popular culture post-World War II, Japanese anime found its way into the hearts of millions of kids around the world, and the widespread fascination rapidly transformed it into a global industry worth tens of billions of dollars.
Many iconic characters, from Astro Boy to Pikachu, continue to dominate global franchise markets — in fact Pokémon is now the highest grossing media franchise of all time, bigger than Barbie, Star Wars and Harry Potter combined.
And through those franchises, an entirely different perspective of Japan was born — one that would help drive soft power diplomatic plays, revive various economic sectors, and contribute to a booming tourism industry.
But how did a niche Japanese subculture transform itself into a global phenomenon?
To answer these questions, we need to take a little trip back in time.
From military empire to fantasy land
The history of anime can be traced back to the early 1900s, when many Japanese artists influenced by Western animation began to create experimental shorts.
During World War II, the industry grew after an injection of government funding to create pro-Japanese propaganda films, like Momotaro above.
But after Japan’s surrender in 1945, the country’s manga and anime (comic books and animated films, respectively) took a drastic turn.
"The post-war period created a post-apocalyptic image of Japan: Tokyo was decimated, economically and physically, because of bombing and the subsequent occupation," Renato Rivera Rusca, a Tokyo-based Japanese animation expert, translator and producer, explains.
"Many [manga and anime] artists had [firsthand] experiential stories of the war and the post-war trauma — they also had very little, if any confidence in their elders."
Osamu Tezuka — who was 17 years old when the atomic bombs hit and later became known as "the godfather of manga" — was one of those kids.
During the 1960s, Tezuka created one of the first animated TV shows to become popular overseas: Astro Boy, the story of a peace-loving robot boy with X-ray vision and superhuman strength.
"[Astro Boy] embodied hope for the future, and was a role model for the Japanese population [that also reflected] the innocence of young children," Renato says.
"[Tezuka] was a genius creator — but also a smart businessman."
Osamu Tezuka (left), Hiroshi Okawa (centre) and Leiji Matsumoto (right) are among the Japanese artists recognised for developing post-World War II anime.
Early on Tezuka sought to partner with American broadcasters like NBC believing that those connections would lead to better global distribution of his projects.
This led to the first programming of Japanese colour TV animations in the USA in the 1960s, like Kimba the White Lion (which ironically many decades later would become the source of American protests against Disney's The Lion King, which was accused of ripping off the show).
Another key post-World War II figure with global ambitions was Hiroshi Okawa, who became the head of the earliest and largest anime studio in Japan, Toei Animation, which he strove to turn into the "Disney of Asia".
Toei Animation produced Japan's first full-colour, feature-length animation in 1958, the Legend of the White Serpent — the introduction of which featured a video of Hiroshi pledging to challenge the global animation market.
Toei Animation would later go on to create popular shows like Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon and One Piece.
But throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Japan’s wartime shadow continued to loom large — the image of the "two-faced, despicable" traitor as portrayed by American wartime cartoons and propaganda films, according to Renato.
And Japan would struggle to free itself from this image, until a new generation of viewers came onto the scene in the 1970s and 1980s, accompanied by mass consumerism and the popularisation of home televisions, Video Home System (VHS), and video game consoles.
'For us kids, we didn't see Japan that way'
Growing up in Tokyo in the 1970s, Hiroko Yoda says she was first exposed to manga during elementary school.
"When you got on the train, you'd see salarymen [white-collar workers], or older adults reading either a newspaper, or manga," Hiroko says, highlighting a predominant style of adult-oriented manga from the time known as Gekiga.
Hiroko would go on to co-found AltJapan, a manga and video game specialisation company, with her American husband Matt Alt, renowned author of Pure Invention: How Japan Made the Modern World.
Matt says he was exposed to Japanese pop culture in the 1980s, mainly in the form of toys, cartoons and video games.
"The Nintendo Entertainment System, Gameboy, anime, manga, transforming toys, dolls and all sorts of things."
It was a time that many describe as the "golden age" of manga and anime, as production boomed while Japan’s economy saw an upward tick for the first time since World War II.
From there manga continued to grow and spread, targeting numerous demographics with genres for kids, adolescents, adults, even the elderly, and themes that ranged from erotism and violence to love and comedy.
Despite the growing popularity, manga and anime generally remained a subculture in Japan that many adults perceived as low-brow or vulgar — but elsewhere, perceptions were starting to change.
By the 1970s and 1980s, following decades of economic tensions between the US and Japan, the waning fortunes of heavy industry in the United States prompted lay-offs just as their Japanese counterparts — like Mitsubishi or Fuji — were making major inroads into American markets.
"Japan was portrayed as an economic rival coming after European and American jobs …these kinds of evil salaryman ... like Mr Fujitsu in Back to the Future or The Rising Sun, which is about evil Japanese corporations basically turning Americans into slaves," Matt says.
"Content producers and importers did everything they could to hide the fact that their products [cartoons, anime and games] were made in Japan.
“A lot of the cartoons we watched growing up — like Transformers — it wasn't clear that they were from Japan. There aren't even any Japanese people credited in them. It's all the Western side.
"But for us kids, we didn't see Japan in that [hostile economic rival] way."
“We were busy playing Super Mario and Pokémon, or watching Voltron, Sailor Moon and Gundam Wing.”
Matt says Made in Japan products were heavily swaying young American lives, and serving as a "fantasy delivery device".
"Our interactions with Japan weren't coloured by war or economics. They were coloured by play."
"And that play is what profoundly transformed the way we and the world saw Japan.
"Japan's image changed so much because successive generations were raised on Japanese fantasies — instead of the image of Japan as an aggressor."
And with that, millions of people from younger generations were inadvertently introduced to a whole variety of other aspects of Japanese culture: from food and language, to martial arts and religion.
'Violence, adult themes, sexual content'
Another significant breakthrough came when Marvel Comics — the biggest American comic company in the 1980s — imported and localised (translated) an extremely intense Japanese cyberpunk manga series called Akira.
The story revolves around teenage protagonist Shōtarō Kaneda and his friends, who recklessly roam the streets of a post-war, dystopian "neo-Tokyo" world — filled with corruption, anti-government protests, terrorism and gang violence — on their motorcycles.
The manga/comic series was eventually adapted into a hugely popular 1988 anime film that introduced many of those adult themes — themes not usually depicted in American cartoons and animations — to a massively broader audience.
Originally a failure in Japan, upon entering the overseas market, Akira immediately became a hit among kids and adolescents as a unique form of "cartoon" with mature themes of "blood, guts, gore and sex" that could more readily bypass parents and restrictive adult ratings.
"Japanese anime came to be [understood] as a new wave of 'counterculture' that was often advertised as 'this is not your daddy's animation; this is not like Disney'," cultural expert Renato says.
"And being anti-Disney became the 'in thing' — it became this cool ideal that the youth of that time strove towards."
The success of Akira also marked the start of a "small but growing movement" to recognise anime as a "legitimate art form".
On the heels of anime's growing popularity, the Walt Disney Company and Tokuma Shoten formed a partnership in 1996 wherein Walt Disney Studios would become the sole international distributor for Japan's now-famous Studio Ghibli animated film studio.
Despite initial marketing headaches, Spirited Away went on to win an Oscar for best animated feature in 2003, propelling anime into Western mainstream media.
"The Oscar win was a real godsend that actually propelled [hundreds] more theatres to carry the movie," Renato says.
"It meant that the cinematic community was praising the work and legitimising it as an actual art-form, which then got even more people interested in the medium.
"It then went outside the realm of just die-hard fans or a subculture.”
This new-found mainstream popularity, coupled with the rise of broadband internet and streaming services in the early 2000s, enabled a whole new generation of kids around the world to immerse themselves in the world of Japanese anime.
"Now we think of Crunchyroll [an anime streaming service] as this giant service,” Renato says.
"But at the time, it was just one of many illegal sharing sites where [audiences] could upload an episode of whatever [they] wanted — the latest episode as it aired on TV just a couple of hours ago — from where it would spread around the world."
The service also helped spread more nuanced portrayals of Japan as told through anime productions and exports.
"It became clear to most Chinese anime fans that 'appreciation for Japanese anime and culture' is separate to the perception of Japan’s government and its history," Jessica says.