100 Anime and Cinema Anime: Critical Engagements with Japanese Animation

As Steven Brown points out in his introduction to Cinema Anime, anime’s global popularity has meant ‘a new role has emerged for Japan in the global market, one which is as much cultural as it is economic’ (6–7). It is estimated that 60% of all the animation broadcast worldwide is from Japan, and anime generates approximately $4 billion a year in the United States alone. Given the commerce and creativity Japan has launched onto the global market, one of the most important questions is how to account for the dispersal and popularity of anime