Tetsuwan Atom, a.k.a.
Astro Boy, is generally considered the first "modern-day" anime. Before it,
anime wasn't really made for television and there really wasn't anything done in a similar style before it. It's easy to argue that if
Astro Boy wasn't made we might not have gotten titles like
Tetsujin 28,
Dororo, the original
Cyborg 009 anime, and, if you want to push it somewhat, any other anime made for television, regardless of whether it was adapted from a manga or was an original creation. In fact, most of what you could call "anime" before then was mainly made for advertising or propaganda purposes. Zakka Films, who seem to have died out already, gave North America a small piece of that vague era of anime back in 2008 with their only DVD release "
The Roots of Japanese Anime Until the End of WII with 8 Ground-Breaking Films". Well, I certainly can't say that the title doesn't tell you what you get from this.
Zakka Films treats this release not as a piece of entertainment, which is how anime is generally treated nowadays, but rather as a piece of researched history. Along with the DVD itself you get an eleven-page booklet that not only talks about each feature with some nice historic detail but also a prologue that explains the origins of Japanese animation. It's really an interesting read and makes an excellent compliment to the DVD. The features themselves are shown in chronological order and are dated from 1930 to 1942. Also, with exception to the last feature, none of them go beyond 15 minutes in length. But the most interesting thing about these features is that some of them are, without a shadow of a doubt, some of the downright weirdest anime you can buy in North America.
