Awareness of Japanese animation as an industry may be said to have begun in the autumn of 1998. The spark was undoubtedly the development in North America of Pokemon, the English title of Pocket Monsters. As the first Japanese animated film to reach 68 countries on five continents, Pokemon marked a major turning point. Of course, previous films such as Dragon Ball and Bishojo Senshi Sailor Moon were major hits, but they never received attention from major overseas media such as Time magazine nor did they achieve the status of a major boom. Following Pokemon, other animated works such as Digimon (Digital Monsters) and Yu-Gi-Oh (King of Games) traveled overseas as well, proving that the high potential of Japanese animation was not limited to Pokemon.
In North America, popular TV programs aimed at children cluster in the three hours from 8:00 to 11:00 on Saturday mornings, in what might be called "kids' prime time." Four major channels are engaged in fierce competition during that time slot: (1) WB Kids, Warner Brothers terrestrial children's channel, (2) Fox Family, an affiliate of Disney (Saturday morning programming is determined by 4Kids Entertainment [cable TV]), (3) Cartoon Network, like WB Kids an affiliate of AOL Time Warner (cable), and (4) Nickelodeon, an affiliate of the Viacom group (cable). (Tables 1, 2) In my personal view, the relative influence of the channels on children is the order given above. During the three-hour period, with certain seasonal fluctuations, the share occupied by Japanese-produced programming is roughly 40%. Indeed, Japanese-produced animated programs have a proven formula for success in the North American market.
However, the media did not present major commentary on the infiltration of Japan-produced animation into American culture. This was likely because for an extended period, North American movie critics had taken a critical view of animation in general, viewing it as "kids-stuff" and treated the genre as such, regardless of whether the works were produced in America or Japan. If a Japanese animation turned out to be popular, it was because of the toys and games related to those films, and not because of the works themselves, critics reasoned. Further, critics probably saw these hits as transitory phenomena. The great box-office failure of Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke, Studio Ghibli), which in Japan was thought to be highly artistic, further perpetrated that view. With the appearance of Toy ...
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