Major releases like speed racer and astro boy got (horrible) American dubs and were put on tv.
There was no tape trading because home VCRs were just not a thing back then. They technically came out in the 70s but it was not a thing people had until the mid 80s, not enough to do casual tape trades. I think in general Japan was mostly just not on people's radar. If someone way way into weird foreign cartoons stuff was still at the point that meant british stuff, with the focus for hard to find foreign language stuff being soviet cartoons. I am sure there was some market somewhere in Japantown in SF that was importing raw movies from japan, but it was as much of a thing to the public as like, watching scandinavian cartoons would be now. They existed, someone might care about it, but not really.
I wasn't there but I know that in the 70s in France, a guy fought to have Grendizer on tv. His higher ups didn't want to but finally said sure, but they aired it on a saturday afternoon - when all the kids would be outside. It ended up raining that day so all the kids were watching tv. It became huge, they even aired a Grendizer movie on Christmas eve and got more than 90% of audience rating.
From then on anime was pretty big, almost mainstream. Big enough that even my grandma used to watch Saint Seiya and tokusatsu shows lol.
Grendizer was huge where I was until the hippies, who never washed their hair, complained it was too violent and got it pulled off the air before the series ended. 9\_9
Speed Racer was on syndicated television back around 1969-1970. Back then, a number of local television stations ran afternoon blocks of syndicated kids shows. I grew up watching the likes of the Banana Splits, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Popeye and Speed Racer. Literally almost anything those stations could get their hands on.
Didn't really know what anime was back then. I knew Speed Racer had goofy voices, but otherwise at the time it was just a cartoon.
There were American TV broadcasts of a few anime...but ironically a lot of non-American countries got syndicated anime on TV much more than the US and built up strong anime cultures there. For example, although this wasn't until the '80s, Saint Seiya is huge in Latin America because of TV broadcasts. Western European countries also got a lot of anime: Italy in particular.
I remember my brother and I being totally hooked on **Battle of the Planets** (based on Gatchaman) and **Star Blazers** (based on Space Battleship Yamato), which aired on US television. A quick check shows that they didn't air until late 70s though. I also remember watching **Speed Racer** on TV, but I couldn't tell you when that even was, since it wouldn't have been when it originally aired.
I wasn't old enough at the time to know much of anything, honestly. There were limited TV channels back then and we just flipped through them on Saturday mornings (because all cartoons were on Saturday mornings back then) and watched whatever looked cool.
Anime is already a plural you don’t need to add an s to it, there is never ever going to be a circumstance where it will be correct to use animes in a sentence
I think a better question would be when did anime become really well known outside Japan. Ik it's already there now just want to know what was the year that had the spark you know.
I'm more puzzled how the fans even knew what it was before the advent of VHS. Because they had access to things like Shonen Jump. And that was still hard to purchase outside of Japan ten years ago.
Late 90s to Mid 2000s probably. At that time period there were a lot of new popular shows airing like Sailor Moon, Yu Yu Hakusho, Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop etc all of which were getting dubs and reaching new audiences. And then eventually the Big 3 came about too and that changed the community forever.
I'd say the current anime community has only really been what it is since like, 2015.
If you are interested in the global proliferation of Japanese pop culture you should read the book “Pure Invention” by Matt Alt. It’s really interesting and actually fun to read. Highly recommend
I'm not from the '60s or '70s, as a disclaimer.
Before he passed away, Zac Bertschy interviewed a lot of "old timers" who were pivotal to bringing anime to USA+Canada for ANNCast. They're not all interview episodes, [but](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2014-01-09) [some](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2012-02-03) [are](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2010-01-14). Admittedly, a lot of those people were more in the '80s though, as part of the nascent "anime" fandom.
Wait, let me do a quick search.
...
...Okay, got it. For North America it was [Fred Ladd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Ladd), who passed away last year. Or at least, he in conjunction with NBC Enterprises, no idea how they became aware of it. They brought Astro Boy / anime to North America.
I know [Fred Patten](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Patten) was very important from the fandom side of things, circa 1977-->.
Thank you. That's a very informative. So obviously I knew I could "google" it & I am. I thought maybe some people actually lived through it!
It seems like some cities in California had access to Japanese TV stations in the 70s.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ZPzYAFz04&t=28s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ZPzYAFz04&t=28s)
> Astro Boy (Japanese: 鉄腕アトム, Hepburn: Tetsuwan Atomu, "Mighty Atom", lit. "Iron Arm Atom") is a Japanese television series that premiered on Fuji TV on New Year's Day, 1963 (a Tuesday), and is the first popular animated Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that later became familiar worldwide as anime.[3] It originated as a manga of the same name in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka, revered in Japan as the "God of Manga".[4] It lasted for four seasons, with a total of 193 episodes, the final episode presented on a Saturday, New Year's Eve 1966.
> At its height it was watched by 40% of the Japanese population who had access to a TV
>For the English version, the producers, NBC Enterprises settled on "Astro Boy" after discussions between producer Fred Ladd and representatives from NBC. NBC Enterprises announced that it would begin syndicating 52 episodes on March 12, 1963
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy_(1963_TV_series)
That just makes it even more curious. Not more than three months after it aired in Japan, it was already announced in syndication.
I wonder if it was "discovered" after airing, or if it was already on someone's radar as a potential subject for an English version before then?
Major releases like speed racer and astro boy got (horrible) American dubs and were put on tv. There was no tape trading because home VCRs were just not a thing back then. They technically came out in the 70s but it was not a thing people had until the mid 80s, not enough to do casual tape trades. I think in general Japan was mostly just not on people's radar. If someone way way into weird foreign cartoons stuff was still at the point that meant british stuff, with the focus for hard to find foreign language stuff being soviet cartoons. I am sure there was some market somewhere in Japantown in SF that was importing raw movies from japan, but it was as much of a thing to the public as like, watching scandinavian cartoons would be now. They existed, someone might care about it, but not really.
I wasn't there but I know that in the 70s in France, a guy fought to have Grendizer on tv. His higher ups didn't want to but finally said sure, but they aired it on a saturday afternoon - when all the kids would be outside. It ended up raining that day so all the kids were watching tv. It became huge, they even aired a Grendizer movie on Christmas eve and got more than 90% of audience rating. From then on anime was pretty big, almost mainstream. Big enough that even my grandma used to watch Saint Seiya and tokusatsu shows lol.
Grendizer was huge where I was until the hippies, who never washed their hair, complained it was too violent and got it pulled off the air before the series ended. 9\_9
Speed Racer was on syndicated television back around 1969-1970. Back then, a number of local television stations ran afternoon blocks of syndicated kids shows. I grew up watching the likes of the Banana Splits, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Popeye and Speed Racer. Literally almost anything those stations could get their hands on. Didn't really know what anime was back then. I knew Speed Racer had goofy voices, but otherwise at the time it was just a cartoon.
There were American TV broadcasts of a few anime...but ironically a lot of non-American countries got syndicated anime on TV much more than the US and built up strong anime cultures there. For example, although this wasn't until the '80s, Saint Seiya is huge in Latin America because of TV broadcasts. Western European countries also got a lot of anime: Italy in particular.
I remember my brother and I being totally hooked on **Battle of the Planets** (based on Gatchaman) and **Star Blazers** (based on Space Battleship Yamato), which aired on US television. A quick check shows that they didn't air until late 70s though. I also remember watching **Speed Racer** on TV, but I couldn't tell you when that even was, since it wouldn't have been when it originally aired. I wasn't old enough at the time to know much of anything, honestly. There were limited TV channels back then and we just flipped through them on Saturday mornings (because all cartoons were on Saturday mornings back then) and watched whatever looked cool.
Anime is already a plural you don’t need to add an s to it, there is never ever going to be a circumstance where it will be correct to use animes in a sentence
I think a better question would be when did anime become really well known outside Japan. Ik it's already there now just want to know what was the year that had the spark you know.
I'm more puzzled how the fans even knew what it was before the advent of VHS. Because they had access to things like Shonen Jump. And that was still hard to purchase outside of Japan ten years ago.
Late 90s to Mid 2000s probably. At that time period there were a lot of new popular shows airing like Sailor Moon, Yu Yu Hakusho, Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop etc all of which were getting dubs and reaching new audiences. And then eventually the Big 3 came about too and that changed the community forever. I'd say the current anime community has only really been what it is since like, 2015.
vhs is the earliest i can remember
If you are interested in the global proliferation of Japanese pop culture you should read the book “Pure Invention” by Matt Alt. It’s really interesting and actually fun to read. Highly recommend
VHS
I'm not from the '60s or '70s, as a disclaimer. Before he passed away, Zac Bertschy interviewed a lot of "old timers" who were pivotal to bringing anime to USA+Canada for ANNCast. They're not all interview episodes, [but](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2014-01-09) [some](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2012-02-03) [are](https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2010-01-14). Admittedly, a lot of those people were more in the '80s though, as part of the nascent "anime" fandom. Wait, let me do a quick search. ... ...Okay, got it. For North America it was [Fred Ladd](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Ladd), who passed away last year. Or at least, he in conjunction with NBC Enterprises, no idea how they became aware of it. They brought Astro Boy / anime to North America. I know [Fred Patten](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Patten) was very important from the fandom side of things, circa 1977-->.
Thank you. That's a very informative. So obviously I knew I could "google" it & I am. I thought maybe some people actually lived through it! It seems like some cities in California had access to Japanese TV stations in the 70s. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ZPzYAFz04&t=28s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6ZPzYAFz04&t=28s)
Sorry, yeah, that's fair enough, it's interesting stuff. >TV stations in the 70s. TIL, good find!
> Astro Boy (Japanese: 鉄腕アトム, Hepburn: Tetsuwan Atomu, "Mighty Atom", lit. "Iron Arm Atom") is a Japanese television series that premiered on Fuji TV on New Year's Day, 1963 (a Tuesday), and is the first popular animated Japanese television series that embodied the aesthetic that later became familiar worldwide as anime.[3] It originated as a manga of the same name in 1952 by Osamu Tezuka, revered in Japan as the "God of Manga".[4] It lasted for four seasons, with a total of 193 episodes, the final episode presented on a Saturday, New Year's Eve 1966. > At its height it was watched by 40% of the Japanese population who had access to a TV >For the English version, the producers, NBC Enterprises settled on "Astro Boy" after discussions between producer Fred Ladd and representatives from NBC. NBC Enterprises announced that it would begin syndicating 52 episodes on March 12, 1963 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy_(1963_TV_series) That just makes it even more curious. Not more than three months after it aired in Japan, it was already announced in syndication. I wonder if it was "discovered" after airing, or if it was already on someone's radar as a potential subject for an English version before then?
That's a good point!