The Soul of Anime: Collaborative Creativity and Japan’s Media Success Story

In The Soul of Anime, Ian Condry explores the emergence of anime, Japanese animated film and television, as a global cultural phenomenon. Drawing on ethnographic research, including interviews with artists at some of Tokyo’s leading animation studios-such as Madhouse, Gonzo, Aniplex, and Studio Ghibli-Condry discusses how anime’s fictional characters and worlds become platforms for collaborative creativity. He argues that the global success of Japanese animation has grown out of a collective social energy that operates across industries-including those that produce film, television, manga (comic books), and toys and other licensed merchandise-and connects fans to the creators of anime. For Condry, this collective social energy is the soul of anime.