The History of Science Fiction Anime

Depending on who you ask, science fiction has some pretty notable beginnings. Some point to the ancient Sumerian poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh dating back to 2000 BC while others point to Plato's dialogue, Timaeus and it's description of Atlantis in 360 BC.

More recent and thus, better known science-fiction classics include Jules Verne's 1864 novel, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and of course, The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells in 1898.

Yet while the debate continues on the origin of the science fiction genre, sci-fi anime can be traced back to the tale of Urashima Taro, a Japanese story about a fisherman who travels into the future.

The earliest known animated adaptation of this story was in 1918 but it has influenced a number of more popular anime shows, including Love Hina (the lead male character was named Urashima) and episode 6 - Sympathy for the Devil in Season 1 of the Cowboy Bebop saga.

Interestingly, the first popular anime series to ever hit public television was science fiction. The story of a robot boy who fights crime, Mighty Atom, otherwise known as Astro Boy was a 1963 hit from Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Productions.

Apparently, Tezuka wasn't the only one who saw the sci-fi genre as a natural fit for anime because many similar series followed, including the space opera, Space Battleship Yamato in 1974 and Mobile Suit Gundam in 1979, the latter of which was one of the first bit hits in the Mecha sub-genre of science fiction.

By the early 1980's, science fiction had evolved into a genre all its own, producing another natural fit for anime and manga, the new "cyberpunk" sub-genre. As a result, we saw some true classics emerge, including the 1988 adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga, Akira as well as Oshii's Ghost in the Shell, which hit manga shelves in 1989 and was adapted into an anime film in 1995.

Of course, cyberpunk wasn't the only type of popular sci-fi series floating around in the anime world. Mecha was still just as popular during this time, producing series such as Macross and Patlabor and let's not forget the "space cowboy" theme that followed in the 90's, giving us stellar anime shows such as Cowboy Bebop and Trigun in 1998.

Today, anime titles run the gamut of the science fiction sub-genres. Vexille for example, utilized characterstics of the biopunk theme while titles such as Trinity Blood, Ergo Proxy and Gurren Lagann focus on post-apocalyptic themes.

And while the genre itself continues to emerge, one thing is for certain: our love of science fiction anime is here to stay.