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Astro Boy
Astro Boy revolutionized anime bringing it into the mainstream in Japan. This is where anime started to take off and gain popularity. The creator Osamu Tezuka went into the history books as "The Father of Manga and Anime". It was also the first anime series that ran 25-minutes long, which is the average length an episode of an anime is today. -
Mobile Suit Gundam
Mobile Suit Gundam was the first anime to really become popular in the West as well as in Japan. Following the space/robot theme- classified as "real robot" genre. Real robot is an anime genre with mecha robots that had weapon sources based on today's science. It was highly influential in creating modern anime and it's sequels and spinoffs are still being made to this day -
Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball blew up the anime culture throughout the world when it was adapted from the manga series. There is hardly anybody who has not heard of the show and its characters such as Goku, Vegeta etc. due to the fact that it had aired on multiple English networks such as Cartoon Network and Toonami. We can see the animation technology getting more advanced as well. -
Pokémon
Abbreviated from Pocket Monsters, Pokémon was created by Satoshi Tajiri and went from a Japanese video game to an anime, manga, card game, and so much more. In Japan they have entire stores based off of the Pokémon center from the anime and game. It was a huge tourist attraction for Japan and is still highly popular to date. It became one of, if not the most popular anime series in America. -
Doraemon
First aired in 1973 and gone through multiple reproductions Doraemon was given the position of anime ambassador created by Japan in 2008 to promote anime series worldwide. Doraemon was given this due to it's immense popularity in the west and with other Asian countries like South Korea. This was the start of a massive shift where anime became a mainstream thing here in the west as well. -
Anime Today
Modern Anime such as Attack on Titan, Naruto, One Piece, My Hero Academia can be found on streaming giants such as Netflix as well. Anime communities today are some of the biggest cultural groups you will find around the world with anime conventions going on in almost every country. Anime is very relevant in the current world and goes to show how people of all ages around the world bond over new and old anime being released today.