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Anime (which is short for animation) is a genre of hand drawn or computer generated cartoons that originated in Japan. Anime has a long history in its native land with the earliest short film dating from 1917. For decades, Japanese film companies have been producing literally thousands of anime films for television, cinema, and more recently the Internet. Due to the language barrier, the audience for these films was confined largely to Japan and its neighboring countries in East and South East Asia. However, by the mid 1990s, with the Internet boom and the proliferation of many video sharing websites online, anime has managed to amass a global audience. It gained a large following in the Western World. Indeed, the trademarks of anime cartoons—large heads, razor-sharp hairstyles and saucer-like eyes—have become part of global visual culture. The market for anime continues to grow online with advertising revenues jumping from 1.6 billion yen ($19.8 million) to over 180 billion yen ($2.2 billion) between 1995 and 2005. Anime franchises from Japan have started multi-billion dollar global businesses that target every conceivable market from toys, computer and video games to accessories. Anime has even increased interest in Japanese culture as more foreigners began to study the Japanese language to understand anime in its original, untranslated form. As mentioned earlier, certain anime shows were difficult to view outside of Japan prior to the Internet boom. With the increase of video sharing sites where users can upload segments or entire free anime online movies for others to watch, it has become easier for anime aficionados to view more obscure anime shows. Many of these websites offer streaming videos which viewers can watch and pause at their own leisure while others even offer video downloads. Many video sharing websites that offer free anime online do not charge for downloads though some may charge a monthly fee. Downloading anime films in their entirety is often preferable to streaming segments online as the visual quality tends to be higher and films can be watched in one sitting without unnecessary pauses. Many free anime online websites offer anime in its original format with subtitles or with dialogue already dubbed in the viewer’s native language. Some anime aficionados prefer to watch anime shows with subtitles in their native language while others would rather watch shows dubbed in their native tongue.
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