When people hear the word Anime, they immediately think of Japan. The term Anime was originally used in Japan to refer to ALL animation and not just Japanese. However, the style of animation that Japan favored became so distinctive that the term Anime came to be used only to describe Japanese animation.
The Japanese were not familiar with anime until the second world war. The style of animation was beautiful, and it was created by some the best artists from the country. However, the content was often more violent and sexy than American animation produced at the time.
The PDF format was designed with a particular output in mind, namely printing. The page size is fixed. In the digital age, your “page” will be the screen of your computer. There is no standard screen size for tablets, smartphones or laptops. A Motorola Xoom tablet may display a 16-to-10 ratio, while an iPad may show a 4-to-3 ratio. Computer screens may be 16:9. The physical size of the devices also plays a major role in legibility. Content must be adaptable to different devices. Due to PDFs being fixed in size, something intended for a certain device could be scaled or cropped on a different device. This is not an ideal reading experience.
As the Anime craze grew in Japan, films and television shows began to spread around the globe and eventually landed in the United States. They had their early hits like Speed Racer Marine Boy, and Kimba the White Lion. Legend of Korra, Pokemon best wishes and aki sora are some of today’s favorites.
In the past 20 years, the production of Anime in Japan has exploded. The number of new shows and series has also increased dramatically. Their popularity has also grown in the States. Anime, in contrast to many American cartoons, is more complex and has a darker tone.
Designing for Digital Isn’t the Same as Designing for Print
You can see that the design of print magazines and books was heavily influenced by economics, production constraints and other factors. It may be that the size of body text was chosen in order to maximize the amount of information that can fit onto a limited amount of space on a page or because of a color or substrate cost limit. Print products are also designed to be “one size fits everyone” as there is no customization for the reader. Digital is not subject to these limitations.
Text can be resized and reflowed on platforms like eBooks to fit the device size and to make it easier to read. Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, for example, encourages users of digital publishing platforms to create custom layouts based on device orientation and size. A 20-year-old may be able to read small print more easily than someone of a middle age. Digital device users are used to having their content tailored to suit their preferences. It is not a good user experience for your readers to create a PDF where they have to pinch and zoom. If you produce publications with competition, the consumers will choose the intuitive experience.
The Internet has made Anime available to Americans. Anime shows and series that were once only available in Japan can now be downloaded and streamed, making Anime lovers here very happy.
Interactivity
Adobe has over the years extended PDF so that it can have interactive elements like hyperlinks, videos and even animation. This is problematic because these interactive elements often require Adobe Reader or Adobe Flash in order to be read. Mobile platforms such as Apple iPad and Android can read PDFs natively, but they cannot read Adobe’s proprietary extensions to the PDF platform. Adobe’s decision to abandon Flash on mobile has made interactive PDFs less viable in the rapidly growing mobile market.
Interoperability
The PDF format is dead. This means that the format is designed to mimic what it was originally intended for: printing. The code that was used to create the ink is no longer relevant once the ink has been printed, because the content of the page was never intended to be moved from print to another system. Printing the page is the final product.
In order to provide maximum flexibility across platforms, many of the digital publishing platforms today are built on technologies such as HTML. This universal storage of content also allows for maximum flexibility on future platforms. Digital publishing and the digital world are rapidly evolving. Locking content into one format, such as PDF, will limit your business’s potential in the future.
How to Build a Foundation
Large companies are rushing to market when they first examine digital publishing based on their current print products. Digital publishing is constantly changing. It is better to invest in a solid foundation that you can build on to grow your digital offerings, than to have to patch up your print workflow with new “hacks”.
Historically, large organizations controlled and dominated publishing because initial print investments were high. Smaller companies with more flexibility can now take on greater risks and develop their organization in a flexible way. The risk is that large companies will always be behind their industry if they don’t do this.
If you want something a bit different with intense storylines and extravagant animations, then you might consider watching some Anime on the internet. You might be surprised to find that it is really good.
There are a lot of anime websites on the internet, but Anime Loves Me is one of my favorites.
