If the bootleg-swapping, DIY-subtitle-making Gen Xer anime fans of the ‘80s and ‘90s weren’t around to see it themselves, they probably wouldn’t believe it, but in 2022, people are taking anime seriously. And not just people, but august institutions, which have been putting out retrospectives left and right all year.
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures dedicated one of its four floors to the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli for the better part of a year starting last September, and the Embassy of Japan’s Japan Information & Culture Center and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art dedicated more than a week of programming to the filmography of Satoshi Kon earlier this year. And art house cinemas, including the IFC Center and Metrograph in New York and FACETS Cinema in Chicago, are more regularly screening classic works of anime.
formerly Mad Cornish Projectionist.