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Japanese cartoons
日本卡通
Who are you calling cute?
你说谁可爱呢？
How anime conquered the world's screens.
动漫如何征服全世界的屏幕。
Most athletes raise their fists in triumph after a win.
大多数运动员在获胜后都会举起拳头表示胜利。
When Noah Lyles, an American sprinter, won gold in the Olympics100-metre race in August, he held his hands out in front of him, wrists together and fingers extended, as though getting ready to catch a large ball.
当美国短跑运动员诺亚·莱尔斯在8月的奥运会100米赛跑中获得金牌时，他将双手向前伸，手腕并拢，手指展开，仿佛准备接住一个大球。
The gesture may have seemed odd, but fans of Japanese animation knew immediately that Mr Lyles, an avowed fan of the genre, was making a reference to a popular franchise, “Dragon Ball”.
这个手势可能看起来很奇怪，但日本动漫粉丝立刻就知道，莱尔斯（公开承认的动漫迷）是在致敬一个很受欢迎的动漫系列《龙珠》。
Mr Lyles had more cause to celebrate on October 11th, with the release of a new “Dragon Ball” series and video game (more than 70m people play a mobile game from the franchise).
10月11日，莱尔斯有更多的庆祝理由了，因为新的《龙珠》系列和视频游戏发布（超过7000万人玩该系列的手机游戏）。
So will Ishiba Shigeru, Japan’s new prime minister, another fan.
日本新首相石破茂也将庆祝，他也是粉丝。
Once a domestically consumed niche product “watched by people with no friends at school”, as one veteran producer ruefully recalls, anime has become a global sensation.
动漫曾经是一种在国内消费的小众产品，一位资深制片人伤感地回忆说“只有在学校里没朋友的人才会看”，现在动漫已经火遍全球。
These days its export value in Japan, alongside other content such as video games, is approaching that of semiconductors or steel; it now claims more fans outside the country than within it.
如今，动漫与视频游戏等其他内容在日本的总出口价值正在接近半导体或钢铁的出口价值，动漫在国外拥有的粉丝比在国内还多。
Some estimate that around 800m people globally are animated about anime.
据估计，全球约有8亿人对动漫充满热情。
Those unfamiliar with the genre often wonder what anime is.
不熟悉动漫的人常常想知道什么是动漫。
“Animation created in Japan” is the simple definition offered by Rahul Purini, the head of Crunchyroll, an anime-streaming service with around 130m users across 200 countries.
Crunchyroll的老板拉胡尔·普里尼对动漫给出的简单定义是“日本制作的动画”，Crunchyroll是拥有约1.3亿用户、覆盖200个国家的动漫流媒体服务平台。
But there is also an aesthetic connotation: anime is usually hand-drawn and two-dimensional, unlike the photorealistic 3D animation that has grown more common outside Japan.
但动漫也有一种美学含义：动漫通常是手绘的和二维的，与在日本以外日益常见的逼真的3D动画不一样。
The characters often resemble hyper-caffeinated Tintins, with unusually large, expressive eyes, small noses, strange hair and easily decipherable emotions.
动漫角色常常很像极度亢奋的丁丁，有着异常大而富有表现力的眼睛、小鼻子、奇怪的头发和易于解读的情感。（注：丁丁是《丁丁历险记》的主角。）
Anime tends to be set in non-specific places, such as vaguely European-looking cities for some films by Miyazaki Hayao, Japan’s most acclaimed creator.
动漫往往设定在非特定的地点，比如在日本最著名的创作者宫崎骏的一些电影中，设定地点有些像欧洲城市。
The setting makes it easy for non-Japanese audiences to relate; the only barrier is language, and animation is more easily dubbed than live-action films.
这种设定使非日本观众很容易产生共鸣，唯一的障碍是语言，而动画比真人电影更容易配音。
Recently anime has raced into people’s homes with Lyles-like speed.
近年来，动漫以莱尔斯般的速度迅速进入人们的家庭。
In 2023 Japan’s anime industry hit a record high, with revenues of ?339bn ($2.3bn), up by nearly a quarter from a year earlier, according to Teikoku Databank, a research firm.
2023年，日本动漫产业创下历史新高，据研究公司帝国数据库的统计，其收入达到了3390亿日元（约合23亿美元），比前一年增长了近四分之一。
Anime now makes almost half its profits abroad.
现在动漫几乎一半的利润来自国外。
Netflix’s anime titles had more than 1bn views across 190 countries last year; the most popular included “Demon Slayer”, about an orphaned boy who battles demons to avenge his family, and “My Happy Marriage”, about a girl with magic powers who is underestimated by her in-laws.
网飞公司的动漫作品去年在190个国家的观看量超过了10亿次，其中最受欢迎的包括《鬼灭之刃》，讲述了一个孤儿为了给家人报仇而与恶魔战斗的故事，以及《我的幸福婚约》，讲述了一个拥有魔法力量的女孩被婆家低估的故事。
Two factors help explain anime’s surging global popularity.
两个因素有助于解释动漫在全球范围内的迅速流行。
The first is streaming, which made anime easier to find and watch.
第一个是流媒体，流媒体使人们更容易找到和观看动漫。
Fans no longer have to depend on the decisions of network programmers or wait a week for another episode.
粉丝们不再需要依赖网络程序员的决定，也不必再等一周才能看到下一集。
They can binge, explore and discover on their own.
他们可以尽情刷漫，自行探索和发现动漫。
Anime viewership boomed during the pandemic, as the world sat at home in front of screens for months.
在疫情期间，动漫收视率激增，因为全世界的人都在家里坐在屏幕前好几个月。
(The year 2020 was the first time anime made more money outside Japan than within.)
（2020年是动漫在日本以外的地区比在日本国内赚的钱更多的第一年。）
Since then viewership numbers have continued rising in Japan and around the world.
从那以后，日本和世界各地的动漫观看人数一直在上升。
Increased demand is producing increased supply.
需求的增加正在产生供应的增加。
In 2023 anime studios licensed some 300 works in regions such as North America, South-East Asia and western Europe.
在2023年，动漫工作室在北美、东南亚和西欧等地区授权了约300部作品。
