Japanese animations, more commonly called ‘Anime’, are now part of pop culture, known and revered by people of all ages in unprecedented ways, with several events, channels with information and content easily found for consumption. However, there was a time when there was no content on the subject, its consumption and reverence was worshipped by a very small and segregated number of people, seen as histrionic, at a time when Japanese animations (the term Anime was not yet widespread) and video games were in the underworld, something that people normally hid from. In these Dark Ages we will begin our journey to better understand the history of this media format that has become so popular over the years, making Brazil the country that has shown the most Japanese productions in the world.

We began the journey earlier than you would probably imagine. The 1960s saw the first animated and live-action series appear on Brazilian TV, with Gigantor, The Man of Steel (1963), and The Eighth Man (1963), among others. The first title that was truly successful, however, was not an animated series, but the National Kid series, which aired in Brazil in 1964 on TV Record, and had a much greater impact here than in Japan. This opened the door for more Japanese products, such as Speed Racer, Captain Harlock and the Arcadia Ship, Zillion (which had a partnership with TecToy here) and The Princess and the Knight, among others. These productions had low costs for the broadcasters, and their success was met with surprise, but with pleasure, by the licensing companies. However, in 1970, a decree law caused several foreign series to be censored and banned, as you can see for yourself in this link. With this, the expansion of animations and media in general was slowed down, remaining that way for almost a decade. After this dark moment, the 80s arrived with TV Manchete and its program Clube da Criança investing heavily in Japanese animations such as Don Drácula, as well as Tokusatsus, such as Jaspion, Jiraya and Lion Man. In Japan, Anime really began to explode, with the Mecha style becoming a complete craze in the country. The Gundam and Macross series launched several works that, for many, remain the best series of the style ever created. It was also the golden age of OVAs, with dozens of masterpieces being produced, such as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Royal Space Force, Macross ‘Do You Remember Love?’, Näusica Valley of the Wind, among many others. Tokusatsus also began to gain strength, with several of them appearing on the broadcasters' schedules.

Then, in June 1986, the man who many claim to be the most important figure in the history and scene of Anime and Manga in Brazil entered the scene; Sérgio Peixoto Silva. That year, the first public screening of Anime in the country was held at Bunkyo (Brazilian Society of Japanese Culture) in São Paulo. That's right! In 1988, Peixoto also held the first Japanese Animation event in Brazil at SESC Pompéia in São Paulo, held to celebrate the founding of ORCADE (Cultural Organization of Animation and Drawing), created by Peixoto and the late José Roberto Pereira. This event, which lasted 25 days, featured screenings of Anime, Tokusatsu, lectures and exhibitions of Anime/Manga materials, miniatures and Plamos. ORCADE held screenings of Animations every Sunday until 2004 (16 years without a break), with around 600 screenings in all. In other words, in this pre-Internet era, the place to find information about the hobby was in magazines and clubs (such as ORCADE), since access to information was still very difficult. In 1993, the Japan Fury Fanzine was launched, created by Peixoto and Zé Roberto to share information about Anime, manga and RPG.


The year 1994 brought the first explosion of popularity of Anime in Brazil with the showing of ‘Saint Seiya’. The success was so great that Anime, for the first time, was entering pop culture and creating dolls for toy stores. We started to see VHS tapes of Saint Seiya and several other works appear on the market and other animes started to be shown on TV channels, mainly on the now defunct Rede Manchete, such as Shurato, Sailor Moon, Super Campeões, Samurai Warriors and Yu Yu Hakusho. Then the demand for information about this type of media began, which culminated in the beginning of magazines about Anime and Manga in the country. That's where the, until then a fanzine, Japan Fury comes in. In 1995 it became a magazine and became the first of its kind in Brazil and presented always up-to-date information, in a world without Internet.

After 6 issues, however, Peixoto and his team changed publishers and created what was probably the most important periodical about Anime in the country: Animax. With 50 issues, it was the main source of information about Anime in Brazil, which saw the number of titles increase dramatically, with Magic Knights Rayearth, Slayers, Street Fighter II, Fly- The Little Warrior, Dragon Ball and Astro Boy, for example. In the late 90s, there was a legendary block of OVAs called ‘US Manga Corps do Brasil’, which was shown on Rede Manchete. The titles were all about more adult themes, heavily edited and censored on TV, but with the idea of releasing the complete versions on VHS later, such as Genocyber, Art of Fighting, Detonator Orgun, Gal Force, Iczer 3, among others. In 1999, the first major Anime event called Animecon took place in São Paulo. After 2 years at Animax, Peixoto and his troupe embarked on a new adventure with AnimeEX, a magazine from the same publisher as another historical Brazilian niche magazine, Dragão Brasil, which lasted until 2003. This magazine even had sections with Doujinshis, which are mangas/stories created and drawn by fans! Everything was done with great care and attention, something that is harder to find on the Internet these days. If you want to know more about the publications made by master Peixoto, I suggest this article and this interview.


In the early 2000s, there was a rebirth of Anime and Manga in Brazil. Pokemon and Dragon Ball Z became a huge craze, cable TV started to gain a lot of strength and, with that, Cartoon Network presented several titles in its ‘Toonami’ block, legendary and remembered by many to this day. Fox Kids, Locomotion and Canal Animax brought several other titles. Even Globo followed suit and created ‘TV Globinho’, which showed several titles (not just Anime, however), such as Digimon, Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade, among others. Band brought the ‘Band Kids’ block, in August 2000, where it showed ‘Dragon Ball Z’, Bucky, Tenchi-Muyo, El Hazard and other lesser-known gems. At that time, at the beginning of the decade, we also had the first Brazilian mangas by JBC, with Samurai X and Sakura Card Captors arriving on newsstands and creating a huge market for Manga as well, until then a novelty. From the mid-2000s onwards, however, we saw the decline of Anime in Brazil. With the Internet becoming increasingly common, it became much easier to download titles than to use TV to do so. After that, discussions, conversations and Anime viewings moved to the digital world on Forums and Social Networks. With the success of Netflix, nowadays Anime Streaming, such as Crunchyroll, have become the main source of Anime consumption in the country and, perhaps, in the world. With that, specialized magazines were also slowly fading into oblivion, since the Internet and Forums brought information in a much faster and more practical way. Brazil, observing the odyssey that occurred in its history, was very successful in relation to Anime, in the end. We had many good series, wonderful adaptations to our language and information created by passionate about the hobby. We went from a small group participating in a little club to the mainstream in a decade. Nowadays we have access to practically any Anime, Manga, events of the most diverse and the like, however, the pre-internet times when we were just a few individuals exchanging ideas, searching for scarce information, showing Anime on 14" tube TVs and imagining a lot are still missed...

First Anime-related event in Brazil, from 1988. Otakus, unite!